NEIGHBORHOOD COURT

This series of fictionalized narratives will deal with the authentically chaotic criminal justice system in San Francisco and what our highly regarded District Attorney, George Gascón, has undertaken to discourage the endemic criminal violations that impact our city’s neighborhoods. His pilot program, called Neighborhood Court, was announced during the spring of 2011 and is now well on its way of making a difference in our lives. As a restorative justice program, Neighborhood Courts will strengthen communities undermined by criminal activity. That is Gascón’s ambitious goal.

In the coming weeks and months, I will approach the entire subject of Restorative Justice, by describing:

• The offenders who commit the infractions (sometimes called petty offenses) and the misdemeanors (criminal offense that is less serious than a felony and more serious than an infraction).

• The victims and what the system can do to repair the harm done to them, including issues material, financial, emotional and social.

• The community represented by trained volunteers brought together under compelling circumstances, each seeking in a selfless way to play a role in reinventing as broken judicial system.

To prepare for this task I have positioned myself as an unofficial embed inside the District Attorney’s Neighborhood Court Program as an Adjudicator. I have willingly signed a legal document called a Code of Conduct Agreement that prohibits me from disclosing any confidential information received in the course of my service to Neighborhood Court or employing such confidential information for personal gain. It is my intention to report only my experience as a panelist in ways that intentionally promote public confidence in the integrity of the Neighborhood Court process. That is my tact because it is the truth. Let’s get started, shall we?

Restorative Justice?
Another damn starry-eyed Progressive crusade? Not so fast. I suggest that you had better pay attention. It could very well affect your life, the lives of your children and the lives of your children’s children.

What first caught my attention about the program was the compelling fact that restorative justice has been used by indigenous populations going way back to a time of Native American “sentencing circles” and prehistoric Maori justice in New Zealand. Not matter what it is now called, it is a modern development that assumes that if low-level crimes, such as taxi fare evasion, shoplifting, or selling tobacco to a minor, could be handled in the neighborhood where the violations happened, a different result would be achieved. Instead of going to criminal court for these kinds of “life misdemeanors” the cited offenders are offered a chance to come to an agreement with a "neighborhood court." By simply admitting responsibility, the cited individuals are sent to a panel of community members who listen to his story and sentence him to some kind of "restorative justice," such as cleaning up graffiti or writing a letter of apology. Once he completes the assignment, his record for the offense will be cleared. Hooked yet? Please stay tuned.

# #

THE MAKING OF "CROSSING THE BAR"

WELCOME TO MY MOST AMBITIOUS WEEKLY BLOG TO DATE. PREVIOUSLY I HAVE ONLY TOLD FICTIONALIZED STORIES ABOUT PEOPLE BROUGHT TOGETHER UNDER COMPELLING CIRCUMSTANCES AND SEEKING TO REINVENT THEMSELVES. THIS TIME I OFFER A TRUE ACCOUNT OF THE TENACIOUS, CREATIVE AND DIFFICULT WORK REQUIRED OF A WRITER-PRODUCER IN ORDER TO GET HIS INDEPENDENT, FEATURE-LENGTH FILM MADE AND SHOWN TO AN INTERNATIONAL AUDIENCE. THE BLOG WILL DEMONSTRATE HOW ONE CREATES SOMETHING OUT OF NOTHING - OR BUST.

IN THE BLOG THE FILM IS THE PROTAGONIST. THE STORY I WILL TELL IS ACTUALLY TWO STORIES IN ONE: THE STORY OF WHAT HAPPENED AND THE STORY OF WHAT APPEARS TO HAVE HAPPENED. IN THE FILM, AIMEE'S STORY IS ABOUT THE INFLUENTIAL ROLE SHE PLAYED DURING THE TWENTIETH CENTURY'S "SECOND-WAVE" EXPANSION OF THE FEMINIST MOVEMENT ON THE BAY OF SAN FRANCISCO. THE ANTAGONIST IS BOTH THE BLOG AND THE FILM IS THE ANCIENT, MALE DOMINATED WORLD OF MARITIME COMMERCE

CONCEPTION AND THE IMPORTANCE OF FOREPLAY - Blog 10 of 10

A fan of my blog (as well as a tax-deductible donor to the film itself) recently tapped me on the shoulder and asked, "How does the process of film-making resemble in any way, shape or form the title of this series "Conception and the Importance of Foreplay." What is the metaphor, pray tell?"

