CONTACT
DANIEL NEIDEN, Producer (917) 686 0608 Jon Goldman, Director (978) 505 5796 OILFILMS.COM
OILFILMS, LLC
OILFILMS, LLC
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
TITLE: OIL IN THE FAMILY TRT: 83 min;
OIL IN THE FAMILY
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This is a story of a Northeastern man’s search to understand his deep Southern roots and in the course finds out how an industry, the world and as a result the climate changed that place and ultimately reconciles remote areas of the country to their shared need for stewardship of the environment.
Producer/Director: Jon Goldman [Contact: jon@oilfilms.com cell: 978 5050 5796] Executive Producers: Bestor Cram, Bob Balaban Contact: bcram@nlprod.com cell: 617-789-4344 Start Date-May 2009 Completion Date: (Anticipated ) September 2011 Fiscal Sponsor: Documentary Educational Resources/ Southern Documentary Fund
Goldman’s late maternal grandmother, Lucy Benjamin Lemann, was born in New Orleans, later moved to Manhattan and Woods Hole, Massachusetts. She was a friend of Flaherty’s and helped him secure access to his locations there. Her father owned land on Weeks Island, Louisiana where scenes were ultimately shot. It was at Weeks Island that my family operated a Salt business that they sold to Morton Salt but kept the mineral rights, and like the boy’s family in “Louisiana Story”, oil was found. Building from transcripts of interviews Goldman’s grandmother gave to Columbia University’s Robert J. Flaherty Oral History Project part of the story will be cast, scenes will be shot and ultimately made into animated sequences based on a graphic novel I have drawn of the meeting between Flaherty and Lemann.
You can’t drive a car today without feeling responsible for what happened on the Gulf Coast. Faulty concrete, lack of supervision, and profit motive aside, there is still gas in my tank. Everything I touch, purchase, see, survive on is made Ricky Leacock, Robert and FrancesFlaherty on Robert J. Flaherty Director of LOUISIANA STORY possible because of the rare substrate extracted from the earth. the set of LOUISIANA STORY This is not to say that I do not depend on the positive attributes of petrol-based products. Welcome to the conundrum of our time. Add to this the fact that my family makes money from mineral rights which derives income from oil. But in my family the worst thing you can be is a hypocrite. And that is what we as humans have become...it’s OIL IN THE FAMILY and we’re all part of it.
“It is our intention as filmmakers to make an innovative film,” says Goldman. “We intend to use narrative structure based on these personal historical elements, interviews and motion capture animation based on a graphic novel I have developed to create a new hybrid which ultimately will bring the critical state of the environmental degradation of one of the country’s, if not the world’s most vital watersheds/ ecosystems into focus in an accessible way.”
Sixty three years before a deep water oil drilling platform near the Mississippi Delta exploded into U.S. History, Robert J. Flaherty (who made “Nanook of the North,” and is considered the father of the American documentary) was commissioned by Standard Oil in 1948 to make a film about oil exploration. The result was “Louisiana Story,” which portrays the excitement and the rewards a Cajun family receives when a drilling rig sets up on their bayou. It also is prophetic in revealing the tension created when we disrupt the interdependence of the natural environment and those traditional cultures who live in relation to that environment.
OIL FILMS, LLC has raised some initial seed funding mostly from private sources through our fiscal sponsors The Southern Documentary Fund (Raleigh, North Carolina) and Documentary Educational Resources. We are in production and have already been to Southwestern Louisiana, and Paris, France interviewing among others the former child star of LOUISIANA STORY, JC Boudreaux, MacArthur award winning chemist Wilma Subra, Flaherty’s cinematographer Ricky Leacock, academic authorities, and many of the fishermen/oysterman/shrimpers post-spill, with outstanding results.
Lucy Benjamin Lemann1980
By exploring his family’s connection to Flaherty and the Louisiana Story, environmental artist and filmmaker Jon Goldman returns to the land of his great grandfather, discovering how industry changed forever the vitality of a region and sacrificed the real cost for prosperity. The film parallels one artist’s celebration of a threatened way of life and another artists need to confront the consequences. This story becomes a conversation on how to change the future. It is a story about a family’s Louisiana legacy revealing how we are OIL IN THE FAMILY.
