In the summer of 1991 Bruce Orenstein made a video that played on all the local news shows, and for a few days he knew how it must feel to be David Gergen.
“This is not art and it’s not journalism–it’s video organizing,” says Orenstein. “I use video technology the same way corporations do. But while they use it to advance their monied interests, we’re using it for social change. That’s what this is all about. I’m interested in using video to bring about changes that improve people’s lives.”
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“I learned early on most of the basic tools of organizing,” says Orenstein. “You have to know how to frame an issue. You have to personalize an issue. . . . You have to have legitimate goals that can be reached. People have to see a reward for their efforts.”
Backed by funding from several local foundations and working out of his house, Orenstein began the Chicago Video Project in the spring of 1991. His first project was for the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, better known as ACORN, a group with branches in Englewood and Lawndale.
The remainder of the tape identifies the city as the target for blame. “The city’s response has always been that they are doing the best they can but there are so many cases and so few lawyers and so on and so forth,” says Orenstein. “I’m sorry, but that has never been a satisfactory answer to the families trying to raise children across the street from one of these buildings.”
“We still have to tell a story, we still have to make the issue clear,” says Woods, who used to work as a producer for a PBS affiliate in San Francisco. “If I were doing the ACORN piece for PBS I’d include more comments from the city officials. My bottom line would be that the situation regarding abandoned buildings is awful and something should be done about it. But there [would be] no guarantee that something was going to happen. Here we sit down from the beginning and work with a group to figure out what will happen as a result of our piece.”
It cost about $7,000 each to produce the ACORN and Henry Horner pieces. Most production costs are underwritten by grants the project receives from philanthropies such as the John D. & Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the Wieboldt Foundation. Orenstein now operates the project out of an office in a renovated Goose Island factory. Lately he’s gotten a bit more daring with his productions, particularly in his use of background music.
