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Home , Jon Alpert, Paper Tiger Television, Paul Ryan (video artist), Television documentary

. "Toward An Anthropological Pol- bert. Native Americans on and of Symbolic Form." Gross. 85- Video, Vol. 2. New York Museum of itics FROM PORTAPAK TO CAMCORDER: A BRIEF the American Indian, 1988. 107. Adair. Through Na- OF GUERRILLA Willmot, Eric. Out of the Silent Land. Worth, Sol, and John Task Force on Aboriginal vaho Eyes . Bloomington: Indiana UP, Camberra: DEIRDRE BOYLE and Islanders Commission 1972. and AGPS, 1985. Worth, Sol, and Larry Gross. "Symbolic the Winston, Brian. "The Tradition of Strategies ." Gross. 134-47. Victim in Griersonian Documentary." Cinema." Young, Colin. "Observational portapak half-inch video equipment when it became Gross, Katz, and Ruby. 34-57. . Ed. Nearly 30 years since the video Principles of Visual Anthropology television' available in 1965, and with it he made Sol. Review of YouAre On Indian launched an independent Worth, Paul Hockings. The Hague: Mouton, States, a new Bum, one of the first "street tapes." His Land. American Anthropologist 74.4 movement in the United 1975. 65-80. has taken up interviews with the winos and derelicts on (1972): 1029-31. generation of video activists the video camcorder as a tool, a weapon, New York's skid row were edited before and a witness. Although the rhetoric of electronic editing became possible. guerrilla television2 may seem dated to- Rough, unstructured, and episodic, Bum day, its utopian goal of using video to was characteristic of early video. challenge the information infrastructure in America is more timely than ever and at last practicable. Today's video activism is Street Tapes the fulfillment of a radical 1960s dream of making "people's television ." "Street tapes" were not necessarily made on the street. In 1968, with the arrival of the first truly portable video rigs (the half- Portapak), video The 1960s: Underground Video inch, reel-to-reel CV freaks could hang out with drug-tripping hippies, sexually liberated commune Corporation decided to In 1965 the Sony dwellers, cross-country wanderers, and its first major effort at marketing launch yippie rebels, capturing spontaneous ma- video equipment in the United consumer terial literally on their doorsteps. During auspicious moment for the de- States-an the summer of 1968 Frank Gillette taped a video. The role of the artist but of portable five-hour documentary of street life on St. and alienated hero was as individualist Mark's Place in , unofficial being eclipsed by a resurgence of interest of the Eastern hippie com- and as headquarters in the artist's social responsibility, munity (Yalkut) . Gillette was one of a en- art became politically and socially number of artists, , actors, film- between art and gaged, the distinctions makers, and students who were drawn to (Ross). At first blurred video. They were "the progeny of the between video there were few distinctions Baby Boom, a generation at home with nearly everyone artists and activists, and technology-the Bomb and the cathode- . Les Levine was made documentary tapes ray tube, ready to make imaginative use of have access to one of the first artists to the media to convey their messages of change" (Armstrong 20-21). Deirdre Boyle is a senior faculty member in the Graduate Media Studies Program at the New Turning the limits of their technology into School for Social Research in New York. She is videomakers in- the author of Vdeo Classics (Onyx, 1986) and a virtue, underground Revisited (Oxford UP, vented a distinctive style unique to the forthcoming). She will be a Fulbright Scholar at medium. Some pioneers used surveillance Moscow University during the fall. of 1992. cameras and became adept at "free- Copyright ® 1992 by D. Boyle handing" a camera because there was no

67 1992) JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 44 .1-2 (Spring-Summer 1992) JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 44 .1-2 (Spring-Summer 66 The 1970s: Alternative TV role, producing under- ised to show America what the 1960S with their dance played a key viewfinder (Teasdale). Tripods, chief information source youth and rebellion was really hand-held flu- ground video's The 1970s ushered in a new era of alterna- fixed viewpoints, were out; networking tool, Radical about. Nearly everyonewith a portapak in unique ability to and national CBS tive video. The underground became an idity was in. Video's by Beryl Korot and Phyl- New York worked on the show, but moment with instant Software (edited hopes on above-ground media phenomenon as mag- capitalize on the In addition, Raindance concentrated its resources and real-time monitoring of lis Gershuny). Abbie azine articles on the "alternative-media playback and contributed to a cultural data the Videofreex, who interviewed the era's emphasis on members conspiracy trial, guerrillas" appeared in mainstream peri- events also suited videotapes from which they col- Hoffman at the Chicago 9 product." Process art, earth bank of Hampton on tape odicals like Newsweek and New York "process, not fashioned "Media Primers,"' got Black Panther Fred art, and performance art lectively murdered, and cap- Magazine . When federal rules mandated art, conceptual of interviews, street tapes, and days before he was deemphasis on the final work