While SHOOT has chronicled assorted instances of directorial diversification, the latest for Joe Berlinger stands out with the atypical twist of his serving as co-executive producer of 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America, a series produced by The History Channel in association with bicoastal/international @radical.media. The show–executive produced by Susan Werbe, The History Channel’s VP of programming–will air for five consecutive days with two programs premiering each night from Sunday, April 9, through Thursday, April 13.
The series consists of 10 films, each created by a different documentary maker or filmmaking team. The show places the spotlight on 10 historic events that triggered seismic shifts in America’s political, cultural or social landscape. Berlinger directed one of the installments, Murder at the Fair: The Assassination of President McKinley (Sept. 6, 1901), but perhaps the most gratifying aspect of this overall endeavor for him was being able to tap into the independent filmmaking community for the directors of the other nine programs, which are:
- Massacre at Mystic (May 26, 1637), directed by James Moll (The Last Days, Price for Peace), an Oscar, Emmy, Peabody and Christopher Award Winner. This film tells the story of the Pequot War, the first significant clash between the English and Native Americans.
- Shay’s Rebellion: America’s First Civil War (January 25, 1787), directed by R.J. Cutler (A Perfect Candidate, The War Room), who’s an Emmy winner as well as an Oscar and Independent Spirit Award nominee. This piece chronicles the post-Revolutionary War rebellion that helped inspire the drafting of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The project also deployed animation by two-time Oscar nominee Bill Plympton (who directs animation spots via Acme Filmworks, Hollywood).
- Gold Rush (January 24, 1848), directed by Jeffrey Friedman and Rob Epstein (The Celluloid Closet, Paragraph 175), Oscar, Emmy, Peabody and Sundance winners. This program looks at the Gold Rush in California and its impact on America’s westward expansion.
- Antietam (September 17, 1862), directed by Michael Epstein (Final Cut, The Battle over Citizen Kane), an Emmy and Peabody Award winner, and Oscar nominee. This film focuses on the bloodiest battle in American history and its momentous military and political implications, including President Lincoln’s issuing of the Emancipation Proclamation.
- The Homestead Strike (July 6, 1892), directed by Rory Kennedy (American Hollow, The Farm), an Emmy, Sundance and Independent Spirit winner, and Oscar nominee). Chronicles the deadly showdown between striking workers and armed guards at Andrew Carnegie’s steel mill and its devastating effect on the U.S. labor movement.
- Scopes: The Battle Over America’s Soul (July 21, 1925), directed by Kate Davis (Southern Comfort, Jockey) and David Heilbroner (Transgender Revolution, Life after Death Row), Emmy and Sundance winners. Reexamines the famed trial over the teaching of evolution, a controversy that continues to divide Americans today.
- Einstein’s Letter (July 16, 1939), directed by Barak Goodman (Scottsboro: An American Tragedy, The Fight), Emmy, Peabody and duPont winter, and Oscar nominee, and John Maggio (The Fight, Kinsey). This explores the events that led to Einstein’s decision to urge President Franklin Roosevelt to develop an atomic bomb, a decision that propelled America into the nuclear age and which Einstein later came to regret.
- When America Was Rocked (September 9, 1956), directed by Bruce Sinofsky (Mettalica: Some Kind of Monster, Good Rockin’ Tonight: The Legacy of Sun Records), Emmy, Peabody, Sundance and Independent Spirit Award winner. Examines the cultural fallout of Elvis Presley’s groundbreaking appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show.
- Freedom Summer (June 21, 1964), directed by Marco Williams (Two Towns in Jasper, I Sit Where I Want: The Legacy of Brown vs. Board of Education), who’s a Peabody and duPont winner. Recounts the national attention generated by the killings of civil rights workers Andrew Goodman, Michael Schwerner and James Chaney, which helped spur Congress to pass the Voting Rights Act of 1965.
SPOT INFLUENCE Berlinger brought his commercialmaking experience to bear on the program he directed. (Berlinger continues to be repped by @radical.media as an individual director and as part of a tandem with Sinofsky to helm spots.)
“I wanted to reinvigorate a somewhat tired genre of historical recreations by bringing a commercial sensibility to the production value,” explained Berlinger.
To that end, he selected Michael Neumann, a commercial DP with One World Productions, Chicago, to shoot Murder at the Fair: The Assassination of President McKinley.
The assassination of McKinley by a young anarchist thrust Vice President Theodore Roosevelt into the country’s presidency, igniting a new age in American politics. Berlinger reasoned that spotmaking techniques would make the historical recreation more engaging for viewers–which more importantly makes history all the more engaging to audiences.
Berlinger’s roots are in the ad biz. He started out as an assistant account executive at McCann Erickson, New York, in ’82, then got a big break when he landed a producer’s role at Ogilvy & Mather, Frankfurt, coordinating international shoots for the agency. He returned to New York, serving briefly at Ogilvy there before moving over to the commercial production side of the business as executive producer at Maysles Films, working with the famed documentary filmmakers David and Albert Maysles from ’85 to ’91. Berlinger then dovetailed into filmmaking, teaming with then editor Sinofsky on some shorts.
The directorial duo of Berlinger and Sinofsky then made its mark with Brother’s Keeper, which earned the Directors Guild of America Award for documentaries in ’93 and the Audience Award at the Sundance Film Festival. Brother’s Keeper examined the murder trial of Delbert Ward. From there, Berlinger’s and Sinofsky’s directorial careers took off. They went onto numerous projects, including commercials for various shops and such documentaries as Paradise Lost: The Child Murders At Robin Hood Hill and the aforementioned Metallica: Some Kind of Monster.
In recent years via @radical, Berlinger has diversified into branded entertainment. He directed four of the six episodes in the first season of Iconoclasts, profiling such notables as Paul Newman, Bill Russell, Sumner Redstone and Brian Grazer. Iconoclasts is a Sundance Channel series from Grey Goose Entertainment, an arm of Grey Goose Vodka. (The other two episodes in that initial season of last year were directed, respectively, by Sinofsky and by Lenard Dorfman, a spot director with bicoastal/international MJZ.
This year, Berlinger is slated to direct several episodes of Iconoclasts, as well as serve as the series’ co-executive producer. Berlinger’s other branded content endeavors for @radical include a sponsored piece for Tiffany & Company, and One Who Day, a profile of The Who, sponsored by JBL Speakers. The latter was co-directed by Berlinger and Sinofsky.
INDIE INITIATIVE For Berlinger, The History Channel project was attractive on a couple of prime levels–the opportunity to not only bring history to life, but also to help choose those who would breathe that life into the past.
“To be able to go out into the independent film community and bring perspectives from that talent to bear on the presentation of history was most gratifying,” said Berlinger who credited The History Channel with the unlikely choice of him, “a cinema verite guy who did films about murder and music,” to work with Werbe to oversee a historical series.
“I upped the ante a bit, suggesting filmmakers who had never worked for The History Channel before–and several who hadn’t ever done historical filmmaking,” continued Berlinger. “As a result, there’s a narrative and storytelling feel, with each filmmaker putting his or her own stamp on the work.”
Berlinger cited as examples Cutler’s decision to use animation created by Plympton to tell the story of Shay’s Rebellion, and Michael Epstein’s desire to capture the feel of Mathew Brady’s photography from the Civil War era.
In a similar vein, for Murder at the Fair, Berlinger opted to shoot in HD to infuse historical recreation with what he described as “a rich and saturated look,” making for a graphic depiction of the McKinley assassination and subsequent events.
For @radical.media, supervising producers on 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America were Greg Schultz and Sidney Beaumont.
