The PBS ‘American Experience’ documentary Earth Days: Seeds of a Revolution will screen on Facebook on April 11, at 8 p.m. EST. This will be the first time that a major broadcaster has introduced a feature-length documentary on the social networking site, say PBS executives.
The 102-minute documentary, from award-winning director Robert Stone (Oswald's Ghost, Geurilla: The Taking of Patty Hearst), chronicles the origins of the American environmental movement, from its beginnings in the 1950s, to the first Earth Day in 1970 and to its status as a significant political force in the United States today.
The film draws heavily on archive footage and the eyewitness accounts of nine of the movement’s key figures. These include Stewart Udall, who passed clean air, clean water and wildlife preservation acts during his tenure as secretary of the interior from 1961-1969, Population Bomb author Paul Ehrlich, biologist and Whole Earth Catalog founder Stewart Brand, Apollo Nine astronaut Rusty Schweickart and renewable energy pioneer Hunter Lovins.
Real-time Interaction with Movie Director
Earth Days was the closing-night film at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival and has been playing in select movie theatres across the United States for the past year. Following its Facebook debut, Earth Days will have its PBS premiere on April 19 at 9 p.m. EST. This is three days before the 2010 Earth Day, which celebrates its 40th anniversary this year.
Robert Stone and ‘American Experience’ executive producer Mark Samels will be online during the screening. Viewers will be able to interact with them in real-time as well as posting questions or comments. Users can decide whether these are visible only to their friends or all of those watching the film.
Using Non-traditional Media to Engage with New Audience
In an interview with the New York Times, Samels called the Facebook screening an experiment and an “opportunity…to engage with a new audience, an audience that we may not be bringing to PBS Monday nights at 9 o’clock.”
The approach is a smart way of making traditional media available to a wider audience through non-traditional channels. While PBS might be the first broadcaster to try this approach through Facebook, French photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand demonstrated the power of social media when he premiered his first film, HOME, on YouTube last June.
Over 3,000 Facebook users have so far confirmed they will be attending the online screening, but many more may turn up on the night. An average of four million viewers tunes in to each ‘American Experience’ episode. It will be interesting to see how the online numbers for Earth Days compare.
Cecily Layzell - Cecily Layzell is a food and travel writer and founder of restaurant review site www.eat-amsterdam.com.
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