collages alternative life and hot tub local origination programming and public all shared a television excerpts that explored tured scenes of emphasis on how it came to be. off-air along the California coast. access channels for most cable systems, and an nature of television and portable vid- enlightenment utopian absence of electronic editing equip- the executives eventually rejected the cable seemed to promise a new, The eo's potential as a medium for criticism CBS functioning ment-which discouraged shaping a tape 90-minute show, later titled "Subject to era of democratic information, and analysis . alternative to the Com- into a finished "product"-further en- Change," euphemisticallly finding it as a decentralized development of a "process" (Videofreex; West). mercially-driven broadcast medium . couraged the of hours of documentary tapes "ahead of its time" . Hundreds video aesthetic shot by underground groups, tapes were of media in mod- Left polemics and the drama of Aware of the centrality video shooting styles were as on New way television shapes real- The new AV format portapak appeared in The early political confrontation as well as video ern life, of the influenced by meditation tech- consciousness, video pioneers 1970, conforming to a new international much erotica. Video offered an opportunity to ity and For the like t'ai chi and drug-induced access to . Arro- standard for half-inch videotape. niques, challenge television's authority, to replace tried to gain manufac- epiphanies, as they were by existing tech- naive, they learned the hard way first time, tapes made with one often negative images of youthful protest gant and could be Aspiring to the "minimal pres- television had no intention of relin- turer's portable video equipment nology. and rebellion with the counterculture's that manufacturer's of an "absorber" of information, its power. They would have to played back on competing ence" own values and televisual reality. quishing this boost com- videomakers like Paul Ryan believed in look elsewhere for funding sources and equipment. Not only did scene to happen, trying not for theirwork, petition among video manufacturers and waiting for the outside the video scene found broader distribution outlets directing events. The fact Observers A. J. Liebling's accelerate the development, of portable to shape it by guilty of inconsistent technical forced to take seriously was relatively cheap and early tapes of the press is video, it also facilitated the exchange of that videotape Critics faulted underground video observation, "Freedom laissez-faire work as feasi- quality. those who own one." tapes, which would become even more reusable made frequently infantile, but they also guaranteed only to desirable. for being widespread once the 3/4-inch U-maticcas- ble as it was it for carrying an immediacy rare praised project marked a turning sette became available in 1972. The new Establishment TV (Aaron). The under- The "Now" video groups appeared in underground discovered its AV format, with an eyepiece that allowed Underground response to such criticism was to point as the the , but New ground's rebellious days were over. instant playback in the camera, prolifer- throughout concede there was a loss'-in technical freewheeling served as the hub of the 1960s come for an information ated across the country as more and more York City quality when compared to broadcast. Hol- The time had underground scene. Prominent early by theorists like people began to explore the medium . video had also been fixated on glossy revolution. Influenced included the Videofreex, Peo- lywood McLuhan and Buckminster collectives productions until the French "New Marshall ple's Video Theater, Global Village, and cre- Fuller, artist-activists began to plot their Wave" filmmakers in the early 1960s video was inau- Raindance Corporation. The Videofreex of utopian program to change the structure of Government funding for ated a demand for the grainy quality State Council on was the movement's preeminent produc- information in America. In the pages of gurated by the New York cinema veritd, jump-cuts, and hand-held "all-for-one" group, acting as its technological and Radical Software and in the alternative the Arts in 1970. With it, the tion camera shots. Like the vhrite filmmakers activity- aesthetic innovator; People's Video The- were movement's 1971 manifesto, Guerrilla camaraderie of early video 10 years before them, video pioneers down in the ater used live and taped feedback of em- Television, they outlined their plan to de- which had begun to break inventing a new style, and they expected dollars the year be- battled community groups as a catalyst for radical centralize television so that the medium scramble for CBS the to dazzle the networks with their into an all-out social change; Global Village initiated get sto- could be made by as well as for the people. fore-soon deteriorated approach and insider's ability to groups competed first closed-circuit video theater to show . Adopting a sharply critical relationship to funding battle as video ries unavailable to commercial television (Aaron, "Alter- underground work (followed by the Philo video, broadcast television, they determined to for their share of the pie The networks did try underground Within a year, T. Farnesworth Obelisk Theater, a project use video