Friends,
I've got two announcements.
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* Server Migration
We're moving our lists over to Yahoo, because maintaining our own
servers is becoming too burdensome. The websites will remain as they
have been, with the same URLs. We won't be using the web features of
Yahoo, at least not at the beginning. I've been posting to the yahoo
lists in parallel with our current lists, and it has been working
just fine.
There's no big hurry, but when you get a chance, please subscribe to
the new lists by sending a message to one or more of these addresses:
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newslog •••@••.•••
The current cj and renaissance-network lists will be merged into the
new cyberjournal list. The postings to those lists have been
identical for quite some time now.
You'll get back a confirmation message, just as with the current
lists. You simply reply to the confirmation message (using the same
account that you subscribed from), and that will subscribe you.
Finally you'll get a Welcome message. Once you get the Welcome
message, you can unsubscribe from the current lists by sending a
message to one or more of these addresses, and replying to the
confirmation message.
•••@••.•••
•••@••.•••
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Let me know if you have any problems.
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* Documentary Project: "An Inconvenient Necessity"
This is my next 'big project', after the ETM book. It's an ambitious
project, with some innovative aspects, but it's doable and it makes
sense -- both for 'the movement' and commercially. It's a film within
a film...
- The inner film
The inner film is a documentary about sustainability (ie, the
'inconvenient necessity'). We'll have about five field locations, in
South America, North America, Europe, Africa, and Asia. We'll be
looking at the global crises being caused by industrial food
production, as regards topsoil depletion, salinization,
desertification, fishing-stock losses, water-table depletion,
pesticides & other health issues, factory farming, social
displacement, etc. Forget about peak oil, or global warming, this is
about peak food and immediate survival.
At each location as well, we'll be looking at sites where we can find
organic, small-scale, and traditional modes of food production. We'll
be comparing the productivity per acre, and per unit of water,
energy, and petroleum products. We'll be trying to make it clear that
sustainability isn't a vision, it's a necessity, and it's less about
sacrifice than about ending needless waste.
There will also be interviews with various experts, looking at the
overall picture, and bringing in the political angle, eg
privatization, IMF, World Bank, etc.
It will be important to have a well-known personality / star to
narrate. That is what can bring in big audiences, and hence it also
enables getting the financing. I'm thinking of someone like Bruce
Willits or George Clooney, who can appeal to audiences across the
board, and who would be likely to be interested in this kind of
project.
The inner film is a complete work and could be released on its own,
in the same circuits where we've seen Michael Moore's material and
Gore's film. But that's not the plan. The audience will see the whole
documentary, in sequence, but framed within the outer documentary....
- the outer film
The outer film observes a group of people who have come together to
watch "An Inconvenient Necessity", and who will be pausing the DVD at
various points to talk about their reactions. The audience and the
group are watching the same film together at the same time, and the
audience gets to 'experience' how the group responds. The learning
that takes place in the group, and the development of their dialog,
become part of the dramatic progression of the overall presentation,
interspersed with the dramatic progression in the inner film.
The group participants are not actors, and they have no script. The
are selected so as to provide diversity, geographically,
ideologically, genderwise, agewise, etc., and on the basis of being
articulate, able to listen, etc. They will be watching and discussing
the documentary over a period of a few days, so their dialog will be
evolving considerably, and that will be edited down to short segments
of highlights, but with smooth transitions. I don't imagine the
dialog clips will total more than about 30-40 minutes, but a lot will
be going on in that time.
There will be a facilitator with the group, using Dynamic
Facilitation. We won't be making a big deal about process, we'll just
be showing it in action, mostly showing what the group is saying, and
only occasionally showing the facilitator's role. Given the way
participants will be selected, and the fact that they won't mind long
sessions (they're getting paid beginning-actor rates), and given the
power of DF, we can expect the dialog to develop in very interesting
ways.
There are two purposes for the outer film. One purpose is to try to
break through the 'spectator barrier', where we see a film 'out
there', as a consumer, and go away not knowing how to integrate what
we've seen, and having no idea of what we might do to be 'part of the
solution'. The real responses of the ordinary people in the group
will hopefully bring the impact of the inner film more inside the
'personal space' of the audience, and people will be able to identify
with some of the participants, as they do with actors in a drama. The
idea, we might say, is to 'deepen the catharsis'.
The other purpose of the outer film is to expose people to the power
of dialog, and expand their understanding of what is possible among
people. This will come automatically, as a by-product of the overall
presentation, but it will in some sense be the most important
achievement of the project. The dialog group is a microcosm of 'we
the people', and their ability to reach useful conclusions together
in the face of difficult problems sows the seed of 'we all could do
that' in the minds of the audience.
At a dramatic level, the outcome of the dialog becomes a 'happy
ending' counterpoint to the dismal message of 'peak food'. All
problems change character when one begins to feel empowered to do
something about them.
____________________
As usual, your feedback and ideas are welcome. Particularly if you
have contacts in the film industry, or if you know of good shooting
locations.
that's all folks,
richard
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