Gerrymandering

After a long wait, we finally made it back to Texas, where the Gerrymandering project began. Before the film assumed it’s current multi-state narrative form, I’d spent a huge amount of time researching the particulars of the Texas case, so it was weird to be there shooting what was, in some ways, a truncated version of an older film idea. Given only five days, we interviewed far fewer Texas subjects than the Crossed Lines project had planned for, and spent a lot less time going over the minutia of the House and Senate flights from the state. What we did end up doing, however, was capture a portrait of a state in transition away from (and caused by) the bitter politics of the redistricting fight in 2003. What we shot may have been truncated from the older idea of the film, but should prove expansive in Gerrymandering. Here’s a taste of what we shot:

Day 39: We arrived in Austin in the early afternoon and took it pretty easy for the rest of the day - we shot our Capitol exteriors and were lucky enough to stumble onto a big rally for home schooling on the building’s steps attended by Rick Perry. (That piece of footage might come in handy…) Afterwards, we drove out to one of my favorite Austin BBQ places, The Salt Lick, and shot some nice footage of the Green Hills along the way.

Day 40: Two interviews in the morning - Rep. Jim Dunnam who organized the flight of the House Dems to Ardmore, and Steve Bickerstaff who wrote a terrific book about the Texas redistricting called Lines in the Sand. Both went swimmingly and we headed back to the Capitol in the early afternoon to shoot interiors. The Texas Capitol is a huge, beautiful building and I think Gary’s great shots of it will immediately signal the immensity of governmental power in our viewers.

Day 41: Three more interviews: Linda Curtis from IndyTexans, Frmr. Lt. Governor Ben Barnes, and current Rep. Marc Veasey. Another solid round of talks. We went back to the Capitol again to finish shooting out the building, then jumped up to the Embassy Suites Parking lot where the 51 Democrats boarded buses to flee the state. So utterly banal, the empty parking lot forms a nice contrast with the grandeur of the State House.

Day 42-23: These two days were occupied with a conceptual risk that I hope pays off. We invited Guillermo Garcia, the reporter from San Antonio who broke the story of the flight to Ardmore, to join us on a road trip to the Holiday Inn in Oklahoma where the Democrats holed up. We re-did their exact drive and talked along the way, and then shot in various locations of import within the hotel itself. It was surreal to be there — I’ve had an idea in my mind of what the place looked like for years, but it wasn’t until a week or so before we headed to Texas that I decided we should try to go. The footage I’ve seen thus far looks pretty interesting, but I’m curious to see what Sam will make of it all. At best we’ll have a drolly comic sequence that takes viewers through the Texas story in an unconventional fashion. At worst, it’ll be me and a reporter hanging out by the pool of an anonymous inn located in a town no one cares about…

Up Next: DC, Des Moines and Talequah

According to a new poll, 50% of Americans believe that their Congressional representative is continually re-elected because electoral rules are rigged.  

That 50% of Americans believe Congress is actively rigged is unbelievable. Gerrymandering will show them how it’s done.

As you might have noticed if you’ve surfed by here in the past couple of weeks, the Gerrymandering site has a brand new look courtesy of the fine folks at Mammoth.  Take a look around - we’ve got a new teaser trailers, clips from some of our interviews and “The Feed” which digests news about gerrymandering from around the nation.   

This is phase one of the site re-design. Over the next few months we’ll be making our new map image interactive, incorporating more video, and adding the rest of our interview subjects to the appropriate section. Enjoy!

More on our Texas shoot soon.

It’s been a long time since my last production update, largely because I’ve been too busy actually producing the movie to sit down and write about it.  (There are definitely worse problems to have…)  Its been a pretty hectic stretch since I last I checked in on this front, from cutting the teaser trailer (which will be up here when our new website launches) to getting interview transcriptions completed to moving into a more expansive editing suite within the Green Film Company offices.  

The biggest news from the past few months is the addition of our editor, Sam Pollard, to the team.  Sam’s cut tons of stuff, and is probably most known for the many films he’s edited for Spike Lee.  We’re really excited — as Romano put it, it’s sort of like landing the Tom Cruise of editing.  Sam starts in May, and I’m excited to learn from him.  Once we’ve locked down our visual effects artist and composer, the main team will be fully in place.    

As for shooting, here’s a little rundown of what we’ve been up to in advance of our impending five-day trip to Texas.  I want to be a bit vague about the details of our three days of Florida shooting as what we tried to accomplish there conceptually could end up as one of our most striking case studies in the film.  Don’t want to give too much away…

Day 35:  We liked Florida State Senator Dave Aronberg so much during our interview that we decided we had to spend some more time with him.  Dave’s district runs from the Atlantic to the Gulf of Mexico and is a poster child for state legislative gerrymandering in Florida.  Back in November he mentioned that one of his duties as legislator involved attending the mid-state annual Swamp Cabbage (hearts of palm pickled in pork fat - not bad!) festival and parade every year.  So, Susan and I went down sans Gary, got in a huge hunting buggy with the Senator, rode through the parade and aftermath, shot a Dave-sponsored armadillo race, took a boat trip and ate gator fritters.  

Day 36:  About three weeks later, Susan and I flew back to shoot a few more events with Dave.  The first was an appearance at a hamburger cook-off in Green Acres’s annual WestFest.  Like Swamp Cabbage, it was a big outdoor festival, but the differences between the two events were striking.  Following WestFest we went with Dave to the birthday party of one of his oldest volunteers.  

Day 37: We met Dave in the morning at the annual UCO board meeting, dance and luncheon.  UCO is a huge retirement complex in West Palm Beach and represents a pretty huge voting block in the Senator’s district.  Following that, it was back to Miami for the trip home.  

Day 38:  A pretty easy day spent in the Regency Hotel on NYC’s Upper East Side.  We interviewed a few folks: Susan Lerner from New York’s Common Cause (our local Kathay Feng), Debo Adegbile from NAACP LDF, and…Governor Howard Dean!  All were terrific interviews and it was great to sit down with Governor Dean and talk politics over the Regency’s hugely expensive chocolate-covered popcorn….

That’s all for now…Texas, where this all started, is next week.