First, we must share a common definition of conception. It is quite simple. Conception is the moment of fertilization. A biologist might very well say that it is the fusion of gametes to produce a new organism - or in our case, to produce a new idea, we like to think, whose time has come.

However before that moment in time a great deal is necessarily going on. Such as, an introduction to a potential donor, or as in our case, a non-profit called the San Francisco Film Society. The political flirtation begins. If there is no chemistry the relationship goes no further. That is to say when you present your film project in its best light to the right person, that person will scrutinize you and your project and indicate if any further contact is desired. And make no mistake about it, 'desired' is the operational word here.

Can you guess that this critical period is called ovulation and union? Who calls it that? Me. I do. This is the foreplay and is the politics.

It's now ranked as a love affair between idea sources and the result can be a perfect child manifested, in our case, as a beautifully and well told story that inspires audiences.

I'm meeting with the "right" person tomorrow. There is chemistry.

Copyright 2011 G. Leo Maselli

# #

THE MAKING OF "CROSSING THE BAR"

CONCEPTION AND THE IMPORTANCE OF FOREPLAY - Blog 9 of 10

Last time I spoke of my distribution and marketing strategy for getting "Crossing the Bar" out into the world. Let's go a little deeper.

Distributors

During production process relationships will be nurtured with the targeted distributors listed below. Rough edits of the film will be made available to the same targeted distributors in a public relations campaign that will contribute in a large way with the raising of completion funds (music, final edit, polish). The targeted distributors specialize in the rental and sale of DVDs to universities, schools, museums, community groups and businesses such as airlines and the Internet, i.e. Electonix Arts Intermix, Miracle Pictures, Red Distributions, Apollo Cinema, White Star Video, Nova Pictures, Omni Films, Filmmakers Library, On Deck Home Entertainment and Indieflex.

World Wide Ocean Film Festivals

"Crossing the Bar" will be submitted to the world's ten identified film festivals that have ocean themes. The producer has been invited to have the film's world premiere at the San Francisco Ocean Film Festival. The other ocean-themed festivals include The Santa Barbara Ocean Film Festival, The Alaska Oceans Film Festival, The Savannah Ocean Film Festival, The Connecticut Ocean Planet Film Festival, Alabama's George Lindsay Film Festival, Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary Ocean Film Festival, Rhode Island's Footprint Film Festival, Vladivostok, Russia's Pacific Meridian Film Festival, The Toronto International Film Festival and The Festival of Maritime Film in Toulon, France.

International, National and Regional Historical and Maritime Preservation Societies and Museums, and Maritime Academies

Open screenings, regional shows, traveling tours, retrospectives and multi-media exhibits access an audience that possesses one perpetual characteristic, namely they are drawn to history and the romance of the water. The intended audiences care about the sustainability of the nearest large body of water that speaks to them, gives them civic pride, a sense of community and in many cases a livelihood. The core audience is represented by 3,500 identified U.S. preservation organizations, societies and programs, 24 major maritime museums around the world and 250 prestigious international maritime academies.

FUNDING PLAN

FIRST STEP: Generate donations in the amount of $60,000. When documentation of fiscal sponsorship status is in hand the first step will be to announce the tax status to the public by a focused public relations campaign using print and the Internet. This effort combines the fundraising Website IndieGoGo's suite of online fundraising and a professional fund raiser on the team that will connect the project to people who will provide the film project with essential opportunities to get funded, made and seen.

Second and third steps to follow next time.

Copyright 2010 G. Leo Maselli

THE MAKING OF "CROSSING THE BAR"

CONCEPTION AND THE IMPORTANCE OF FOREPLAY - Blog 8 of 10

Since my last entry the first “defeat” has come and gone.

