Agency Vet Yagoda, Dir. Walton Make Documentary To Support Education For Underprivileged Kids.
By KATHY DeSALVO
Assorted members of the commercial community have rallied around the education of underprivileged urban and rural students by contributing to a documentary about Teach For America (TFA), a nonprofit organization that recruits college grads for public school teaching jobs they might not otherwise consider.
Ken Yagoda, executive VP/director of broadcast production at Young & Rubicam (Y&R), New York, spearheaded the project (which was done independently of Y&R) and helped secure the participation of bicoastal Chelsea Pictures’ director Andrew Walton, who helmed the 15-minute piece over a five-month period.
Yagoda explained that the 10-year-old teacher development organization became a personal cause for him earlier this year after his friend, former Y&R vice chairman Mitch Korz, introduced him to TFA founder Wendy Kopp. Troubled by the inequities in America’s educational system, Kopp proposed the idea of a national teaching corps in her senior thesis at Princeton. Yagoda was impressed by TFA’s mission, which is to train college grads as teachers, and to secure a commitment from them to teach in public schools in under-resourced areas around the country.
"I was fond of [Korz] and knew he was involved in a lot of pro bono work," said Yagoda, "and just felt it was time in my life to give back, [and] to use whatever skills I might have for some greater good. I met Wendy and that was pretty much it. Within a matter of moments, we were talking about [the fact that] they’ve never had a video for the organization about the organization—some overarching film that describes the mission of the organization, as well as the corps members who are involved in it."
Yagoda, who served as the project’s executive producer, worked with Kopp, who provided guidance regarding content and the target audience of the proposed documentary, which was intended as a fundraising and recruitment piece. Yagoda then called longtime friend, Chelsea founder/president Steve Wax, who quickly offered to help. (The project was a Chelsea Pictures production; bicoastal/international Propaganda Films helped provide financial backing).Wax suggested recently signed Chelsea director Walton,
whose documentary filmmaking background made him a natural choice. It was Walton’s fairly detailed treatment that earned him the job, said Yagoda.
According to Walton, "There were a couple of ideas about the best way to make this film. I thought that if it was really going to connect with people, they needed to understand why people got involved with this program—which is essentially like the Peace Corps of education for the United States. I figured the best way to do that was to really learn the stories of people who had gotten involved—learn their motivations and follow them through the course of being in this program."
The documentary focuses upon four subjects: first-year corps member Brian Johnson, who was assigned to teach in Baton Rouge, La.; second-year corps member Claudia Cardenas, who is teaching in the Rio Grande Valley region in southern Texas; and two TFA program alums—Taggart Hansen, currently working in a Denver-based law firm; and Natalie Burton, who is now a principal at a Santa Monica-based elementary school.
The goal in shadowing the corps members was to capture some of the key moments of their teaching experiences, said Walton. The result was a "pretty intimate" look at the subjects, and an emotionally telling story about their reasons for joining.
"Generation X in our society is viewed as being intrinsically selfish," said Walton. "So I was curious [as to] why a person graduating with honors from Princeton—who could probably get a job on Wall Street or at a law firm—wants to live in South Baton Rouge, in 110-degree heat, and teach kids from impoverished neighborhoods. For me, that was the hook."
Walton’s interest in the topic saw him through a grueling production process. The first part of the shoot took place in Houston, at the site of the institute where TFA conducts its intensive five-week training sessions. Walton worked with a small crew—DP Jeff Stonehouse, line producers Mark Bennett and September Reynolds, a sound guy and a gaffer.
"Mark and I got bronchitis; we were on our backs for at least a week," related Walton. "But when you get into a story like that and it starts to get intense … you’re working at a pace where you’re totally driven by adrenaline and how exciting the story is, [and] you’re not paying attention to your health."
Walton and Bennett went easier on themselves for the second part of the production—a good thing, since it was just the two of them shooting the video and doing all the sound and lighting. They shot in Baton Rouge, Rio Grande Valley, Denver and L.A.
Ultimately, they ended up with between 30-40 hours of digital video footage, which was combined with still photos to create a mixed-media piece. Among other artisans contributing to the project were editor Lenny Friedman and assistant editor Michael Yorkes, both at The Blue Rock Editing Company, New York, and music composers Ben Sidron (a Madison, Wisc.-based freelancer who also scored the documentary Hoop Dreams) and his father, Leo Sidron.
Additional credits go to audio mixer Kevin O’Leary at Howard Schwartz Recording, New York. Graphics and titling were provided by New York-based Spontaneous Combustion, where contributors included designer/ Flame artist Steve Malone, producer Trevor King and assistant producer Dylan Firshein.
The documentary, first screened in October at The Supper Club in New York, played to an audience of TFA members and supporters, along with advertising agency and commercial production executives. "I knew it was going to be challenging to take what was—in some people’s minds—a corporate video, and turn it into what it was," said Walton, who added that two women came up to him with tears in their eyes after the screening. "It was overwhelming." Yagoda related they plan to cut the piece into public service spots, and have just secured a commitment from Time-Warner to provide airtime, starting in January, for the PSAs.
Tim Burton Discusses His Dread Of AI As An Exhibition of His Work Opens In London
The imagination of Tim Burton has produced ghosts and ghouls, Martians, monsters and misfits — all on display at an exhibition that is opening in London just in time for Halloween.
But you know what really scares him? Artificial intelligence.
Burton said Wednesday that seeing a website that had used AI to blend his drawings with Disney characters "really disturbed me."
"It wasn't an intellectual thought — it was just an internal, visceral feeling," Burton told reporters during a preview of "The World of Tim Burton" exhibition at London's Design Museum. "I looked at those things and I thought, 'Some of these are pretty good.' … (But) it gave me a weird sort of scary feeling inside."
Burton said he thinks AI is unstoppable, because "once you can do it, people will do it." But he scoffed when asked if he'd use the technology in this work.
"To take over the world?" he laughed.
The exhibition reveals Burton to be an analogue artist, who started off as a child in the 1960s experimenting with paints and colored pencils in his suburban Californian home.
"I wasn't, early on, a very verbal person," Burton said. "Drawing was a way of expressing myself."
Decades later, after films including "Edward Scissorhands," "Batman," "The Nightmare Before Christmas" and "Beetlejuice," his ideas still begin with drawing. The exhibition includes 600 items from movie studio collections and Burton's personal archive, and traces those ideas as they advance from sketches through collaboration with set, production and costume designers on the way to the big screen.
London is the exhibition's final stop on a decade-long tour of 14 cities in 11 countries. It has been reconfigured and expanded with 90 new objects for its run in... Read More