Election Day

Can you feel the tension in the air? The collective held breath? The results of today could rock our nation, however they turn out. And so I feel it's so appropos that Donna Warren called me this afternoon to say what she thought of the video I made of my one day visit with her. Donna is the Green party candidate for Lt. Gov. of CA and I spent a day following her around on her campaign to get a glimpse into the life of a local activist. It was an incredible day and I came home with three hours of footage ready to make a small extravaganza. But, in my heart on the drive home, I knew what the piece would really turn out to be... Check out the video here:

http://donoevil.netscape.com/story/2006/11/07/netscape-onevoice-donna-warren/

Donna called to tell me that she loved the piece. It wasn't what she expected - which I imagine was a strong, campaign-like statement on Green party politics and why we should all care about hard social justice issues - but she felt that it was good. "Heart-wrenching" is what she said.

As a person and an artist I've always held back just enough so that people in my videos wouldn't get hurt. This is, I think, my first departure from that. I knew that if I didn't tell Donna's son's story I wouldn't be telling Donna's story or that of the cause of social justice. I never set out to make her cry, dredging up, as I did, the murder of her beloved son, but there comes a time as an artist when you have to let go of every safety net there is if you know you have a REAL story. Donna was brave enough and generous enough to let me do whatever I wanted, and the universe has rotated just enough so that I would be able to recognize what I was supposed to do with such material.

Thank goodness. And I hope I never go back to hiding under the covers.

My very, very humble thanks go out to Donna for this opportunity.