Company/Organization Profiles | Local Industry

Blackside, Inc.

1 Jul , 1999  

Written by Alia-Anor Akaeze | Posted by:

A production company with standards and style.

Let’s say you’re the head of a fledgling indie production company. You’ve got lots of great film ideas, plenty of passion, and some kind of a plan for realizing your dreams thanks to the involvement of some enthusiastic friends and a credit card or two. Maybe you’ve even got a project in the can. In other words, you’re viable, but only just so. Then, someone you really respect gives you the Internet address of a production company that once upon a time walked more than a mile in your shoes. And maybe, because you’re feeling like some moral support and a little inspiration couldn’t hurt right about now, you decide to check it out. Imagine your luck if the web site turned out to be the home of Blackside.

Blackside, Inc., founded 30 years ago by the late Emmy award-winning documentary filmmaker Henry Hampton, is a production company dedicated to raising our consciousness about America’s social progress and history. The films that have resulted from this quest have set a higher standard for social documentary filmmaking: "I’ll Make Me A World: A Century of African-American Arts"; "America’s War on Poverty"; "The Great Depression"; and, of course, the ground-breaking "Eyes on the Prize" series, just to name a few.

In the hands of Blackside’s producers, a film becomes a "shared event," not by virtue of its original broadcast or rebroadcast alone, but rather in concert with books, new media, and other supportive educational materials, seminars, and workshops designed to connect audiences and institutions to the content of that film.

Take, for example, "I’ll Make Me A World." Blackside designed a comprehensive outreach program in 11 cities across the country to coincide with the broadcast premiere in February of this year. With funding assistance from well-known philanthropic organizations like the Lila Wallace-"Reader’s Digest" Fund and the "Boston Globe" Foundation, Blackside provided money and technical support to groups in Maryland, Illinois, California, Tennessee, Louisiana, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Massachusetts. Their goal: to facilitate discussion and supportive local programming around "I’ll Make Me A World" that would help to illuminate how African-American artists (and all artists, generally) use their work to communicate with and challenge society.

Blackside’s approach to marketing a film is two-pronged, and it is a lesson well worth learning. Working closely with church groups and other organizations, Blackside gains insight into the ways local audiences choose television and radio programs and print publications. They also look at how audiences are involved with their local institutions. Prior to broadcast, Blackside will hold preview screenings with core constituents and will tailor versions of the program for different audiences. Robert Lavelle, Blackside’s Publishing and New Media Director, calls this the "cluster media approach," developed during 1988 as a result of the first national rebroadcast of "Eyes on the Prize."

Flexibility is the key to their "adaptive media" approach. Blackside invests local audiences in the project while still in production by involving them in educational discussions around the subject matter of the film. Producers are encouraged to be open to learning from potential audiences how those audiences feel the film will best be received. Blackside goes on to form partnerships with as many as two dozen local institutions in venues across the country to plan events, create and distribute material, and design curricula particular to the local populations.

Thirty years of innovative and inspiring filmmaking later, Blackside, Inc. has a well-developed filmmaker’s "voice," it has perfected its craft, and its mission is clear as ever, courtesy of a well thought-out and carefully determined marketing strategy. And as we approach the new millennium, consider this, from Blackside’s web site:

Late this Spring, Blackside and our nonprofit partner, The Civil Rights Project, Inc., began the process of undertaking a major reorganization as a response to both internal and external changes. Blackside and CRPI are committed to institutionalizing both organizations’ strengths to create a vital new organization–a socially catalytic media institute helping citizens in the 21st century find new ways to learn about, discuss, and participate in issues of diversity, democracy, and civil society.

Blackside is always adapting.

I don’t know about you, but when my production company grows up, I want it to be just like Blackside.

 

A portrait of Henry Hampton will be on display throughout the summer at the African Meeting House. Visit http://www.afroammuseum.org/events.htm for details.