to create an alternative to the nate"; also see Vassi) . briefly. "video artists" the Electric Eye in California); and aesthetically bankrupt and commerciaNy sharp divisions between of surfaced. In time Raindance served as the movement's re- thousands corrupt broadcast medium . As the under- and "video activists" In the fall of 1969, CBS pumped subdivided into search and development arm. project, ground began to search for other ways of alternative videomakers of dollars into the ill-fated "Now" community video advocates portable reaching their audiences, cable TV and two factions : movement a magazine show of 16mm and producers. Since the chronicling of any that prom- video cassettes seemed to offer an answer. and guerrilla television Rain- video documentary vignettes tends to encourage its expansion,

44.1-2 (Spring-Summer 1992) .1-2 (Spring-Summer 1992) JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 44 offered a men, burdened with heavy equipment and the local level. , The People Cuba, indicative seriousness of commercial TV, never fast-paced tour of life in the video journalism thought of going. of a style of investigative that DCTV developed throughout the verite in the 1960s, guerrilla 1970s. More conventional than TVTV's Like cinema itself documentary style was op- satiric iconoclasm, DCTV modeled television's but with a posed to the authoritarian voice-of-God on television documentaries by early sound-film doc- viewpoint. For this tape, DCTV toured narrator ordained of umentaries and subsequently the model the mountains, countryside, and capital life before most made-for-television documenta- Cuba, talking with people about for interviews . Practitioners eschewed narration, and after the revolution . These ries Jon Al- substituting unconventional interviewers were linked by DCTV founder Unlike the de- and snappy graphics to provide context pert's disarming narration. seething to condescend. They tached statements of a standup reporter, witluwt registered challenged (lie objectivity of television's Alpert's high-pitched voice surprise, documentary journalism, with its superfi- irony, enthusiasm, and frequent since the revo- cial on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand pointing up improvements some deficits balancing of issues . Distinguishing them- lution without glossing over from network reporters who stood under socialism. Public television agreed selves wrap- above the crowd, video guerrillas to air the tape, but not without a loftily to stave proudly announced they were shooting around with Harrison Salisbury af- from within the crowd, subjective and off possible criticism. The wrap-around amusing contrast involved (Boyle, Return). forded an unexpected and between old-style TV journalism and televi- success with its first two docu- DCTV's contribution to guerrilla TVTV's style mentaries for cable TV attracted the inter- sion's direct, informal, advocacy est ofpublic television, and TVTV was the (Boyle, "Cuba"). first video group commissioned to produce tapes of the Years (1972)" Photo credit: work for national broadcast on public tele- One of the most talked about Douglas Kiker in TVTV's Four More two filmmakers Skip Blumberg interviews vision. New technology-notably color period was produced by Marita Sturken. electronic editing equipment, who decided to explore the potential of portapaks, the distinctive the stand-alone time base corrector- low-light video cameras to capture based group, Ant Farm, adding 4 and force. Guerrilla Television promoting the event made it possible to broadcast half-inch nighttime reality of an urban police way of producing and Police television video. And so guerrilla television revised Alan and Susan Raymond's The Although exponents of guerrilla for . viritt video, revolutionary aims into a reform move- Tapes (1976) was a disturbing video professed an interest in community (1972), TVTV's crew its police- interested in In Four More Years ment to improve broadcast television by view of ghetto crime as seen by the they were generally far more way through delegate the South and getting of 19 threaded its example. Without the radical of men of the 47th Precinct in developing the video medium Republican rallies, cock- Fort Apache. in serving a caucuses, Young the 1960s to inspire them, guerrilla televi- Bronx, better known as tapes aired on television than demonstrations, and nightly patrols, it the best tail parties, antiwar sion's producers became increasingly con- Structured around the localized constituency. Probably convention floor, captur- dramas and the was produced by the frenzy of the cerned with the politics of broadcasting. focused on 10 real-life known guerrilla television hysteria of zealots while entertain- of an above-average command- video freaks assembled ing the leadership an ad hoc group of viewers with the foibles of politicians, officer frustrated by "commanding an political conventions for ing In 1974, shortly after TVTV introduced ing in 1972 tocover the and camp followers alike. With a of occupation in the ghetto." Dis- Value Television (aka press, national audiences to guerrilla television, army cable television. Top loosely modeled on New Journalism tilled from over 40 hours ofvideotape, The hour-long, documentary style the first all-color portable video documen- TVTV) produced dedicated to making facts as