The Producer's Corner

The past several weeks have been incredibly exciting as we proceed down multiple fronts on the project’s ever growing horizons.

Our historical research and writing team has produced a wonderful script for the pilot episode.  This 22 minute segment covers a unique period in Philadelphia’s history, 1864 to 1876.  We’re touching the events occurring from the waning days of the Civil War in which Philadelphia played such an instrumental role up to the eve of the Centennial Exposition which presented a most proud and accomplished city to the nation and the world.  I have been utterly amazed and excited by the sheer scope of forces and personalities that shaped the city and I think the viewers will be equally excited.  Developing the story of the nascent civil rights movement led by Octavius Catto and Carolyn LeCount and the tense and violent conflicts between African Americans and their Irish neighbors in the Moyamensing neighborhood during the election of 1871 had my heart thumping.  Understanding the precarious road taken by civic leaders in the effort to create a massive public park and the struggle between public and private interests over land acquisition and park governance was another eye opener.  Feeling the intense personal struggle that young Philadelphia women, aspiring to learn and practice surgery and medicine while their resistant male colleagues harassed and hounded them helped make the sound of the breaking of the glass ceiling seem quite loud.  And what must the city’s elected officials and the man they entrusted to build their new public building have been thinking when they embarked on the construction of the largest masonry building and eventually (for a while) the largest building anywhere in the world, our City Hall? 

The sense that Philadelphia was breaking out of an old mold and formulating a new one for itself and its citizens is the overwhelming one that I have taken away from our team’s historical investigation and storytelling about this period.  So many legacy institutions were created in this time and its connections to today remain very powerful.

Our schedule envisions production on the pilot will start by mid-December.  We’re already hard at work scrutinizing images—photos and documents—which will be used for the pilot.  The city has such a deep and vast reservoir of resources held in collections, large and small, by museums, libraries, institutions and historic places that for a documentarian, this is a treasure trove of riches.  Tough choices about what to use lie ahead.

In the course of the past weeks, we have had the chance to work with and discuss the project with the leaders of nearly 40 heritage and cultural institutions.  Their support and enthusiasm for the project has been palpable and genuine.  Page Talbott and Ros Remer have creatively devised a strategy for a collaboration agreement dealing with the use of collections, professional staff resources, filming on-site, access to experts, joint web site linkages, credits and project support among and between our production company and these institutions.  If we can pull such an agreement together and get most if not all to sign, it would represent a monumental accomplishment and dramatically signify the level of collaboration and cooperation being provided to the film.  No doubt, this would present a powerful message of unity to prospective funders.

Work has also commenced on developing short videos that touch on topics not dealt with in detail in the pilot episode.  We are calling these shorts, “webisodes”.  They will provide another layer of access to the stories, people and events that shaped the city.  Think of a stroll through an exhibition in a museum.  The art is like the film.  You can look at it and picture the factors in the artist’s life and the events of the times that may have influenced the painting.  Or you can take an audio player and headset on the tour and have added information available to help you navigate the exhibition and paintings.  Webisodes are like that audio player.  We hope they will help the audience expand and broaden its knowledge about each period and the people, places and events that shaped the times.  We are working on webisodes about the Great Central Sanitary Fair, the Fairmount Park, volunteer fire companies, Camp William Penn, dance and performing arts and several other topics.

We’ve added a new member to our professional team.  Simone Bloom Nathan of Media Education Consultants in Boston has been retained to assist the Educational Advisory Panel develop the plan for implementing educational programs and resources for K-12.  Simone and her team have developed educational materials for more than 50 Frontline programs broadcast on PBS.  Prior to forming her consultancy, Simone spent six years at WGBH Boston as Assistant Director for Children’s Programming and as Outreach Manager.  She will be working closely with V. Chapman-Smith and the other educators to build on best practices in generating an educational strategy that inspires teachers and kids.

Finally, we are making progress on re-designing our website with an eye towards the future and the goal of a very video content rich and highly interactive platform for accessing the film and supporting materials and Philadelphia history.  They’ll be more to report on that soon.

The next weeks and months will be most critical to the success of the development phase of the project.  The pilot episode, webisodes, proposal writing, civic engagement and educational outreach planning will all be the focus of our team’s attention.

We welcome your ideas and suggestions.

And thanks for your interest and continuing support.

Sam Katz

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