HISTORY WHITE PEOPLE AMERICA

Transcription

1 The HISTORY of WHITE PEOPLE in AMERICA a serialized animated musical SYNOPSIS

2 What color are you? Do you know? Do you care? Do you have a choice? These questions have been defining the American experience for centuries. None are easy to answer. When the Pilgrims first arrived there was no notion of color or race as we understand those concepts today. They weren t white because white, as a category of people, did not exist yet. The History of White People in America tells the stories of how skin became color, color became race, and race became power. We are taking the most difficult aspect of the American civic conversation race and transforming it into historical narratives, into animation, into song, into a trigger for dialogue, debate, information, and, yes, even entertainment. The title is intentionally provocative; the series will confront our racial history frankly. Since the late 17th century white has been core to the American identity legally, socially, politically and economically. One way to understand and contextualize American history is to decode the meaning of that word white and the centurieslong struggle to make American more than just a synonym for white. The History of White People in America tells the story of race in America in 15 animated, musical shorts divided into three seasons. The first season begins in the early colonial period when white as a racial construct did not exist and ends 150 years later when Congress, in one of their first acts, legally defines American as "white." Each episode is told from a different point of view to represent the rich diversity that is, in fact, America. For example, the late Colonial era will be sung from the perspective of an African and English married couple a marriage that was legal but would later be outlawed. The American Revolution will be seen and heard from the vantage of Mohawk chief, Thayendanegea. By hearing these historical events through these points of view, the audience starts to see the building blocks of the identity politics that divide our society today. The pilot episode makes its world premiere at the 2018 Tribeca Film Festival and tells the story of Bacon s Rebellion. It was this populist rebellion in 1676 of impoverished, indentured, and enslaved Africans and Europeans against the landed gentry, that was key to the invention of race as we now know it.

3 CREDITS A film by Ed Bell Clementine Briand Pierce Freelon Jon Halperin Aaron Keane Drew Takahashi Singer Pierce Freelon Composers Aaron Keane and Pierce Freelon Art Directors and Animators Ed Bell and Drew Takahashi Writers Pierce Freelon and Jon Halperin Producer Clementine Briand Animation Producer Leslie Arvio Sound Studio Trailblazer Studios Executive Producers for Room 608 Mark Mannucci and Jon Halperin Series Producer for ITVS Pam Torno Consulting Producer for ITVS Karim Ahmad Executive Producer for ITVS Sally Jo Fifer The History of White People in America is a co-production of ROOM 608 and INDEPENDENT TELEVISION SERVICE (ITVS), with funding provided by the CORPORATION FOR PUBLIC BROADCASTING (CPB)

4 DIRECTOR BIOS The series is directed by the team a unique collaboration between musicians, animators, and documentary filmmakers. (Additional responsibilities are listed in parentheses.) Ed Bell (Animator) Ed career has covered a lot of ground. He is a filmmaker, director, animation artist, and modern day griot. Prior to joining Maverix, he was a key member of Wild Brain directing team. While there he was a lead commercial director, as well as helped to develop numerous television and film projects for the studio. For Wild Brain s commercial division, Ed s unique hip-hop/ anime style can be seen in inspired commercial campaigns for clients such as Coca-Cola, Sony, Nike, Target and Wrigley s Winterfresh Gum with the acclaimed Urban Hip Hopper spot. Ed was also a contributing director on HBO s Good Night Moon & Other Sleepytime Tales, which garnered the Primetime Emmy Award for Outstanding Children s Program. Clementine Briand (Producer) Clementine worked in Paris, France for four years at a commercial production company, working with brands such as Coca-Cola, IBM, L Oreal, RadioShack, and McKinsey & Co. She worked across various mediums from corporate videos to television (CNN, BBC), and film. Her work took her throughout Europe and the United States, as well as in Georgia, China, Mongolia, Israel, and Libya. Clementine moved back to the United States to pursue a career in the documentary and film industry, most recently helping to deliver quality short form documentary content for the Emmy award winning organization ITVS. Pierce Freelon (Writer/Singer) Pierce is a candidate for Mayor of the city of Durham, North Carolina. A musician, professor and social entrepreneur, Pierce has a passion for creativity and community. Born and raised in Durham, he earned a BA in African and African American Studies at UNC Chapel Hill and an MA in Pan African Studies at Syracuse University. He has taught music, political science and African American Studies at UNC Chapel Hill and North Carolina Central University. Pierce is the founder of Blackspace, a digital maker space where young people learn about music, film, and coding, and front man of the jazz hip-hop band The Beast. He also co- founded Beat Making Lab, an Emmy-Award winning PBS web-series and social entrepreneurship community program. Inspiring young people has always been a focus of his; he has performed, lectured, and collaborated internationally. He is the youngest person ever to serve on the board for the North Carolina Arts Council. He has also served on the

5 boards of the Durham Library Foundation, Friends of the Nasher Museum of Art, KidZNotes, and others. Jon Halperin (Producer/Writer) Jon is an Emmy Award-winning director, writer and producer. He has produced, directed written and overseen documentaries for Amazon, PBS, National Geographic, Time, Inc., ITVS, TED, TechTV, Discovery, and for digital and theatrical distribution. In 2012, Halperin founded Room 608, with Mark Mannucci, a new media and documentary production company. They re executive producers of the Amazon series Lore, a hybrid fiction/documentary series for Propagate Content and Valhalla Entertainment as well as the HHMI series I Contain Multitudes for PBS Digital. He just won an Emmy for Best Science and Technology film for A Year in Space. Aaron Keane (Composer) Aaron has been working in the audio industry for nearly 25 years. He started as a musician and recording engineer in the studios of New York City. He has worked with a diverse group of musical artists including, Mos Def, Pharcyde and Shawn Colvin. For the past 13 years, he has been composing music for TV, film and digital media with Trailblazer Studios in North Carolina. Recent credits include music composition for Emmy Award winning PBS series Twice Born and two short films for TED Science and Wonder. Other credits include scores for Discovery, HBO, NatGeo, and Amazon. Drew Takahashi (Art Director) Drew is presently the Emperor of Funjacket Enterprises. Previously he was co- founder and Chief Creative Officer of (Colossal) Pictures). Using any and all techniques in film and video, he directed or creative directed broadcast identities (MTV, Showtime, Disney Channel, Cartoon Network and Nickelodeon), commercials (Coca-Cola, Intel, Nike, Honda and Levi s) music videos (Bobby McFerrin, Prince, Joe Cocker, Kronos Quartet) and interfaces (Apple, Americast, Nuvana, Microsoft). At Funjacket Enterprises, Drew has continued to design and direct an even more diverse range of opportunities including naming and identities (Laika Entertainment, House Special, Nuvana), corporate communications (Apple, Intel, Mozilla, Inkling, Corning/Mythbusters), transformative games (CPB, Nike Foundation, Stanford D School, Alameda Probation Department) and animated portions of documentaries (National Geographic, NRDC, Sea Studios, Actual Pictures).