vivid and Police Tapes was produced for public tele- Democratic and Republican and tary was produced by Downtown Commu- tapes of the entertaining as fiction, TVTV used a sharp vision and then reedited into an hour-long Conventions and made video his- in- nity Television Center (DCI'V) , and aired National sense of irony to puncture many an version for ABC (Boyle, "Truth"). national viewers with an on PBS. DCTV was formed as a commu- tory, providing ego. As self-proclaimed guerrillas, alternative vision ofthe Amer- flated nity video group serving New York City's iconoclastic, tackled the establishment and caught Because gueffilla television was given na- process and the media that they Lower East Side. But unlike other com- ican political off guard with the portable, nonthreat- did tional exposure on public TV, its gutsy TVTV relied on the technical and it access to munity video organizations, DCTV cover it. ening equipment that gave them issues on style influenced many documentary video expertise of groups like the Video- camera- not confine itself solely to social artistic people and places where network freex, Raindance, and the San Francisco- 71 JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 44 .1-2 (Spring-Summer 1992) .1- 2 (Spring-Summer 1992) JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 44 70 for Change, a government-sponsored ef- dized the organization's commitment to fort, pioneered the use of video as a cata- community-made media. lyst for community change in the late 1960s and served as a model for many Broadside TV was founded by Ted Carpen- U.S. experiments (McPherson). Commu- ter, a former VISTA volunteer and Ford nity video groups sprang up all across the Foundation Fellow, who had combed the United States, reflecting the regionalism backhills of Appalachia during the early "hol- of the 1970s. Some of the many groups 1970s making short documentaries or active during this time include the Alter- ler tapes" on regional issues. Carpenter nate Media Center (co-founded by George held his camera in his lap and used a moni- Stoney, former director of the Challenge tor rather than his camera viewfinder to for Change), People's Video Theater and frame a picture, allowing himto establish an Downtown Community Television Center intimate rapport with his speakers. He then (New York), Portable Channel (Roches- shared these tapes with remote neighbors, ter, NY), Urban Planning Aid (Boston), inviting them to make their own tape. Half- Marin Community Video (CA), Broadside inch video's portability, simple operation, TV (Johnson City, TN), Headwaters TV and unthreatening nature made it easy for (Whitesburg, KY), University Community people to speak their minds before the cam- Video (Minneapolis), LA Public Access, era. Carpenter's form of networking infor- People's Video (Madison, WI), Washing- mation among Appalachian mountain peo- ton (DC) Community Video Center, Vid- ple inaugurated an electronic era for oral eopolis (Chicago), and New Orleans tradition and established an important Video Access Center, to name a few. model for community documentary produc- tions ("Homegrown"). Community video advocates often differed about whether they should be producing In 1972 Carpenter went to Johnson City, tapes for broadcast or emphasizing pro- TN, where he started Broadside TV. Ap- palachia had been a prime cable market "other" to We observer_ _ cess over product by exhibiting unedited relationship o[ the, in their homes, commu- since the early 1950s. Carpenter realized motion to underscore the tapes to citizens ;din Ve1ez uses slow Perov" nity centers, or other closed-circuit envi- that Broadside TV could provide all the (1981) . Photo credKira programming-both local Mata Mayan II and several of" ronments. Many activists were leery of "narrowcast" .disbanded in 1978 and public access-demanded only for NBC, commercial tele- being co-opted by their involvment with origination the country. Not found work in From 1972-74 Broadside TV producers around af- itsmembers the Peabody- television, and their fears were well by the FCC. community video groups and film; by 1981, self-supporting community were many from vision .Tapes had be- grounded, as the experiences of at least was a uniquely television news went award-winning The police enterprise, supplying all the local fected, but as news popular TV, three early community groups testify. In video to ENG (electronic the template for the programming for four multicable systems all-film crews news come Blues and its pro-' Johnson City, Broadside TV produced the style of TV's series Hill Sweet area, narrowcasting four to six gathering) units, influ- drama ; and by 1979,: community video for , multisystem cable in the guerrilla television's wre working for ABC programming each week. Shows began to reflect style ducers independent operators who were mandated by the Fed- hours of by television, the Jon Alpert was an Appalachian studies, mountain ence. Once absorbed was DCI'V's stories for eral Communications Commission (FCC) featured guerrilla television producing investigative , regional news and and purpose of odds NightlyNews., to provide local origination programming; and bluegrass something often at Today Show and The programs, entertainment, transformed into independent NBC's in Minneapolis,' University Community public affairs For