The American Cinema Foundation’s first mission in 1994 was being a reasoned meeting point and a cultural, not a political bridge between Hollywood’s conservatives and liberals. Though we’re probably better known since then for things less directly issue-oriented, like film screenings, blogger assemblies, and giving awards, there’s a need for that original ACF function of serving as a meeting point for media makers of varied opinions and shared goodwill, especially in troubled times.

American Forum Theater/Hollywood Forum
ACF’s earliest public activities were directed readings of thoughtful, sometimes controversial new plays and screenplays. These theatrical readings, performed 1994-1996, were a valued part of a cultural discussion taking place in the then-thriving scene of specialized live theater in Los Angeles during the Nineties.

E Pluribus Unum Awards
Presented in 1995, 1997, and 2000, the E Pluribus Unum project was a successful pioneering pilot for the kind of national solidarity-in-the-arts initiatives that would become a major focus of many media nonprofits in the first few years after the 9/11 attacks. Show creator David O. Kelley and CBS top boss Leslie Moonves were among the recipients of EPU prizes. Robert Duvall and production chief Frank Price received the Carl Foreman Award in honor of the gifted screenwriter, who even while being blacklisted in the 1950s never lost his faith in the decency and honor of America. Video clips from some of the E Pluribus Unum presentations and acceptances are being located and digitized, and will be added to this site when available.

On-Line, Internet, and the birth of the Blogosphere
Since 2002 the ACF has held panels and conferences of young film, TV and internet artists, many of them part of a thriving West Coast dialog between libertarians, centrists, conservatives and progressives. The conferences have helped bring a real spectrum of opinion to a town that is too often sensitive only to skin-deep measures of diversity.

Photo: An ACF internet “summit”, 2004: Screenwriter Roger L. Simon (Pajamas Media), L.A. social critic Moxie, and Venice’s own Mickey Kaus (Slate)

For nearly five years, the public face of ACF for bloggers and the Internet was Cathy Seipp, Los Angeles writer and internet pioneer. Cathy, who died in March 2007, moderated and co-presented many pioneering public events with ACF for the on-line community and also about television. One of the very first people to publicly refer to Internet society as a “blogosphere”, Cathy was also one of the first print journalists who understood what a transformative effect blogs would have on politics, media and society.

Cathy Seipp at one of her favorite Hollywood spots, Yamashiro’s restaurant.

From the ACF side, the panel invitations to the Blogger conferences have been under the overall direction of board member Rob Long. Rob is a writer and producer who has been twice nominated for an Emmy Award and Golden Globe Award, and writes occasionally for the Wall Street Journal and Los Angeles Times. His weekly radio commentary, “Martini Shot,” is broadcast on KCRW, and distributed nationally. And the future for ACF’s blogger get-togethers? Today’s video bloggers are documentarians without opinion filters, without license from any authority, and eminently as independent as Joris Ivens or Robert Flaherty ever dreamed of being. But their social vocabulary is nothing like that of the classic wave of non-fiction filmmakers. Increasingly, their work is entering the arena through public media.

October 2005 Conference: Finding the Future of Public Television”
In 2005, the American Cinema Foundation worked with friends of goodwill who work in public broadcasting, and the American Film Institute, to present a Hollywood forum about balance in PBS and public TV that was focused on the industry but open to everyone. The success of that weekend is leading to new ways of interrogating the issues and television’s culturally powerful decision-makers. That program was called “Finding the Future of Public Television”. That future needs a dialog. We’ve worked to expand the dialog, and we hope to expand it a lot more. For newcomers to the field, this Los Angeles weekend served as professional development, an invitation to get involved with a unique American institution. KCET Los Angeles has a rich history of producing for the public broadcasting system, and public television has had a long, complex relationship with the commercial media headquartered here.

Public Broadcasting and the Transition to Digital Public Media
Public broadcasting has been, for the past 40 years, one of the most visible expressions of our sense of the common good in arts and education. We are concerned that this sense of a shared culture may be lost. The Corporation for Public Broadcasting (CPB) chose to work with us in conducting this important discussion, always open to the public and usually live blogged in progress.

Our panel series is dedicated to expanding the ongoing dialog between the public television community, media creators who have not yet worked in that community, and informed members of the interested general public. James Day, one of the founders of San Francisco’s KQED, once overheard a line that stuck with him: “Public television expresses the interests of a present minority in the name of a future majority”. Which present minority has the right to declare that it knows what a future majority will want? A reasonable person should be able to see both sides of that argument.

Besides 2005’s conference, there’s been a continuing ACF focus inspired by the popular perception that there’s a new sensibility, brought by a new wave of idealistic social skeptics who are coming to non-fiction film today and tomorrow. They may and will be coming to public broadcasting through different personal networks, even different parts of the country, than those established by now popular PBS contributors. Using novel production techniques and often self-distributed, this younger generation of skeptics is already reaching a level of sophistication that warrants the attention of Hollywood’s talent development process. PBS producing stations, and other independent entities, may find in some of these artists both regional and emerging talents deserving of the first stages of creative contact, and points of view that may assist public broadcasting’s treatment of issues of social and political sensitivity.

The Future is Here
Our current programs and new proposals for exploring the options for public television now include a chance to work with some of California’s pioneers of public digital media. The media landscape is changing rapidly; to remain relevant and competitive, producers need to be conversant and comfortable in making work for ever-widening distribution options.  These new venues come with their own particular attributes and form factors, influencing the style, the length, and the approach to storytelling.  Repurposing broadcast content for the web and portable devices is important, but the real action will take place in the new and unique creative space that is not necessarily broadcast, nor a web site, but something slowly being defined in actual creative practice across the country, led in many cases by artists in Los Angeles. 

Technology alone can never tell you who is in control. (Electronicam, DuMont Television Network, 1955)

This is a critical expansion of, and complement to, existing public television producer academies based on the East Coast. It is in no way a regional program for the West Coast; it’s a national approach to meeting the system-wide challenges of multi-platform storytelling, centered in the state that is the birthplace of the Internet as well as the production center of much of the world’s legacy media. 

A broad and inclusive definition of who this project serves must have room for voices outside of the present professional circles of documentary and public affairs producers. The American Cinema Foundation pledges to continually expand the dialog, bringing new people and perspectives to the discussion; in particular we will lend our best efforts in securing attendance from notable members of the Hollywood community with a view to increasing the impact of the event on general awareness.