In the
Winter 2005 issue of Filmmaker we published an article entitled "Untold Stories: Creative consequences of the rights clearance culture for documentary filmmakers," by Pat Aufderheide and Peter Jaszi.
In that article -- which can also be found in a longer version on the Web site of the
Center for Social Media -- Aufderheide and Jaszi interview Jon Else, series producer and cinematographer for Henry Hampton's
Eyes on the Prize, who explains why
Eyes on the Prize -- "virtually the only audio-visual purveyor of the history of the civil rights movement in America" -- is no longer available for purchase.
"What happened was the series was done cheaply and had a terrible fundraising problem," says Else. "There was barely enough to purchase a minimum five year rights on the archive heavy footage. Each episode in the series is 50% archival. And most of the archive shots are derived from commercial sources. The five year licenses expired and the company that made the film also expired. And now we have a situation where we have this series for which there are no rights licenses.
Eyes on the Prize cannot be broadcast on any TV venue anywhere, nor can it be sold. Whatever threadbare copies are available in universities around the country are the only ones that will ever exist. It will cost $500,000 to re-up all the rights for this film. This is a piece of landmark TV history that has vanished."
DeNeen L. Brown and Hamil R. Harris elaborate in the
Washington Post: "The film is hampered by the same problem many documentary filmmakers are encountering as they wrestle with buying and renewing licenses to use copyrighted archival footage, photos and music. Independent filmmakers must pay for each piece of copyrighted material, and those costs have escalated in the past 10 years.
"Some of the footage in
Eyes was cleared for only five years, and the executive producer died before renewing the rights.
Eyes on the Prize, which was produced by Blackside Inc., a film and television company founded by Henry Hampton, won 23 awards, including two Emmys, for outstanding documentary and for outstanding achievement in writing. The first six parts aired in 1987. It was last broadcast on PBS in 1994. Many of the rights in the eight-part sequel,
Eyes on the Prize II: America at the Racial Crossroads (1965-1985), expired five years after it aired in 1990."
Happily, according to Felicia R. Lee in today's
New York Times entiled " 'Eyes' Nearly Free, at Last," "More than 10 years after it last appeared on television, supporters of
Eyes on the Prize, the acclaimed television documentary series chronicling the civil rights movement, have raised enough money to attempt a break from copyright bondage, Sandy Foreman, the attorney for the project said yesterday.
"A Ford Foundation grant of $600,000 and a check for an undisclosed amount from the New York-based money manager and philanthropist Richard Gilder will pay for the rights to secure the expired rights to the hundreds of copyrighted elements in
Eyes ...
"Ms. Foreman...estimated that it could take up to a year to renew and pay for all the permissions. After copyright hurdles are cleared and the film is-re-edited and digitized, she explained, it could be back on the air as early as next year."
# posted by Steve Gallagher @ 8/29/2005 03:44:00 PM
Comments (0)