example, sports. However, the demand to with its origins. peo- Video purchased 30 minutes of broadcast and local preference for ordinary programming led Broadside videomakers' spokes- ""cu time weekly to air its half--hour documen- generate establishment Video .,tf the intimate neighbor-to- ple rather than "mock- Community taryvideo serieson local public television; away from to show up in neighbor communication originally cham- persons began like Real proponents video saw ,the,_ and the New Orleans Video Access Cen- entertainment shows of grassroots pioned by Carpenter. Programming was umentary" the end end ' ter (NOVAC) relied on the public affairs That's Incredtblel By as a means to an produced for the community, not by it. people and distinctions medium primary focuscus was! interest of a local network affiliate to get decade, many of the nity organizing. Their broadcast. Disaster struck once the federal mandate of the television video to effect social' its documentary productions guerrilla and network to se portable new group's involve- on local origination programming on cable between absorbed the experiment with a Forvarious reasons each blurred as the networks change,utno to of,. ment with television-whether cable, pub- was challenged in 1974, and Broadside lost had independent work as dismantle the structure and content of medium or Challenge: lic, or network TV-eventually jeopar- its distribution outlet and economic sup- style practitioners. TVTV, television . Canada's as some of its broadcast well unsuccessful comedy pilot after making an

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Realizing that New Orleans would not be structure. Although Broadside con- port, wired for cable for years and the local public to produce documentary tapes, its tinued television affiliate was uninterested in airing independence and vitality was seriously the New Or- extend community video productions, compromised as was its ability to (NOVAC) With ef- leans Video Access Center access to community members. for distribution producing and fund- turned to network television forts divided between documentary tapes in the mid-1970s. private and government of its raising from NOVAC staffers began producing social Broadside TV was finally forced sources, documentaries on the problems facing the close up shop in 1978 (Hilenski) . to city's low-income black population for a local network affiliate and won awards their work. With the pressure to pro- a coalition of students and for In Minneapolis, technically sophisticated and concep- video activists forged one of duce community complex documentary productions, successful video access centers tually the most NOVAC-like UCV-increasingly relied 1970s. Backed by liberal funding of the staff producers rather than community student fees, University Community on from members. NOVAC learned, as did many Video (UCV) rapidly developed into a the time, doc- other community access groups of thriving center for community-based of exploring video UCV began that once the novelty umentary production . In 1974 many community documentary series equipment wore off, producing a weekly little interest in becoming television, buying the time members had for local public . Although many residents credit: Maryann DeLeo. its critically acclaimed video producers interviews a PhWppine family for The Today Show. Photo from KTCA to air interest in using this new tool for Jon Alpert Channels (Aufderheide). expressed series Changing few had the time to develop essays and midwestern populism and a social progress, of Broadside to produce personal Influenced by required to become producers Of cess Center; Blaine Dunlap the limits of of journalistic integrity, the skills the Videofreex, et autobiographies that pushed strong tradition for broadcast (Kolker and TV; Skip Blumberg of overlapping award-winning documentary pro- documentaries DCI'V). the documentary genre. This UCV's And so the pressure to produce al.; and Jon Alpert of art and doc- guerrilla television to Alvarez). of the narrower definitions of grams married television, with its large audiences and to bridge the journalism. Changing Channels for arrived on a wave of conserva- umentary not only served broadcast possibility for influencing social The 1980s but it also reani- the best local public affairs increased threatened to undermine the ef- chasm between the two was named seduced many community access tism that inotherwise public television in 1977, but change, activists and video innovators ' mated thevideo documentary program on away from their original purpose of forts of social staffers became more and more centers decades. As young videomakers inhospitable times. as UCV facilitating people-to-people video. -- of earlier interested in producing documentaries for opted to make lucrative music videos or Velez was the first to call his nonlin- television, the organization's original in- neo-expressionist narrratives hailed by the Edin poetic documentaries "video es- tention ofmakingvideo accessible to com- art world, the documentary seemed on the ear, The 1980s: Documentary Pluralism says." In Meta Mayan II, he exaggerated munity members took a back seat. The verge of becoming an anachronism. But met the ever new the natural rhythms of the mountain Indi- pull to produce tapes that and individuals enterprising videomakers invented