OIL IN THE FAMILY combines a personal narrative with scenes from “Lousiana Story”and will push the boundaries of documentary and docudrama. The film explores the complex issues surrounding oil exploration, extraction and manufacturing through my own animation, classic animation, interviews and personal stories. We will depict its impact on family and the larger context of how it has changed that place where the original story was filmed. As filmmakers we return to the original film location sixty years later and examine the real impact oil exploration and the powerful petrochemical industry has had and continues to have on the South Central region of Louisiana, its people, its economy, the indigenous landscape and the larger world. Dean Blanchard, Grand Isle, Louisiana- Largest Shrimp broker in Gulf of Mexico region
Buddy Ebsen as Jed Clampett of “The Beverly Hillbillies”
•http://oilfilms.com•
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Henry Hub, Henry, Louisiana where 1/3 of America’s oil and natural gas comes into the U.S.
There is probably no greater subject than energy that binds the human condition; it affects everything in our lives. But perhaps the most profound way to change the environmental impact oil exploration has on our world is through an assessment of individual need and use of our resources. The central focus for our film is the dialogue that promotes informed consideration of changes in lifestyle. Petrochemical dependence is not going away soon, but through an examination of history and consideration of what impedes our understanding of interdependence, we can stir people J.C. Boudreaux “ Boy” at home in J.C. Boudreaux “ Boy” on the set of to question their behavior. Today, LOUISIANA STORY Sweet Lake, Louisiana 2008 that can be hope amidst despair. Personal stories form a family’s legacy and a new found sense of accountability; their struggle makes change imaginable. It is this story of culture change that makes accessible a commitment to a different future.
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Aerial View of the oil Derrick on the set of LOUISIANA STORY
The website, http://oilfilms.com contains a trailer and the beginnings of a recording of the individual stories involved in the film. We had a successful Kickstarter run meeting our goal, and have developed a serious following on Facebook as an integral part of our outreach strategy.
THE TEAM JON GOLDMAN, Director
Jon Goldman is an award-winning filmmaker, animator and media artist. Since training at MIT’s Center For Advanced VIsual Studies in the 1980s where he received his Masters, Jon has produced documentaries and an Emmy-nominated short form animation for organization such as Al Jazeera International, WGBHLAB BOSTON, and the Discovery Channel. For Al Jazeera he produced Wilma’s Warning profiling a MacArthur-award winning environmental justice advocate and the Katrina/RITA storm surge covering its role in high toxicity in the gulf region.
BESTOR CRAM, Executive Producer
Bestor Cram is an award winning director, producer and cinematographer for television documentaries and museum environments. In 1982, Bestor founded Northern Light Productions, a Boston-based production company which produces long format projects for PBS, History Channel, & Discovery as well as a wide range of museum media exhibits for art, science and history interpretive visitor centers like the Smithsonian Institution and International Spy Museum. As a lighting cameraman, Bestor released Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison in the fall of 2008 and it continues to play festivals and television world wide. In 2009, his ITVS supported film Scarred Justice: The Orangeburg Massacre 1968 was released and had its PBS broadcast in February, 2010.
BOB BALABAN, Executive Producer
Balaban is a writer, actor, director and producer and has had supporting roles in films such as Midnight Cowboy,Absence of Malice, Bob Roberts, Deconstructing Harry, Ghost World, The Majestic, Lady in the Water and all of Christopher Guest’s films: Waiting for Guffman, Best in Show, A Mighty Wind and For Your Consideration. In 2001 Balaban produced the Robert Altman picture Gosford Park, for which he received a nomination for Best Picture; he also appeared in the movie as Morris Weissman, a Hollywood producer. He recently appeared in an episode of Entourage as a doctor known for writing prescriptions for medical marijuana. Balaban is the director of Bernard and Doris and has chosen to perform controversial projects like Recount (about the 2000 election) for HBO. In 2003 he won the Drama Desk award for The Exonerated. In 2010, Balaban appeared as Judge Clayton Horn, the real-life judge who presided over the obscenity trial of Lawrence Ferlinghetti and City Lights Books in the movie Howl. He is currently appearing with Alan Arkin and Greg Kinnear in The Convincer which screened at Sundance 2011.
