re: ANNOUNCEMENTS – documentary & migration

2007-05-30

Richard Moore

Friends,

Thanks so much for  your encouraging responses re/ the documentary, 
"An Inconvenient Necessity". My next task is to create the Treatment 
document, and find a way to bring it to the attention of an 
appropriate producer. This needs to be a first-rate production, with 
adequate funding for worldwide shooting sites, a top-quality 
production team and director, and good promotion. I believe the key 
to achieving this is to find an established producer who is 
enthusiastic about the project, and who has a strong contact base and 
access to friendly investors. Alternatively, if I can get a film star 
interested, he or she could probably recruit a producer. Suggestions 
in this regard, or better yet contacts, will be welcome.

rkm

____________________

* re/migration

A good number of you have migrated to yahoo already, but most 
haven't. We do need to migrate the lists, so please take a moment and 
do so when you get a chance. Once again, here are the new subscribe 
addresses:

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and here are the unsubscribe addresses:

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One of the unsubscribe addresses in the previous posting had an extra 
space, as someone pointed out. That  is fixed above. One person wrote 
in and said they had complaints against Yahoo, but I've had no 
problem with them myself and their service offers the features we 
need.  If any problem does arise, we can migrate somewhere else. Our 
website and archives remain on our own server; it is only our email 
distribution that  we are entrusting to outside services.

____________________

* re/documentary

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Date: Wed, 30 May 2007 03:56:24 -0700 (PDT)
From: WellDunn/Tacenda <>
Subject: Re: * rkm - ANNOUNCEMENTS *
To: Richard Moore <•••@••.•••>

glad I noticed this one way back there..great idea on this film. I 
will forward the film section to a few people, and see if they 
'bite'..Of course, Humboldt Country has many, many organic growers 
here...

I note that Sean Penn narrated Neal Simonson's documentary Amy 
Goodman Played today on Democracy Now...I thought he sounded real 
good.  He must like to help that way, and of course Leonard DiCaprio 
is someone to write...I will ask a couple people who know people. I 
signed up for the cyber journal one, should I do all of them? I got a 
bit confused , must be the 4 am woozies,

peace and love, Penny Lynn Dunn

____________________

Hi Peggy,

Very nice to hear from you. Many thanks for your outreach to 
contacts, and I look forward to hearing back about those. I've now 
got four candidates for narrator:
        Bruce Willis
        George Clooney
        Sean Penn
        Leonardo DiCaprio

As regards the lists. •••@••.••• is the 
continuation of this list, our discussion forum, which is relatively 
low traffic. •••@••.••• is a high-traffic list where I 
post lots of news items, sometimes with comments. newslog also 
receives the cyberjournal postings, so if you subscribe to that you 
get everything, and lots of it. I've noticed  that several people are 
subscribed to both lists, and that collects the cyberjournal postings 
nicely into a separate folder.

cheers,
rkm

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From: "Joanna Santa Barbara" <•••@••.•••>
To: <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: * rkm - ANNOUNCEMENTS *
Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 10:11:02 -0400

Dear Richard,

This is a wonderful concept, both in terms of the topic and the 
framing you've conceived.

I hope you'll receive lots of suggestions for sites. Cuba should be 
on the list, for its development of urban agriculture with 
post-carbon technology, using science and permaculture concepts.

If you were interested in any footage of the 'new relocalizers', I'm 
joining such an endeavour in New Zealand later this year, beginning 
with bare (deforested) land, and aiming for a high level of 
sustainable self-sufficient food production among other goals.

Incidental to the film's purposes, I plan to look hard at your ideas 
on governance as I enter this beginning community.

Warm wishes,
Joanna Santa Barbara, Hamilton, Ontario, Canada.

____________________

Hi Joanna,

Thanks for your encouragement. Yes, the developments in Cuba are 
extraordinary. Indeed, the Community Solutions film was an 
inspiration for this project. I'm doubt if I'll use Cuba in the film 
however, because of the knee-jerk negative response many would have 
to the mere mention of Cuba. No need to create unnecessary barriers 
to the film's success. Fortunately, there are plenty of other places 
where we can find the subjects we want to film.

