Studio

Project Spotlight: From 0 to 90

4/20/2009 at 12:18 PM by Amy Allen

From 0 to 90 is a feature length documentary currently being produced by Melissa Ulto. Melissa, who is also an accomplished video artist and photographer, has been making films since the early 90's, and is well versed in its nonfiction form. From 0 to 90, which is being produced by Melissa's production company, 1 Line Media, aims to detail the first 90 days that President Obama occupies the highest office in the land, and is unique in that every interview has been sourced through social networks - Facebook, Myspace, Craigslist, this site and others. Since its focus is on real people, everybody from every walk of life is invited and encouraged to participate, in front of or behind the camera. The doc plans to pull interviews and thoughts from various sources - video cameras, web cams, still images - to create an "extraordinary documentation of how change occurred." We caught up with Melissa to talk more about the nitty gritty of her project.

You call yourself a "filmmaker, artist and social networker." How would you define a social networker?
Melissa: To me, a social networker is someone who utilizes their connections – close or far – through technology and face to face interaction. It's someone who isn’t afraid to reach out, engage, dialogue with people of any stripe. Someone who is endlessly curious about the tangents conversations and chance encounters can create. For this documentary “From 0 to 90”, most of my interviews have come through social networking – Facebook, Twitter, Friendster, Tribe Hollywood, etc. And the rest came from me and my crew directly asking strangers on the street, in parks, anywhere public, to voice their opinions.

What made you decide to make a documentary on this subject? To approach it from this angle?
Melissa: I decided to do this documentary in the early fall of 2008, when it became clear Obama might win. I had been covering Obama from a hip hop perspective since fall 2007, had a couple video pieces on Huffington Post, and seeing his surge in popularity, and the hip hop response to it, was interesting – a tension of disbelief and suspicion to hope and possibility. I felt the weight of this history being made live, or RT as the social networking world likes to put it. I thought it would be terribly wasteful if I had not taken this opportunity, as a media maker, to record and organize it into a historical slice of life. I decided to approach the doc from a collaborative, social networking effort as a direct reflection of our times and of Obama’s campaign – understanding and use of the social networks put Obama ahead of every candidate in regards to direct communication with supporters and voters.

Will the entire doc consist of these self-made interviews? Will other footage be included?
Melissa: The doc will consist of self made submissions, independent filmmaker submissions (worldwide) doing interviews on behalf of the doc, interviews by myself and my crew in NYC, animations, short films, music and images made by creatives and regular people. Students, seniors, all races, right, left, apathetic, and any point in between is included in the doc.

Have you started editing?
Melissa: Yes, we’ve started logging and capturing the footage, and each day presents new material to work with in regards to the structure.

What is your editing strategy?
Melissa: It's going to be a conversation between all sides on each point I raise. Yes, interviewers will disagree, and the media presentation will contrast with the perspective of regular folks. In order to tell a story, I have to understand what the overall story is that each interview presented me with. And overall, pro or con, the story is fear of the economy and government, along with hope for change. Whether that change is constructive or destructive, that’s where the politics come in. We ARE going to change as a country, there’s no doubt, but how that change will be executed and received, is what I’m interested in covering. Were the Tea Party Protests knee jerk and astroturf or real anger and fear rearing its head in any way it can? Will Obama’s oversea visits endear us to the world again or were Sarkozi’s recent comments the rumbling undertone of G20 relations? What is the 30,000 foot perspective of the last 90 days and how will it inform the next few years? These are questions I have to ask myself as I organize and cut. Giving clarity to them and telling that story, within the chronology of 90 days, will be an interesting challenge.

Everybody will be submitting on different formats; how will you make the doc appear seamless when it plays in its entirety?
Melissa: You need to unify the footage either in style or in storytelling. If the comments from one speaker to next fit well, echo or contrast, and most of all engage, unifying the look of the footage is a minor concern. Storytelling is paramount, and when done well, you can do it with shadow puppets and a sheet. Some tricks, especially for non-HD footage in an HD footage timeline, is to place the footage, smaller, in a frame of some sort. That way, you are not stretching out the pixels and highlighting the change in format. Other tricks include using color tones (sepia, black and white, tint of a color), to unify a look.

What do you plan to do with the doc when you're done? Festivals? Something else?
Melissa: I definitely plan to submit this film to festivals, and I would like to get it on air. I think it's definitely possible because these aren't glib, short interviews. These are long, thoughtful sit downs, in most cases, with really incredible people, who had real issues and concerns, as well as deeply emotional reactions to a president that reflects their reality. And I plan to put a lot of the extra footage, (over 90 interviews so far from over 10 countries), online for people who want to see more of the interviews. I also want to submit the footage to President Obama’s eventual library as an archive of the times. I’m sure it would be well taken care of and useful for generations of people interested in how the change over was received.

Melissa Ulto

From 0 to 90 - Obama's first 90 days Documentary