Out of all the selections in tomorrow night’s UW showcase at the Central Library (which is FREE by the way), Erik Sateren’s documentary short feels the most prescient. That’s because its subject matter, the fatal shooting of Tony Robinson and its ensuing fallout, is still being debated and processed by Madison and the nation at large.
The result of a final semester course project (Journalism 475: Long-form Video Journalism), Ferguson to Madison: The Tony Robinson Shooting and Its Aftermath begins with President Obama’s address following the Grand Jury Ferguson decision before bringing its focus closer to home. The film moves from Madison’s biggest protest which began on the east side to a community meeting with lawn enforcement to a candlelight vigil for Robinson. A former editor at The Badger Herald, Sateren compiles footage from students and his fellow journalists in a stark “on the ground” narrative of anger, frustration and sadness.
Sateren, who graduated this past May, recently moved to Brooklyn. I followed up with him over the phone to talk about keeping his motives straight and showing emotion objectively:
Obviously the Tony Robinson shooting has become an important issue. Either as a journalist or a filmmaker, when did this become an “oh shit” moment for you?
Originally, I had wanted to do a documentary on the issue of heroin use in Madison. That’s something we’re generally removed from in the safety bubble that is UW. But going into March, I didn’t have any sources or any footage and on that Friday [March 6], I had heard about what was going on downtown. I was out with some friends but I felt this pull to get there, not really knowing what to expect. I pulled out my iPhone and just started filming. I got pictures of cousins grieving, a grandmother shouting at the police, Paul Soglin offering words of comfort to family members. And it just truck me: this is a much more pertinent issue in Madison. It was definitely from a journalistic standpoint.
You credit a number of students and journalists in this. What portion of “on the ground” footage was shot by you?
A pretty small amount, actually. I wasn’t able to make it to the community meeting and in the candlelight vigil, my footage didn’t look good. But I worked at The Herald for a couple of years so I had friends with hours worth of footage.
It’s generally an objective film. I don’t inject my own opinion. There’s no voiceover. I wanted the images to speak for themselves so I tried to edit them in a way that, regardless of what you think about this, made it clear we’re losing human lives and we’re dramatically losing more black lives than we are white lives.
You open with Obama’s address following the Grand Jury’s decision on Ferguson. When you were editing, did you set out to tell a narrative chronologically?
This is something I learned from Aaron Granat, and it’s become my approach to editing documentaries since. I lay out all of my material and go through it second-by-second. This person says this here. This person makes an interesting expression here. Just any sort of marker that can turn those clips into something that makes sense from a narrative standpoint and give maximum emotional effect. It transpires somewhat chronologically. At one point, there’s a montage of people shouting, but I wanted to embed an idea in the viewer’s mind. These are swarms of people just crying this boy’s name and then you cut to a scene in which a woman from the community is attesting to how powerful our children are. You find little moments that can link sequences together.
You take a hands off approach in your storytelling that allows for the community to speak for itself. Was there any of footage of law enforcement?
I didn’t have any of police speaking, and ultimately if I did, I wouldn’t want to use it anyway. I was focusing on the victims of the community and how they face a tragedy. While police are certainly members of the community, part of the reason this problem exists is that there’s such a divide between people, especially people of color, and the police. If I were to inject the voice of a police officer, it would be counterproductive to what I was trying to say. The few reaction shots of law enforcement I use were to establish the space of the room as opposed to giving their perspective, and I deliberately chose shots of them that had as little facial expression as possible so you couldn’t possibly read any motives into an eye twitch or whatever. That wasn’t my goal.
There’s a sea of names of victims at the end that’s powerful and really staggering. Where’d that idea come from?
While I was researching for this, I became interested in how many shootings of unarmed black men there have been in recent years. It’s receiving a ton of attention in the news now. An unarmed black man can’t be killed in the United States without there being a media outcry, but this isn’t a new issue. It’s actually very difficult to find statistics because it’s not like the police necessarily issue information about whether a victim was unarmed or black. The NAACP released names of unarmed men of color who have been killed since the year 2000, but you look at it and there’s one name in 2000, one in 2001. It’s not until 2010 you see many more dying for this same reason. No matter how you feel about this from a political standpoint, you can’t deny that when this happens, someone is dying. No matter what mistake that person made, it’s not worth the life being taken away. It affects family members, it affects friends, it affects the community.
What has the reaction been from those who have seen it?
Outside of class, there was a very small viewing put on by my professor. People who have seen it seem kind of stunned. I know my professor was very proud of it and showed it last because she wanted that to be the final note we went out on.
What’s next for you now that you’re in Brooklyn?
I don’t actually know. I just got here today. I’d like to do something at the crossroads of journalism and filmmaking but I’d be happy doing either. This is the first step.
- Ferguson to Madison: The Tony Robinson Shooting and Its Aftermath will play as part of the UW Showcase this Thursday night. The program begins at 6:30p in Rm 302 of the Central Library. Admission is FREE and open to the public.