Please keep me informed about you relocalization adventure. Sounds exciting.

Intentional communities are a special case as regards governance. 
You've typically got a combination of community dynamics and family 
dynamics. Often there is a 'father' or 'mother' figure who plays a 
role in initiating and bringing energy into the endeavor. I visited 
an ecovillage in Eugene and I found it wasn't run in a way I 
considered to be democratic, and I found that this was completely OK 
in that context. The 'mommy & daddy' couple were running a very good 
operation, bringing in other people in a fair and respectful manner, 
and their 'ownership energy' was critical to the overall success of 
the venture. The one thing I would suggest for all intentional 
communities is that they have regular meetings (including children 
over a certain age),use a good dialog process, and develop their 
facilitation skills.

cheers,
rkm
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From: "Steve Feast" <>
To: •••@••.•••
Subject: RE: * rkm - ANNOUNCEMENTS *
Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 11:46:25 +0800

Hi Richard,

What a great idea!  I can just see people sitting in the cinema 
watching the film, and the screen pauses - like on a vieo or dvd - 
and after a couple of seconds a voice-over says something like "what 
a load of rubbish", another pause, then another voice-over "why do 
you say that?", cut to the DF group and the dialog is away...  Or 
something like that.

All the best.

STeven

____________________

Hi Steven,

That's a great concept! Here's how I'd describe it...

Audience comes in expecting to see a documentary. It begins, goes on 
for an indefinite period, until someone in the dialog group feels 
moved to interrupt with a comment. The sound track then shifts to the 
dialog room, PAUSE appears on the screen after a second, and we pan 
back to the room. The facilitator follows up on the interruption and 
encourages people to comment on what they've just seen. This is a key 
dramatic moment, and needs to be presented so that the audience is 
intrigued by the unexpected innovation, and begins to identify with 
the dialog process.

thanks,
rkm

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Date: Mon, 28 May 2007 22:09:05 -0700
To: •••@••.•••
From: Molly Morgan <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: * rkm - ANNOUNCEMENTS *

Hi, Richard -

      rkm> It will be important to have a well-known personality /
         star to narrate. That is what can bring in big audiences,
         and hence it also enables getting the financing. I'm
         thinking of someone like Bruce Willits

This is a very funny typo to me! Most people have probably never 
heard of Willits, but it's a lovely irony that some of the best 
sustainability work in the US is happening there (WELL, John Jeavons, 
etc.). I wonder if Sean Penn is a candidate for this? He's been very 
vocally opposed to the war, but I don't know where he is on 
solutions. He is so intelligent that I would like to think he's a 
deep thinker on this.

What occurred to me as I read your description of the inner and outer 
version of the movie is that people in the audience watching the 
finished film will be having a kind of fishbowl experience, except 
there is no opportunity for them to get into the fishbowl and be in 
the discussion that's happening on film -- but they'll get to listen 
in on the group that's in the film. I presume you are familiar with 
this form of discussion, and maybe there's some way to take 
facilitators' fishbowl experience into the design of the film.

Very exciting stuff!

cheers,
molly

____________________

Hi Molly,

Thanks for the fishbowl observation. Rosa Zubizarreta, who is 
experienced with many kinds of facilitation, has agreed to be our 
facilitator. She'll be involved in the participant selection process, 
the design of the room, the editing of the dialog sequences, etc. The 
film should be an excellent vehicle to familiarize large audiences 
with the potential of dialog, and awaken them to the notion that we 
the people are capable of tackling the problems that face humanity.

please stay in touch,
rkm

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From: •••@••.•••
Date: Mon, 28 May 2007 23:01:41 EDT
Subject: Re: * rkm - ANNOUNCEMENTS *
To: •••@••.•••

  hi. great idea. actually, it's bruce willis.

leo di caprio is big on sustainability, too.

