Gerrymandering

In the early days of Gerrymandering, back when the film was still titled Crossed Lines, I used to rail at length about how I didn’t want this film to be just another “talking heads” documentary.  It’s not that I have any ethical or intellectual qualms about using first-person interviews in documentary.  Some argue that by creating such an obviously artificial relationship between filmmaker and subject any kind of “realism” is thrown out the window, but I’d counter with an extension of the Heisenberg uncertainty principle: any time you turn a camera on anyone, a new relationship emerges, the introduction of an observer irrevocably affects the now-observed and what once may have been “reality” now morphs into something quite different.  Verite, then, is just as compromised as, say, Errol Morris, and perhaps even more so because it works to efface the means of production rather than foregrounding artificiality and letting the viewer in on the joke.

My real beef with “talking heads” documentary is that relying too heavily on interview footage often ends up producing films that just look boring.  I spent the batter part of three years dreaming up strategies to ensure that Gerrymandering would be an experience that satisfied visually as much as intellectually, so it’s ironic that the teaser I’m currently cutting is made up almost entirely of interview footage, and it looks, to me, visually rich and interesting.  Turns out that thinking through the interview form more fully led me to our patented grey backdrop, which in turn led to carrying around twice as much gear so Gary can rig his full lighting setup, one honed through years of working fashion shoots.  

I still have big plans for the look of Gerrymandering, but am immensely excited about having such a solid-looking base of material to work from…   (more…)

I’m a bit behind on my Gerrymandering news, which I really have no excuse for as I sit all day in front of two computers, moving between editing our teaser trailer on the big guy and prepping the next set of shoots on my laptop.  I’m going to drop some links below for interesting articles that have come in over the past few weeks. More on the teaser shortly.  

A Slate article discussing redistricting via algorithm. 

A related Slate sideshow of the most gerrymandered U.S. Congressional districts. 

Changing demographics in California and elsewhere. 

A post from the always-invaluable Nate Silver dredges up the spectre of 2010 gerrymandering in the comments.   

More on prisons and redistricting. 

The Gillibrand pick has implications for redistricting strategy.   

(For those keeping track, we shot a terrific interview with CNN’s Ed Rollins on Day 31 back in December.  That was the same afternoon as our ill-fated trip to Oklahoma and Iowa.)

I’ve now been in Sacramento three times in the last twelve months.  That’s a decent amount of attention given to a city I’d never really had on my radar as a place to visit, but I suppose that’s how long it takes to get an interview with a Governor these days. 

So, last Wednesday, Gary, Susan and I gathered downtown at the Village Quill for a quick interview with Sam Issacharoff, NYU Professor, redistricting scholar, and lawyer for the Obama campaign.  I hadn’t had a ton of time to prepare—Susan came in and crashed at my house the night before and we spent the evening checking gear and catching up—but chatting with Sam about the project before the cameras started rolling gave me a few lead-ins as to his interests and knowledge base.  (Having now done over two dozen interviews, I’ve realized the value of the pre-roll chat—you can learn a lot about your subject in those few minutes).  I especially liked talking with him about his model of a political marketplace featuring cartels, regulatory agents and the familiar invisible hands of supply and demand.  In our current economic climate his examples should hit home pretty forcefully. 

After we finished with Sam, it was off to the airport.  Given that we travel with anywhere between eight and nine pieces of heavy checked luggage, plus two carry-ons each, this is always a bit of an adventure.  (Filmmaking is something like 20% creativity, 80% tests of endurance and strength.)  We arrived in Sacramento at midnight and stumbled exhaustedly to our rooms at about two A.M. 

The next morning was spent in and around the Capitol trying to grab some shots of the Governor’s State of the State address.  We weren’t credentialed for the floor, (didn’t stop us from trying to sneak past security, of course) so we grabbed what we could—the Governor walking to the Assembly, overhead shots from the gallery, a protest outside, etc.  There will be useful pieces for the edit. 

We flew to Sacramento, somewhat ill-advisedly, without a set time for the interview.  Adam Mendelsohn had suggested State of the Sate would be a good time to complete it when we spoke in December, but the ongoing budget crisis/potential statewide insolvency caught everyone off-guard and when we showed up at the Press Office, the looks we received from the nice, helpful staff were more than a little mournful.  As if to say, “These poor guys who flew all the way from NYC for nothing.”  So they didn’t have to stare at us and our gear, they put us in the room used for press conferences which we quickly converted to our normal setup.  Then, we settled in to wait.

At around 4:30, the Governor’s very apologetic Deputy Press Secretary bumped us until the next afternoon.  At five, we completed an interview with State Senator Alan Lowenthal and packed up for the day, more than a little despondently.  Would we be forced to leave Sacramento without THE interview? 

Friday was more of the same—a 9:30 chat with Bill Cavala, longtime redistricting consultant for the Democrat-led State Assembly (his perspective was quite contrary to most of what we’ve been hearing thus far), then more waiting.  I spent most of the afternoon pacing a twenty-foot path that led me from the hallway outside of the Governor’s office into the press room and back again. 

Late in the day, just about when I was on the verge of a total panic that the interview wasn’t going to happen, Jeff from the press office bounded around the corner breathless—“The Governor is on his way right now…sorry I couldn’t give you more advance notice!”  A few minutes later I found myself sitting across from one of the world’s biggest movie stars, the Governor of the great state of California, Arnold Schwarzenegger.  We spent about 25 minutes with him, and there’s plenty of amusing detail I could go into (including the Governor’s aesthetic assessment of our backdrop, microphone placement and the like), but it’s better saved for the movie.  It was a good interview.  It wasn’t Frost/Nixon, but we got the job done.  The man’s got one helluva handshake.    

Afterwards, I had the lamb.  Susan went with game hen.  Gary…well, poor Gary hit the road for his red-eye to Philly for another shoot.  We ate dessert and thought of him. 

Turns out redistricting helped none other than Harvey Milk (the politician, not the super-awesome metal band from Georgia) ascend to elected office.  I recently saw Gus Vant Sant’s new film and loved a little bit about a third of the way through in which one of Milk’s campaign workers pulls out a San Francisco district map and explains to Harvey how changes in the way City Supervisor district lines were drawn could result in a district tailor-made to elect a gay politician. 

Not quite gerrymandering, but it does go to show how the way democracy is organized has an immense impact on the outcomes of elections. 

1. Cook more regularly

2. Lose seven pounds 

3. Write more reviews

4. Finish Gerrymandering

5. Fix democracy

Or something.  I’ve been holed up watching footage for the last few days…stay tuned for a Gerrymandering teaser in the next few weeks.