the standards By the late 1970s, teams continue to ans of northern Guatemala to reveal higher broadcast production collectives, a result strategies so that they could conflict for the group had replaced the early without driv- depths of an ancient culture in prompted a crisis ofpurpose patterns favoring in- address controversial subjects from the decided to cancel of changing funding conservative with a hostile world. A far cry (Sinard) . Although UCV over production groups, ing away their increasingly political concentrate on dividual "artists" distribution. Chal- realism typically employed in Changing Channels to of collectivism, and a sources of funding and H spoke in 1978, it meta- the end of an era forms for theirwork documentaries, Meta Mayan community production by many individuals to lenged to discover new into a media arts creative need felt in video produc- powerfully but symbolically. morphosed in the 1980S develop their own styles and inspired by advances ties to the univer- branch out and equipment, video- center and severed its People who had learned tion and postproduction autobiographical essay on community. What had once and subjects. two different directions, Dan Reeves's sity and local members of video collectives makers veered in experiences in fur- community and regional their craft as low- and high-tech op- his wartime been a bastion of groups began to produce responding to the the boundaries of documen- production in the 1970s had, or community available to them. ther stretched documentary documentaries for public and tions and funding His hallucinatory collage of evolved into a media arts independent tary v dep. by the 1980s, TV (for example, Greg Pratt and visual images snatched from the nationally-recognized video art- network Producers likeDan Reeves, Edin Velez, auiligi and center for Mulligan of University Community data bank of television and pop- forces besides those of televi- Jim and Victor Masayesva, Jr., to name a few, co1l~lNeT ists. Other ; Louis Alvarez, Andy Kolker, and usic was a cathartic reenactment, a influencing once thriving com- Video incorporated the aesthetic strategies of ular sion were Stevenson Palfi of New Orleans Video Ac- munity video groups . 75 1992) OF FILM AND VIDEO 44 .1-2 (SpriogSummer 44.1-2 (Spring-Summer 1992) JOURNAL JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 74

(Crowley and Blumberg). devastat- other locations burning antiwar statement, and a was the world's role in Taped when disarmament ing analysis of the mass media's public policy issue, the Dis- aggression from most discussed inculcating violence and Video Survey revealed video at . Hopi videomaker Vic- armament pas- childhood onward grassroots best, turning a frequently Jr. adapted the latest, its forum for tor Masayesva, sive medium into an active one, a video techniques to serve Emerging state-of-the-art an exchange of ideas and debate. oral tradition and culture. In politically- his age-old from a tradition of collective, Hakim Hopiit (1984), Masayesva in the late 1960s, it Itanr surre- motivated video begun effortlessly from realism to impulse of guerrilla tele- slipped up suggested the best alism, colorizing images and speeding TV and turn it back dimension that vision, to decentralize actions, creating a mythic still alive. different, to the people, was invited viewers to experience a place, and meaning. critical Hopi sense of time, Since 1981, a weekly cable program produced for the and ofthe mass media has been In contrast with the special effects in New York City by experimental public access channel symbolic language of these ofindependentvideo- stripped-down, an energeticcollective documentaries, interest in on the traditions of radical straightforward makers. Drawing low-tech portraits and Tiger Television has invented . Fred Simon's video, Paper storytelling was seen funky, home-grown video aesthetic, Veteran offered a re- its own Frank: A Vietnam demonstrating that energy, talent, modest compelling account of what it is access cable are M6, ANP~ lentlessly resources, and public Tiger Television and Deep Dish TV series "The Gulf love killing only to live long enough television. A title from a program in the Paper like to con- enough to make revolutionary Paper Tiger Television and Deep Dish TV. every bloody deed. Simon articulate critics who Crisis TV Project" (1991). Courtesy: to regret on The show's hosts are centrated the black-and-white camera ownership, hidden of analyze the corporate pragmatic, young video activists in- talking, a style that, in the hands biases of main- coverage of dissenting opinion about and Frank nothing agendas, and information cast whateverworks into their tapes. lesser person, would produce "Home Video"). As before it began, demonstrating the corporate a How- stream media (Boyle. the mixing the slick sophistication of mu- more than a banal "talking head." have moved on, they power of alternative video to reach a na- By the collective members video style with guerrilla-like coverage ever, Simon's persistence in revealing offshoots from Maine audience and fulfill a critical infor- sic tor- have set up regional tional demonstrations, by juxtaposing the deeper messages conveyed in Frank's continue to expose not need (Marcus) . of yielded a to California that mation quality of broadcast Betacarn mented eyes and strained