have you ever done film? mlp

____________________

Hi Marilyn,

I've never done film, and I'll depend on the producer and director to 
make things happen. The roles I want are to write the 'screenplay', 
help choose the locations, do the interviews, and participate in the 
final editing. Thanks for suggesting Leonardo.

rkm

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From: "David Lewit" <•••@••.•••>
To: <•••@••.•••>
Subject: RE: * rkm - ANNOUNCEMENTS *
Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 03:21:57 -0400

Hi, Richard

Wonderful!  Your plan sounds wonderful.  So where do you think you'll 
shoot the dialog group?  Where is it needed most?  Probably in the 
USA, where middle class people at least need to break through the 
bubble of propaganda and complacency.  Then there are the less 
privileged---how will you include them?  And then there are the 
specially privileged---like congress members, or ex-members.  Or 
Republicans of the Gingrich variety.  Will you do them? Might there 
be two dialog groups?

____________________

Hi David,

The dialog group will be in a studio, not associated with a location. 
The people will be from different parts of the world, making it a 
microcosm global gathering. Some from the North, some from the South, 
old & young, left & right, male & female, dark & light, Muslim, Jew & 
Christian, etc. They'll be ordinary people, not officials or leaders. 
we'll do our best on diversity but we can't cover every imaginable 
category. I'm confident everyone in the audience will find at least 
one person they can identify with.

rkm

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From: "David Lewit" <•••@••.•••>
To: "'Richard Moore'" <•••@••.•••>
Subject: RE: * rkm - ANNOUNCEMENTS * Might there be two dialog groups?
Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 10:59:54 -0400

So, a virtual group.  Because they will each be sitting in a studio 
somewhere, they will all or most be urban dwellers, which is a 
limitation.  I'd hope you could bring in an Indian farmer, and a 
Chinese food market manager---a daunting task.  But so wide a 
diversity poses serious problems.  One is simply language 
translation.   Another is discomfort in talking with others so 
different.  Along with this is concern about being watched by 
authorities and worry about being politically incorrect for the 
regime you live with... 

Seems to me you'd be best off sticking with your original way of 
mixing---more moderate heterogeneity: folks from a single community, 
in a face-to-face group.  Thus you might reconsider and have two 
groups to provide between-group diversity.  For example, one from 
India, and another from Indiana---or Ireland.

____________________

Hi again,

Many thanks for your creative thinking!  What I've got in mind is a 
face-to-face group in a studio, where the participants are brought in 
from around the world, paid well for their time, and given 
comfortable accommodations for the filming period. Good English will 
be a requirement (to support the dialog), and I don't see that as 
limiting our ability to achieve desired diversity. 'Indian farmer' 
and 'Chinese food market manager' are very much the kind of people 
we're looking for.

We're not looking for activist leaders (that would be a different 
film), so I'm not overly concerned about 'fear of authorities'. As 
for 'discomfort', overcoming that is part of a good facilitation 
process. For this film, dealing with global issues, I think it is 
appropriate to have a dialog group that serves as a microcosm of the 
global society. A local community group would be appropriate for a 
film promoting community empowerment, and that could be a very good 
follow-on project.

cheers,
rkm

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From: "Howard Switzer" <•••@••.•••>
To: <•••@••.•••>,
        <•••@••.•••>,
        <•••@••.•••>
Subject: on the film
Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 13:37:06 -0500

  Great idea Richard!  I like this approach very much.  I want to do 
some dynamic facilitation in our community too but haven't had  the 
time to pursue it lately.  this could be a great way to introduce it 
to folks.

Not sure how we can help but we do know a really good video editor 
here in Nashville, my brother-in-law.  He won an award for his work 
on Emmy Lou Harris's documentary music video, Wrecking Ball.

