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Author:
Judith James
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Judith is the editor-in-chief of TRACTION and a film, stage and television producer who is in a film partnership with Richard Dreyfuss at Dreyfuss/James Productions and a theater partnership with Camille Cosby.
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Judith James is a film, stage and television producer who is in a film partnership with Richard Dreyfuss at Dreyfuss/James Productions.
Originally a New York theatrical producer of 11 award winning plays, her first television production was the Emmy winning "IN HER OWN WORDS" for KCET and American Playhouse and the Mark Taper Forum .
Her film credits include an executive producer of QUIZ SHOW, a producer of MR. HOLLAND?S OPUS, producer of TRIGGER HAPPY starring Dreyfuss, Jeff Goldblum, Gabriel Byrne and Ellen Barkin, and movies for HBO, TNT, ABC and CBS. In addition she has served as consulting producer on Mr. Dreyfuss? films.
In a theatrical partnership with Camille Cosby, Judith also produced the Broadway play of HAVING OUR SAY; The Delany Sisters? First 100 Years by Emily Mann, subsequent tours and the movie version, directed by Lynne Littman, for CBS, starring Ruby Dee and Diahann Carroll. HAVING OUR SAY received the coveted Peabody Award for Excellence in Broadcast Journalism.
In January 2006, she wrapped principal photography on the thriller, THE FOREST, which she produced in India in the foothills of the Himalayas. It is by writer/director Ashvin Kumar, an Academy Award nominee for a short film last year.
She is presently developing a Broadway musical on Pearl Bailey RAW PEARL with Bill and Camille Cosby and, with Viva Productions, readying the independent film, DAYS OF FEAR to star Woody Harrelson to shoot in South Africa.
In January 2005, Ms. James was instrumental in securing and constructing for WOMEN IN FILM an alliance with General Motors under which GM has supported a myriad of WIF programs and events for 3 years ending 2007.
She is the editor-in-chief of TRACTION.
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Issue #3The panel discussion was a fascinating study of a new phase in social-issue filmmaking.
Documentary-as-a-marketing-tool for an issue is more determined than documentaries have traditionally been and using Hollywood’s best tool bag to do that is the new part of it. To craft the film and marketing plan simultaneously was the model the filmmaker and activist panelists discussed. Their far-reaching intention was to draw millions into the theaters who could then make a difference to the issue. In a market shaped, driven and determined by profit, “the gross’ here isn’t just the means by which to recoup the cost of production (though immensely necessary if distributors are going to allow themselves to care enough to do more of these films), it’s an indication of success of another, more passionate sort. Constantly aware of the double-edge of the crusading sword, many things were discussed – building an emotional and informative film first, of course, but equally important to the filmmakers and activist panelists was building the film as fodder for urgently grabbing and demanding the audience’s attention, driving them to the theater through celebrity activism, strategic partnerships, social networking and politicizing. As they themselves noted, do that mix well and you have the power to inform and you create the will to act. Do it unsuccessfully and, in a situation where the film and marketing the issue are inexorably connected, you don’t have a change agent.
Sometimes films as change agents simply appear. But as activists have experienced, they don’t always get out “wide” and are only an incremental cog in the activism around an issue. Lynne Littman’s review of THE DEVIL CAME ON HORSEBACK, also about the situation on the ground in Darfur, discusses a ‘traditional’ documentary that tears at your heart and it’s call-to-action depends solely on word of mouth.
The passionate creation of a documentary and the passionate creating of a documentary as the centerpiece of a social action campaign are valid subjects for students of the documentary as a form and for activists who desperately want a platform. I hope they'll be subjects for discussion here.
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