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| Friday, March 12, 2010 |
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- A Bird's Eye View
- A Motley Vision
- Adventures in Mormonism
- Blogger of Jared
- Blognitive Dissonance
- By Common Consent
- Don't Let's Start
- Ethesis
- Exponent II
- Face of the Other
- Faith Promoting Rumor
- Feminist Mormon Housewives
- Flooding the Earth With the Book of Mormon
- Golden Road to Samarqand
- Head Life
- Just Sayin'
- Juvenile Instructor
- Latte Day Saints
- Messanger & Advocate
- Millennial Star
- Mormon Matters
- Mormon Mommy Wars
- New Cool Thang
- Nine Moons
- Popcorn Popping
- Proud Daughter of Eve
- Purim
- Rhapsidiom
- Segullah
- Spinozist Mormon
- Sunstone Blog
- The Cultural Hall
- Times & Seasons
- Unofficial Manifesto
- Zelophehad's Daughters
Thanks, DKL. Much appreciated. PBS stations have some interesting requirements, such as time. For airing, the program must be 56:40. We always knew we would air on PBS stations, so when we were editing the 72-minute version, we also did the 56:40 one. (In fact, I had our narrator read both scripts–short and long.) It’s a tight piece, but you get more Darius Gray in the 72-minute version. The editing was actually a lot of fun. Helen Whitney told me that her documentary as finally edited didn’t do justice to the race issue–which was not her fault but the fault of the people who had final cut say. Her own director’s cut has lots more detail. And Darius was truly upset that the only thing the final cut of _The Mormons_ kept of his interview was an awful statement he quoted from John Taylor. Anyone who knows Darius knows that he unabashedly bears his testimony regardless of his audience. He did that for Helen’s cameras also, but it was cut. Our doc gives him an opportunity to say what he wants to say. |
Air time in DC is 8:00 p.m., btw. |
I’ve added the time to the main post — sorry I left it out in the first run. |
Margret – Since you brought up Helen Whitney, and it sounds like you have some communication with here, does she have any plans to release The Mormons on DVD that can have the piece portray what she wanted (instead of the timelimit guidelines and things like that)? Almost like a “Director’s Cut” edition of her documentary? I kept getting the impression that she wanted to hit so much, but because of time constraints (or maybe the complexity) she was only able to go so deep. I’ll let my DC peeps know about the showing. Hopefully we can get it out here in the mountains soon. |
Darius Gray came to visit our stake this past weekend and I was able to pick up a copy of the DVD from him. It’s really a great project and I’m glad he (and others) put it together. |
I don’t have contact with Helen Whitney, but I’ve chatted with her at conferences. I have not seen her director’s cut, but Darius has. From what he tells me, her cut is far better than what aired. Rumors abound. I believe that Darius’s perspective is correct: that the producing station felt her cut was too pro-Mormon, that she had “drunk the kool-aid” and then proceeded to edit to get that perceived bias out. Darius felt personally betrayed, since he had had assurance that he would not be used as an anti-Mormon tool. The one quote they kept from his interview could indeed be seen as anti-Mormon because it’s so ugly. |
I am pumped. I didn’t think I had this particular PBS station…but I just checked my TV listings, and there it is. Can’t wait to watch! |
Margaret, I’m glad to see your comments in #6. Although I didn’t see the raw footage, I’ve been around the block a few times, and could tell that the choices of what to include and focus on in the PBS “Mormons” piece indicated some obvious biases. However, I thought the net was positive in light of how the church had mostly been treated by the media up to that point. Given the liberal/leftish anti-Christian bent of PBS, they could have done a lot worse in representing the church. I thought they gave the church short shrift in the Margaret Toscano topic. And, at the same time, they made Ms Toscano look bad to faithful believing Mormons who are familiar with the excommunication process. Taken at face value, her segment made me think “She (Ms. Toscano) still doesn’t get it.” |
[...] In D.C. on Tuesday? Watch Nobody Knows on TV. [...] |
Great site. Keep doing. |