We have been doing a PPT presentation we created called "The Paradox 
of Green Building" in which we identify two major paradoxes with 
small ones throughout.  The 2 major ones being, "Our ancestors did it 
and we don't" and "Much of what is called Green isn't."  That is if 
green = sustainable.  With that we can talk about low impact building 
and the future of building.  In the natural building courses I teach 
at ETC I like to refer to it as post apocalypse building.  :-)

Howard Switzer
<http://www.earthandstraw.net>
931-589-6513

____________________

Hi Howard,

Yes, I'm hoping the film will provide a significant boost to all 
sorts of dialog efforts everywhere. Effective dialog does not exist 
as a notion in the general public consciousness, and this needs to 
change.

When I finish my Treatment, perhaps you could pass it by your 
brother-in-law for comment. Perhaps also he has contacts that would 
be useful. I imagine we'll need to use an editor that is already 
familiar to our production team, but who knows?

I went to your website -- very impressive. I saw lots there that 
would be candidates for N America locations. I'd like to see your 
power point presentation.

"Much of what is called Green isn't" -- this is a very important 
observation. Rather than suppressing Green energy, the establishment 
is using Aikido against it: shifting energy into endeavors that are 
non-systemic, non-threatening -- and beneficial to the establishment. 
Many activists and citizens fall into the trap, supporting things 
that 'seem to have momentum'. That perceived momentum can be provided 
by grants, and by media coverage. The best current example is of 
course global warming, which has been totally sidetracked and 
co-opted.

The same thing applies to 'ending world hunger and poverty'. I'm 
thinking of NGOs like Oxfam, who sponsor ads on TV showing starving 
children, and asking you to donate a small amount each month. I'm 
sure the NGO people are sincere and are really helping people where 
they can. But in the overall picture, the net effect of such NGOs is 
to perpetuate imperialism and suffering in the third world. They do 
this by (1) never talking about the systemic causes of the problems, 
(2) creating the impression individual contributions are the answer, 
and  (3) creating the impression that the problems are being dealt 
with as best they can be. Altogether this diverts mass energy away 
from struggling against the machinery of imperialism

best wishes,
rkm

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From: "Jerry Gutenschwager" <•••@••.•••>
To: <•••@••.•••>
Subject: Re: * rkm - ANNOUNCEMENTS *
Date: Tue, 29 May 2007 17:11:58 +0300

Richard,

I applaud the use of dramatic form to communicate important messages. 
This is much of what I was arguing for in my book as the 
sociodramatic approach to social science and planning (last part of 
chapter 3 and chapter 9). It
occurs to me that your outer film acts in much the same way as the 
chorus acted in ancient Greek drama. I don't know if you have ever 
seen a performance as enacted in one of the ancient theaters in 
Greece, but the effect of the chorus is quite dramatic. In a 
combination of sound and dance the chorus leads the audience in its 
emotional response to the dramatic action taking place on the 'inner 
stage'. In that sense, you might want to think of the outer film not 
only in cognitive but in emotional and moral terms as well. All three 
of these dimensions are present in the social construction of the 
reality which we all occupy, though the emotional and moral aspects 
tend to be downplayed in the hyper-rational world created by the 
onslaught of science in the past century or two.

I have renewed my efforts to have you speak here at the University of 
Thessaly. This has been something of a lost year because the students 
were on strike and/or protesting most of the year in opposition to 
the efforts of the right wing party in power to legalize private 
higher education in Greece. I will keep you informed if and when 
there is any progress on your visit.

Jerry

____________________

Hi Jerry,

Yes,  the Greek Chorus does seem to be a precedent for this approach. 
The difference is that our group won't be scripted, and what it 
evokes in the audience will depend on what spontaneously emerges in 
the dialog. I have no doubt that cognitive, emotional, and moral 
dimensions will be in evidence.

Thanks for your efforts re/ an appearance in Thessaly. If that works 
out, I'd need some briefing on local attitudes and initiatives, so I 
could relate that to what I have to say. You've already started that 
briefing with your comments on the student protests. Privatization 
seems to be everywhere the leading edge of the neoliberal assault on 
civil society and responsive governance.

Your message reminds me that the film will need to budget for 
subtitles in all the major languages.

all the best,
rkm

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