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Getting Real NOW
Workshop

Workshop with Spectres: Case Studies in Countercultural Democracy

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PT

  • Headshot of an adult with long dark hair wearing a white T, black blazer and silver necklace.
    Alice Henty, Speaker
  • headshot of an adult male with a medium-light skin tone, wearing a white sweater, standing in front of a grid painting featuring bright red, yellow, blue, and black colors.
    lyric r cabral, Speaker
  • Headshot of middle-aged male, slavic with long hair, white background
    Nicholas Pilarski, Moderator
  • Cartoon drawing of a woman with light skin, curly brown hair, and black glasses, wearing a blue shirt.
    Yael Grauer, Speaker
  • Headshot of a woman with light skin tone, blonde chin-length hair, wearing a black and white floral shirt.
    Sally Volkmann, Moderator
Scrabble letters write Case Study on top of a notebook standing on a table

As our everyday lives become progressively computational, the majority of our actions are increasingly trackable. This presents new challenges, ethical concerns, and emerging production realities that documentary practitioners must navigate. SPECTRES is a two part forum with documentary producers, directors, academics, and security experts that attempts to demystify digital security and its need within documentary production. This series will culminate in a best practices field guide for documentarians and a burner OS that allows makers to ingest, edit, and communicate securely, which will be published in 2024.

In part one of this series, Spectres: Case Studies in Countercultural Democracy, we will look at how outside interests tend to target documentary teams (particularly those from historically disenfranchised communities), why it is important to conduct proper digital hygiene to safeguard yourself and the first steps you might take to quickly and easily protect your filmmaking practice. This session will spotlight filmmakers who will speak about their role on seminal works in documentary history that relate to data security. For example, topics could include ethical implications that documentarians knowingly or unknowingly engage in when making work in the age of artificial intelligence and machine learning, as well as lessons learned in the field that filmmakers wish they knew before engaging in production. Attention will also be spent looking at tools that could have been used to avoid historic missteps.

This event will include a 30-minute workshop of a project where experts will analyze a production and think through how producers might establish better protocols to keep their documentary workflow safe. In order to be considered for this portion of the event, please fill out this additional form.

The event will be moderated by documentary editor, Sally Volkmann whose team experienced significant state surveillance during production on the film Icarus; and Nicholas Pilarski a documentary director and Associate Professor of Emerging Media who runs a laboratory at ASU that investigates resilient computational media and ethical narrative practices.

The event will require registration and will be recorded for internal purposes only. If you have any serious security concerns, we recommend you to please log in on a dummy Zoom account for an anonymous location. Identity-defining data will not be collected by IDA. Filmmakers with projects at any stage are encouraged to attend.

Event Participants

    Headshot of an adult with long dark hair wearing a white T, black blazer and silver necklace.

    Alice Henty

    Award-winning producer whose career started with the Oscar-winning One Day in September [2000]. Most recently, she produced Victim/Suspect with CIR and Motto Pictures, which premiered at Sundance 2023 and is now streaming on Netflix, and she is a Consulting Producer on Queendom, which premiered at SXSW 2023 and won a Jury Prize at CPH:Dox. She was the lead producer on Welcome to Chechnya [HBO] with David France, which won prizes at Sundance, Berlinale, and countless other festivals, before going on to win producing awards at DOC NYC and Cinema Eye as well as a BAFTA, Peabody and Grierson Awards. Prior to that she produced The Work [The Orchard/Topic], which won the Grand Jury prize at SXSW 2017, the Audience Award at Sheffield and was a Gotham Award nominee. Previous credits include Skyladder, Happy Valley, Citizen Koch, Beware of Mr. Baker, Buck and The Tillman Story. She is currently producing two feature documentaries with first-time directors and developing a series with David France. She is a Sundance Creative Producing Fellow, an active member of the DPA and an Academy member [doc branch].

    headshot of an adult male with a medium-light skin tone, wearing a white sweater, standing in front of a grid painting featuring bright red, yellow, blue, and black colors.

    lyric r cabral

    lyric r cabral (he/they) is an award-winning film director and multidisciplinary artist who works across nonfiction film, photography, and animation. the artist intentionally centers trauma-informed care in the filmmaking process to create space for protagonists' healing and self-discovery. lyric's directorial debut (T)ERROR was awarded an Emmy for Outstanding Investigative Documentary (2016) and received a Breakout First Feature Award from the Sundance Film Festival. his films have appeared on platforms including Netflix, VICE, PBS, and BBC. The artist has exhibited at spaces including the Studio Museum of Harlem, New Orleans Museum of Art, MOMA PS1, Gordon Parks Foundation, and the International Center of Photography. His work has received generous support from Field of Vision, Sundance Institute, Tribeca Film Institute, BBC Storyville, ITVS. lyric currently resides in Los Angeles, CA and is represented by CAA for film and television.

    Headshot of middle-aged male, slavic with long hair, white background

    Nicholas Pilarski

    Nicholas Pilarski is an Associate Professor at ASU and a Senior Global Futures Scientist, focusing on XR and spatial computing within the realm of media. With a deep passion for co-creating content that sheds light on historicized poverty and class dynamics, he believes in making media that genuinely represents communities rather than just portraying them. Notably, he has been recognized as one of the "25 New Faces of Cinema" by Filmmaker Magazine. Pilarski's methodology has been featured at the MIT Co-Creation Studio and is a Co-Director of ASU's RV-CoLab, emphasizing community visioning and security. He has advised the Mayor's Office of the City of New York on media policy for societal betterment and economic mobility and his work has been showcased on platforms such as The New York Times, museums like the MoMA, and various global film festivals for his documentary work.

    Cartoon drawing of a woman with light skin, curly brown hair, and black glasses, wearing a blue shirt.

    Yael Grauer

    Yael is an investigative tech reporter covering privacy and security, digital freedom, hacking, and mass surveillance. She currently works at Consumer Reports managing Security Planner, a free, easy-to-use guide to staying safer online. She has also freelanced for over a decade, with bylines at Ars Technica, Insider, Slate, The Intercept, OneZero, Popular Science, Vice, Wirecutter, WIRED, and other publications. Yael holds an undergraduate degree in Social Sciences from Shimer College and a masters degree in journalism from the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication at Arizona State University, but she is a bit shaky behind the camera. Yael lives in Phoenix with her husband and their adorable rescue chiweenie. In her spare time, Yael enjoys hiking, cooking, playing folk guitar, drinking fancy cocktails, reading academic research, playing puzzle games, lifting heavy things, and going to hacking conferences. Find her at yaelwrites.com.

    Headshot of a woman with light skin tone, blonde chin-length hair, wearing a black and white floral shirt.

    Sally Volkmann

    Sally Volkmann (she/her) is an artist and documentary filmmaker. She is drawn to intimate, character-driven narratives, non-linear storytelling and the rich texture of archival. Her work reflects her interests in climate solutions, social justice, and the creative process.

    Sally has contributed to the documentary community as a Jury Member for the IDA Awards; Contributing Editor at the Sundance Documentary Edit & Story Lab; Emerging Editor Fellow in the Karen Schmeer Diversity in the Edit Room Program; and served on the Steering Committee of the Alliance of Documentary Editors (ADE). 

    Called to Create: Black Artists of the American South – a collaboration with the National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC – is her latest project in the arts. This five-screen immersive video installation was the first of its kind for the gallery. The projections placed the exhibit pieces in their original contexts and allowed the artists to tell their own stories.

    For more information on current projects visit sallyvolkmann.com