face ideologies of the mass me- high-end only the hidden The return of guerrilla tactics and idealism with the low-tech grit of homevideo carn- forceful, moving portrait. variety of national and interna- dia but a was sparked, in part, by the widespread corders, they have appropriated the full issues. tional social availability of consumer video equipment range of production tools and aesthetics generation ofvideomak- distinctions be- Revived a satel- and by a younger and effectively rendered Guerrilla Video In 1986, Paper Tiger rented time on the political and social documentary community- ers caught up in tween low- and high-tech lite and began to transmit a new age-war in Central Amer- further democratizing the 12, 1982, an historic event boldly 250 participating issues of video obsolete, On June produced tapes to over proliferation, homelessness, opening it up for creative and the revival ofguerrilla television TV stations ica, nuclear medium and proclaimed cable systems and public dangers, reproductive . Foregoing broadcast video action. Amassive rally successful syndi- environmental political possibilities and collective around the country. The among manyothers. What the Viet- mass audiences for closed- of the United Nations Confer- TV"-the first na- rights, television and in support cation of "Deep Dish War was for the 1960s, the AIDS and public ait ss ex Disarmament was held in New of community- nam circuit distribution ence on tional public access series became for the 1980s, an issue unit- targeted audi s -~hey are City, and as a part ofthat demonstra- such as labor, crisis posure to York col- made programs on issues entire generation against an unde- to avoid thei6pa'f6jderailed independent video producers and racism-has ing an determined tion 300 housing, the farming crisis, war that claims thousands of young in th ast to interview over 3,000 individu- for alternative clared video revolutionaries laborated helped stimulate a new era eachyear. A host ofvideo collectives their views on disarmament. In in the 1990s. lives had been the '.;. ', iral.pendent als about documentary productions around these issues have prolif- Jon Alpert withminimal video aesthetics, each organized producer to succe straddle keeping in recent years, groups such as video had a standard wide-angle, head- 1990 Paper Tiger erated worlds of network T end radical interview of During the summer of DIVA-TV (Damned Interfering Video Ac- the and-shoulder shotwith no internal editing to produce a TV community video. His investigative hour-long worked with Deep Dish tivist Television), Not Channel Zero, Re- any statement allowed. Eight alternatives to war in "minidocs" for NBC's The Today Show not on teach-in on peaceful proVision, and MAC (Media Against Cen- compilations were made and shown, "The Gulf Crisis TV both criticism and praise . As one of media vans the Persian Gulf. sorship) Attack, to name a few. Eclectic won television, but closed circuit in only national broad- and in Project" offered the during the rally in New York City 77 1992) JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 44 .1-2 (Spring-Summer .1-2 (Spring-Summer 1992) JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 44 76 Guerrilla: The a Hilenski, Ski. "Mountain 1971 book which gave the movement censorship by of a Michael Life, Death and Legacy of Broadside attacks in Congress as well as name and a manifesto. Written by the few independent producers to cross recently, distor- Raindance Corporation (one of TV." Unpub. paper, n.d. TV and public television and, most Shamberg and the late BroadsideTV Pi- over from public TV to network Buchanan's presidential the first video collectives organized in "Homegrown is Fresher: tion in one of Pat Television (Holt, Rinehart and ." maintain control over his stories, Alpert out against the 1960s), Guerrilla oneers in Regional Video Programming farmers, campaign ads-has spoken equated portable video with the . brought the plight of midwestern homophobia that Winston) a techno- Appalachia April-May 1974: 2-23 heroin ad- bigotry, race-baiting, and Gutenberg press, the latest result of NBC's Odd urban squatters, and inner-city today (Riggs)- toward decentralization and Hoyt, Michael. "Jon Alpert: around characterizes America evolutionary trend Journalism Re- dicts as well as embattled citizens access to information. Man Out." Columbia nooks of main- high 1970s collective- . the globe into the breakfast time in the past 30 years has free- 3 During the 1960s and early view Sept.-Oct. 1991: 44-47 reform- At no rarely differentiated roles in . Per- stream America. AS a muckraking speech-particularly as exercised ly-produced tapes the Kolker, Andy, and Louis Alvarez but of dom of their credits. If any creditswere listed, only . er-not of broadcast television, liberals, leftists, women, gays and les- or an alphabetical, sonal interview. 30 Jan. 1984 angered by group name would be cited The Paper Ti- contemporary society-Alpert bians, people of color, and ethnic minori- list of participants . Ownership Marcus, Daniel, ed. Roar.