Center for Social Media: Events
Center for Social Media: Events
Jon Else, series producer and cinematographer for Henry Hampton’s Eyes on the Prize, noted, “Eyes on the Prize is no longer available for purchase. It is virtually the only audio-visual purveyor of the history of the civil rights movement in America. What happened was the series was done cheaply and had a terrible fundraising problem. There was barely enough to purchase a minimum five year rights on the archive heavy footage. Each episode in the series is 50% archival. And most of the archive shots are derived from commercial sources. The five year licenses expired and the company that made the film also expired. And now we have a situation where we have this series for which there are no rights licenses. Eyes on the Prize cannot be broadcast on any TV venue anywhere, nor can it be sold. Whatever threadbare copies are available in universities around the country are the only ones that will ever exist. It will cost $500,000 to re-up all the rights for this film. This is a piece of landmark TV history that has vanished.”
I remember this from my younger days. Here is something I desperately want my child to see, to understand, and it is not available to show her and may never be. This is precisely why I have such a problem with the permissions culture springing up the way it has. I mean, think about it. Nothing from my childhood - or even my parent’s childhood; in some cases my grandparent’s childhood - is available for drawing upon creatively; it all must be cleared by lawyers and rights holders. No wonder television is a cultural wasteland.