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Making the Grade

An emotional look at how millions of children are struggling to find their way in the stratified, unyielding educational class system of today’s American classroom.

…but if they pass, the story is…

Riding the Curve

A unblinking examination of how America’s most gifted students are being made to ‘dumb down’ their performance so they fit better into the ‘standardized testing’ model of America’s educators.

If you have an accident on the way to work, its…

Under the Influence

The tell-all story of how your life is in danger, everyday, thanks to outdated traffic laws and the degradation of our highways and street system.

Or if your yelled at by your boss, its…

Amazing Grace

The story of how the loss of civility and respect is negatively impacting the American workplace – and how we are will all ultimately suffer as we fall behind other nations in the workplace civility race.

I love to look at the world through this filter – mainly because 1) it makes everything seem important, 2) there is a conspiracy behind everything that happens, and 3) none of it is my fault.

Try the documentary filter for yourself. It can’t hurt…

I love to look at the world through this filter.

Documentary films had been produced well before Woodstock happened but in 1969, a new crop of filmmakers were just starting to come on the scene. In fact, there were a bunch of filmmakers fighting for the chance to document the festival. Michael Wadleigh, The Maysles Brothers, Thelma Shoonmaker and a young man by the name of Marty Scorsese were all up for the job. Ultimately, the promoters of the concert decided to go with the more unknown team of Wadleigh, Scorsese and Shoonmaker as opposed to going with the Maysles Brothers because Wadleigh and his crew were willing to work for free. Woodstock Ventures was out of money and told Wadleigh that they could not pay for the film two days before the concert started. Wadleigh, ever ambitious and starving anyway, had nothing to lose. They decided that the festival and the opportunity was too great to pass up so they went to the concert and fronted the costs themselves.

For three days, Wadleigh, Scorsese and their small crew shot the festival around the clock. They were there when Richie Havens was unexpectedly pushed on stage to start the show and they were there when Jimmy Hendrix hauntingly closed the festival with the Star Spangled Banner. Having unlimited access, they sat back and observed what was happening around them. Like good documentarians do, they let the camera, the music and the people be the instruments for the storytelling.

As the first day went on, it became very clear to the event organizers that the documentary was their ticket out of the 1.6 millions dollar hole they had put themselves in due to the loss of ticket sales . While Jefferson Airplane played, the four men of Woodstock Ventures stood on stage negotiating the film rights with Wadleigh and Ahmet Ertegun of Warner Brothers. They sold the film to Warner Brothers for a $1 million dollar flat fee with a small percentage of the back end. Wadleigh estimated later that the film cost about $100,000 to produce and to date, the film has grossed over $100 million dollars. It also went on to win the 1970 Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature, solidifying itself as one of the most successful documentaries of all time.

After Woodstock, the Maysles Brother’s, probably motivated by the fact they lost out on Woodstock, produced a string of successful films including, “Gimme Shelter.” The documentary chronicles The Rolling Stones “west coast answer” to Woodstock, Altamonte.  In “Grey Gardens” they introduced us to big Edie and Little Edie Beale and the film became a critical smash that was later made into a hit Broadway play as well as an EMMY nominated feature film for HBO in 2009. Lifelong collaborators, Scorsese and Shoonmaker met musicians Rick Danko, Robbie Robertson and Levon Helm of The Band at the festival, and the filmmakers teamed up with The Band to film their last ever concert together. “The Last Waltz” was filmed in San Francisco in 1976 and the documentary is highly regarded as the best concert film of all time. As for Michael Wadleigh, taking a chance paid off. He saved Woodstock, won an Academy Award, motivated the Maysles Brothers to make more films and launched the careers of Martin Scorsese and Thelma Shoonmaker. The festival itself was something that can never happen again. For a moment in time, the last gasp of the sixties, people came together to promote peace, love and music. In the process and without manufacturing it, a new wave of film making was born. For that, we documentarians and total film geeks are eternally grateful.

Sally, Chris and I will be posting more thoughts about NCHCMM soon, but I wanted to highlight a few points from John Whyte’s closing plenary. He’s the chief medical expert at Discovery Health Channel (you can read his blog here) and had some great insights about actually reaching the public with public health and social marketing messaging.

Three key points:

- Social Media/the Internet is important and growing, but broadcast media (television) is by far where people spend most of their leisure time.

- Stories actually make an impact. Nothing engages people like a story, and harnessing this power can advance a public health message more than a water-tight, perfectly crafted traditional marketing campaign. Consider using primetime television as a vehicle for your message.

- Empower, educate, and entertain.

We’ve been discussing the power of emotional, story-based social marketing with clients for years, and so it was nice to have this perspective succinctly backed up by Dr. Whyte. To underline this point, here’s an oldie-but-goodie Banyan favorite that drives home the need for social marketing and public health messaging to engage and entertain:

But the people who believe this are missing a key part of the equation:  the ability to tell a story.  How many people do you know who can tell a story, can captivate you with small details and engage you in a narrative structure that physically mesmerizes you?

Watch this.

Wait For Me (3 Minute Documentary) from Red Light Films on Vimeo.

It’s one camera, a short interview, and some b-roll from a previous shoot.  (This is the guy who made ‘Born into Brothels.’) But it grabs you and makes you want to know “what happens next.”

And from where I stand, “what happens next” trumps “automatic focus and backlight reduction” any day of the week.

Andrew Sullivan’s blog has served up an almost-constant feed of news items and eye-witness reports from Tehran, and one bone-chilling post in particular highlights the power of social media. A student protester in Iran uses Facebook to post videos of the aftermath of an attack, one video after another showing a first-person account of  the blood, the chaos, the death that surrounds him.

Its a terrifying reality that some Iranians are living right now, as I sit and type nine time zones away. But its one that deserves attention and recognition, as the living-room wars give way to the mobile revolutions.