DANIEL NEIDEN Executive Producer
Daniel Neiden is an award-winning actor and producer. He has worked side by side with the Tony-nominee, multiple Obie-winning Liz Swados for nearly ten years, as actor, creative consultant, and co-producer on more than a half dozen of her ventures including The Hating Pot, Jerusalem and Groundhog, at such venues as BAM, The Public Theater, Manhattan Theater Club and La Mama. Over the past ten years, Daniel has mounted and produced projects at The Kennedy Center, The Public Theater, The Village Gate, The Perry Street, and The Cherry Lane Theater and garnered nominations (Drama Desk) and awards (VSArts/DC) along the way. He received a regional EMMY Award for voicing the title Character of MAD MATH (Learning Channel), and has voiced many of the animated films of Bill Plympton. Daniel is currently in pre-production for a musical adaptation of Waiting For Lefty at ACT in San Francisco.
JIM UHLS, Writer/Producer
Jim Uhls wrote the screenplay for Fight Club, starring Brad Pitt and Edward Norton, directed by David Fincher; the NBC television film, Semper Fi, produced by Steven Spielberg, about young recruits in the Marine Corps, and is a writer on Jumper, the film by Doug Liman starring Hayden Christensen. He is currently working on the adaptation of the graphic novel Rex Mundi for Warner Brothers and Johnny Depp. Prior to that, he completed a screenplay adaptation of the cult novel Flicker for New Regency and Darren Aronofsky and a TV series pilot, Paranoid, for FX.
BILL LATTANZI, Writer/Producer
Bill Lattanzi is an award-winning writer, editor, and producer for documentary television. He spent 10 years at WGBH in Boston, where he worked on all three flagship series, Frontline, The American Experience, and Nova. Notable projects include Grant, Reagan, Chicago, Spy in the Sky, and Special Effects. For Powderhouse Productions, Bill was showrunner on Extreme Engineering with Danny Forster; wrote several shows for the Discovery, The History Channel, and TLC. An award-winning playwright, Bill is also the co-founder of the Boston Theater Marathon and was artist-in-residence at Brandeis University, 2000-2005. Prior to Boston, Bill worked on commercials and feature films in NYC, including a stint in Woody Allen’s cutting room. His roster includes scripts for PBS, Discovery Channel, History Channel and more.
PETER RHODES, Editor
Peter Rhodes is a prolific veteran editor working primarily in the documentary field. His current The Last Mountain is currently screening in the 2011 Sundance Film Festival. For years he has edited for Frontline, NOVA, American Experience and Independent Lens, on titles such as RENEWAL, A Life Among Whales, Racing Against the Clock, Act Your Age, Made in America?, Gift of the Game, The Price of Sugar and the soon to be released Circus Dreams.
ED SLATTERY, Producer, DP
Edward Slattery has been shooting films since the late 1980’s, his credits include feature films (Manna From Heaven, Temps), short films (Leaving The Post, Perfect Goosey’s, Hitchcocked) documentaries (Moving Midway, In Her Own Voice, Healing Hands Africa) as well as commercials, industrials and television programs.
KEVIN MCCAFFERY, Producer
http://oilfilms.com 978 505 5796
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Nationally recognized documentary film producer Kevin McCaffrey is a James Beard Award finalist, and a publisher, writer, editor, oral historian, reviewer and creative industry consultant. McCaffrey is owner of e/Prime Media LLC, specializing in research and media products relating to culture, history, environment and design in Louisiana and around the rim of the Gulf of Mexico. e/Prime has produced video for such disparate clients as the Louisiana State Museum, The Historic New Orleans Collection, Galatoire’s Restaurant and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. He also produced a documentary for television: “A Common Pot: Creole Cooking on Cane River”, a study of Creole Cuisine. Quite recently, McCaffrey wrote and produced video profiles of New Orleans based artists Michael P. Smith, Alan Gerson, and Shirley Masinter in collaboration with Lemieux Gallery and funded by the Louisiana Cultural Economy Foundation. His 2009 documentary television program, “We Live To Eat: New Orleans’ Love Affair With Food,” was a finalist for a James Beard Award in broadcast media after airing on WYES and the Louisiana Public Broadcasting Network.