How to Save Democracy: The Production is in Full Swing!
An Update on the Production of the Documentary Film I'm Making
It’s been a busy time with the production phase of the documentary I'm making, How to Save Democracy.
I've continued with the interview phase of production, and also am at the point that the filming is starting to near the finish line, with just a few more interviews to go.
Since my prior post about the production, I've interviewed a plethora of people. The first was with Michelle Shenandoah (pictured above), a member of the Oneida clan, along with being a lawyer, historian, and professor of indigenous law at Syracuse University. Michelle talked about the beginnings of the U.S. from an indigenous perspective, and how the origin of the U.S. Constitution was the Constitution of the Iroquois, correctly known as Haudenosaunee Confederacy.
After Michelle, I’ve interviewed a few other people. The first after Michelle was Jesse Eisinger, the Pulitzer Prize winning senior editor with ProPublica:
The next after Jesse was Rick Ulfik, the founder and executive director of the social change organization We, the World:
Then there was Madiba Dennie, the author of the recent book, The Originalism Trap, which looks at the myth of originalism that underlies the thinking of the right wing extremists on the Supreme Court:
Brianna Cea, the founder and director of the organization Generation Vote, was another interview subject. Generation Vote is aimed at not only mobilizing younger people to vote, but to do so in a liberal to progressive manner:
The last person I’ve interviewed so far is Les Leopold, the author of the book, Wall Street's War on Workers: How Mass Layoffs and Greed Are Destroying the Working Class and What to Do About It. Les' book explains concisely why the working class have turned their backs on the Democratic Party and have fallen prey to a demagogic authoritarian like Donald Trump. As Les says in his book, it's not that the working class is racist, sexist, homophobic, or xenophobic, it's that they've been screwed over too many times by the greed of Wall Street and corporations:
A few more interviews are lined up, including with the well-known climate change activist and author, Bill McKibben.
I've also started the editing process, and once all the interviews are done, editing and post-production will shift into high gear.
Originally I was thinking of having the finished film out before the elections, but the more I thought about it, the more I realized that the story of saving democracy will continue after the election, not matter who wins. And also, the results of the election are just
a part of the story on saving democracy.
So now I'm thinking that I'll aim to have a shorter version or rough cut out before the election, and the finished version out after the election.
Regardless, this film is moving along, along with the movement to save democracy.