NYSCA 1972-73

Staff
Film, TV/Media, Literature Program
Peter Bradley, Program Director
Film: Barbara Haspiel, Program Associate; Maralin Bennici, Program Representative
TV/Media: Russell Connor, Program Associate (succeeded by Gilbert Konishi); Lydia Silman, Program Assistant

NYSCA 1972-73

Staff Film, TV/Media, Literature Program Peter Bradley, Program Director Film: Barbara Haspiel, Program Associate; Maralin Bennici, Program Representative TV/Media: Russell Connor, Program Associate (succeeded by Gilbert Konishi); Lydia Silman, Program Assistant

Both film and television are regularly cited for dynamic breadth of vision, but they are just as often damned with charges of sameness and vacuity. Rarely are the full dimensions of either medium presented to the public on a regular basis. In New YorkState, however, the diversity of film showings and television programming grew demonstrably broader in 1972-73 as vital Council support continued to an impressive variety of sponsors. In the last few years, as its resources have grown, the Council has sought to encourage the showing of new independent films. It has also bolstered theatrical films of artistic interest that were considered weak at the commercial box-office or were characterized as worn out after willy-nilly first runs. Its programs have continuously worked for recognition of cinematic achievement from the origins of the motion picture to the present. At the same time, the Council has sought to encourage research, experimentation, and production in the newer medium of television, most recently in portable television or video, as it almost universally has come to be called. It is too early to say precisely what the art of video comprises, but the Council has been a positive supporter of the search to find out. As support for film and television has grown, so, too, has the Council's commitment to literature, and its involvement with writing has been comparably varied. The cost of a writer's tools is obviously much less than the cost of film and video equipment; but if writers' and filmmakers' needs are dissimilar in this regard, they do share one major concern in the dissemination of their work. In grants for literature the Council has placed particular emphasis on alleviating this problem. These positive trends and the fact that the EmpireState leads the nation in its assistance to creative communications activities notwithstanding, disheartening facts abound. Virtually all the best-known independent film artists are unable to support themselves on revenues from their films and must earn a dependable living from teaching or other endeavors that keep them from their chosen work. Most writers live out the same grim pattern. Theatres that consistently show films which differ from standard commercial fare depend on subsidy for theirprograms and would have to shut down without it. The pleas of public television stations for membership support seem to grow more plaintive or more strident with each passing year. Independent video artists and video groups carry on at subsistence levels out of commitment to an ideal. The resources available to lessen these compelling needs are simply inadequate. The Council continuously faces the dilemma of having too little to give to too many, and one wonders - in the continued paucity of support from the private sector - if it is a dilemma that must always be with us. The 1972-73 grants for film, TV/media, and literature are impressive in their variety, but it is well to remember that in all cases the amounts granted fall far short of actual needs. Programs are invariably carried out in a context of compromise and cutback, and the cutting is most strenuous in the region of recompense for artists. The listing of film and TV/media grants for 1972-73 will lookfamiliar to regular readers of these reports, but it may be useful to call attention to some categories of assistance. In film, for example, the Council gave support to twenty-five filmmaking workshops spanning the State and all the diversity of its citizens - male, female, young, old, black, white, red, yellow, and brown. There were six grants to film festivals, ranging from the preeminent New York Film Festival to that of the self-characterized Movies On A Shoestring. Finally, there was assistance for a variety of thoughtfully planned film series shown in twenty-two communities. In television, a categorical approach to the grants made in 1972-73 shows support given to eight public television stations for experimentation by artists working in electronic space, twelve grants in support of resource centers where the tools of TV are made accessible to the public and to artists, and twelve for production of TV works to be disseminated by broadcast or cable television. A major experimental grant to the Planning Corporation for the Arts supported a thirteen-week video series of two-hour arts programs. Aired seven nights weekly over a New York City municipal channel, the series constitutes a new instance of cooperation involving city-owned technical facilities and state-provided programming funds. It also demonstrates the use of half-inch tape and other inexpensive video equipment and techniques. An overall scan of literature grants shows that they were awarded for three principal purposes: public readings by poets and writers; workshops and teacher-training programs led by poets and writers; and publication and distribution of contemporary literature. It is significant that more than fifty-two organizations applied for aid in literature in 1973-74-twenty more than the previous year.