- the left who nonhierarchical to group Activism. critics on the right and on ties-been opposed so powerfully in the of individual work was antithetical ger Television Guide to Media staging se- idealism, but by the end Television Col- insisted he was not above United States. Video activists of the 1990s process and egalitarian New York: Paper Tiger enemy" for 1970s credits had become a troubled quences and entrapping "the become true video guerrillas, waging of the over lective, 1991. staunch de- have arena as groups like TVTV split apart Challenge for dramatic effect despite NBC's subtle war of words and images to pre- . McPherson, Hugo. "A integrity (Thom- a bitter credit quarrels : Challenge fense of his journalistic serve the full expression of diversity in NFB." Access Newsletter Alpert made in is Nouvelle. 1.1 son). The Faustian bargain America today. The future of their work for ChangelSoci,4te his decision to work within the networks But its role-as ever-is clear. (Spring 1968): 2. also uncertain. . demanded certain compromises but it a weapon, and a witness. Murray, Michael. The Videotape Book millions To be a tool, Works Cited allowed him to influence not only New York: Bantam, 1975. corpo- "The - of viewers but key legislators and Reilly, John, and Stefan Moore. not have Chloe . "The Alternate-Media Film- rate execs who otherwise might Aaron, Making of 'The Irish Tapes.' " For 12 ." New York Magazine 19 134-35. had to take his messages seriously. Acknowledgment Guerrillas makers Newsletter Dec. 1971: Alpert worked as a freelance pro- Oct. 1970 : 50-53. Marlon T. "Meet the New Willie , years Video Underground." Art Riggs, for NBC's Nightly News and The to acknowledge my gratitude to . "The ." New York Times 6 March ducer I would like Arts, the may-June 1971: 74-79. Horton Show until his trip to Iraq during the New York State Council on the In America : A33. Today Memorial Founda- David. A Trumpet to Arms: 1991 Persian earned him summary John Simon Guggenheim Armstrong, David. "Television: Bringingthe Mu- the Port Washington Public Library, Media in America. Boston: Ross, dismissal. Even the dexterous ability of a tion, the for the Arts Alternative Home." May 1975:6-7. Yaddo, and the MacDowell Colony 1981 . seum seasoned video guerrilla to deal with the support 1 received in re- South End, Shamberg, Michael, and Raindance Cor- for the invaluable Pat. "The Movies." Minne- vicissitudes of commercial media proved searching and writing this essay. This is a Aufderheide, poration. Guerrilla Television. New of an essay that 25 Jan. 1974: n.p. inadequate when facing the formidable revised and updated version sota Daily York: Holt, 1971. govern- illuminating Video, edited by Doug Deirdre. "Home Video Review: Ac- opposition of a network fearful of appeared in Aperture, Boyle, Sinard, Craig. "Television and Public unpopular Hall and Sally Jo Fifer (New York: Tiger Television." Cineaste 14.2 U,1979. ntent reprisals for broadcasting version of that essay in Paper cess." Unpub. thesis, Iowa State 1991). An abridged 46. . 18 images of a popular war (Hoyt). form was delivered at the Soviet- (1985) : Teasdale, Parry. Personal interview lecture Riga, Latvia in Return of Guerrilla Television : A American Flaherty Seminar in . April 1984. 1990 . Retrospective. New York: Inter- Home September TVlV Thomson, Patricia. "Under Fire on the Center of Photography, 1986. The 1990s: Future Uncertain national Front."Afterimage April 1987: 8-10. . "Truth or Verisimilitude? Evolu- Radical Vassi, Marco. "Zen Tubes." America of the Raymonds." Sightlines Support for in tion Software 1 (Summer 1970): 18. under fire 1981-82): 4-5. (Skip is at a new low as all art comes Notes (Winter Videofreex. Personal interviews to elim- . "Cuba: The People ." Video Clas- David Cort, 9 from conservative forces anxious his- Blumberg, 22 April 1983; I differentiating various phases of this to Video ArtandDocumen- funding for the arts and dismantle In terms sics. A Guide Nov. 1983; Davidson Gigliotti, 1983; inate tory, I have taken the liberty of assigning Phoenix: Oryx, 1986. 28-30. public broadcasting. Alternative video- which were not used so tary Tapes. Carol Vontobel and Parry Teasdale, 18 to certain periods Television: The Business Be- makers have come under special attack exclusively at the time. For example, alterna- Brown, Les. April 1984; Ann Woodward, 10 April and grass- New York: Harcourt,1971. right-wing legislators like Senator tive television, guerrilla television, hind the Bar. 1984). from were often used simultaneously, Russell. "Rebuttal: Up With 21 Jesse Helms and Republican presidential roots video cyber- Connor, West, Don. CBS. Personal interview. But and underground video was also called .' " Soho Weekly News 20 candidate Pat Buchanan, among others. warfare. In order to iden- 'Irish Tapes May 1984. netic guerrilla video : n.p. Schnei- in the face of such opposition articulate track rapidly evolving styles and goals, Dec. 1973 Yalkut, Jud. "FrankGillette and Ira Marlon tify and such diver- Megan, and Skip Blumberg- Radi- voices continue to be heard. and to avoid the many confusions Crowley, der, Parts I & II of an Interview." essay on these distinctions, however 'Disarmament Video Survey' Project . Riggs-whose extraordinary video gent workpresents, cal Software 1 (Summer 1970): 9-10 Untied arbitrary, are employed. ." Press release, 1982. being black and gay, Tongues was the title Report numerous The term "guerrilla television" (1989), has been the target of .1-2 (Spring-Summer 1992) JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 44 44 .1-2 (Spring-Summer 1992) JOURNAL OF FILM AND VIDEO 78