Through the San Francisco Film Society I applied last September for a $15,000 screenwriting grant from the Hearst Foundation. I anticipated the funds could be used, to a large degree, to fund my basic living expenses (room and board) during the eight to ten weeks required to successfully adapt the existing treatment into a completed first draft of the screenplay for “Crossing the Bar”. By some careful financial planning the grant could also cover the cost of a local script analyst (Jennine Lanouette), as well as to facilitate the formation of a small core team of three individuals that would put into motion our initial fund-raising efforts with the previously established partnership and assistance of IndieGoGo.com, a fundraising web site. When I learned that "Crossing the Bar" did not even make it to the short list of finalists, my first response was to question the viability of the project and the intelligence of continuing on. After all, wasn’t it true that I’d been unable to find the time to complete the '"Olive Us Olive U" script or its first 20-page adaptation into a novel? Now I have the time. This setback is a good thing.

However, after careful consideration the plan is to carry-on with "Crossing the Bar". After all, this is Show Business. At the moment only one unresolved item is left in the hands of the San Francisco Film Society. Back when "Crossing the Bar" was called "Pilots of the Golden Gate", the Film Society fiscally sponsored the project as a historical documentary. Now it is reinvented into a film that portrays the fictionalized biography of Aimée Tanneur and the influential role she played during the Twentieth Century’s “second- wave” expansion of the Feminist Movement on the Bay of San Francisco. I await the Film Society’s decision whether or not to extend a non-profit status to the film’s new persona. I will keep you informed as things progress along this path.

Meantime, let’s get on with it by beginning a conversation about distribution strategy to achieve worldwide distribution of this film. All my efforts are currently directed into three inter-related marketing areas. First, simultaneously with the start of production, a public relations campaign is initiated to develop ongoing liaisons with cherry-picked list of distributors and specialized online bloggers, newspapers, and newsletter editors. Second, upon completion of post-production audiences will access the program in a variety of film festival formats, such as thematic series and juried shows; and the film will gain high visibility in public venues, exhibits and websites created especially for those who have a keen interest in the subject matter. Third, International, National and Regional Historical and Maritime Preservation Societies and Museums, and Maritime Academies. This will create opportunities for open screenings, regional shows, traveling tours, retrospectives and multi-media exhibits.

But I hear the voices, “Haven’t you forgotten full use of the Internet? No, no. I get into that next time. The paradigm is changing and I am being vigilant.

Copyright 2010 G.Leo Maselli

THE MAKING OF "CROSSING THE BAR"

CONCEPTION AND THE IMPORTANCE OF FOREPLAY

Conclusion of the Treatment

Amy has, for the first time in her life, lost heart. She travels to Tahiti to be with her estranged mother. The emotional cost of her life choice has been great.

That's when she receives an urgent call from her Marine Academy classmate, Ella. Ella was on-board the Exxon Valdez when the oil spill of all oil spills took place in Alaska's Prince William Sound. As a result, Ella's career is at risk and she could even face prison time. Amy rushes to her side. Playing tit-for-tat, she and Ella get political with a vengeance during the Congressional hearings in Washington D.C. The two of them appear before several committees of the House and the Senate where their perceptions of the catastrophe and the possibilities of future such events are eagerly noted. Amy's brilliant career as mariner has placed her high in public view much to the displeasure of her employer. She is told she risks dismissal if she persist. Ella is not as confident and crumbles under the pressure and retires from maritime commerce all together.

Not to be beaten, Amy makes the decision to begin accepting the many invitations she's previously avoided to speak before women's colleges and international feminist organizations around the world. Her political status grants her continued employment
with Chevron but is treated with disdain by upper-management. That is precisely when she once again applies to become a member of the San Francisco Bar Pilots. They can hardly deny her a shot at their big prize this go-round. Her two-year training period is difficult, with little or no support from the other pilots. Despite this, she becomes the first female to be a certified pilot on the Bay of San Francisco. She is 35 years old.

In the last scenes to the film we watch her being forced to deal with rumors that she is secretly married to one of the 59 other pilots. It is a charge that, if proved, would expel both she and her husband from the roles of the SF Bar Pilots.

In the last scene we see Amy smiling as she steps out of the con and into a storm at sea. We watch her climb down a rope ladder in great peril. She hoots like a girl on a bucking bronco. (The End.)

The Audience

The world-wide core audience is best described as well-educated, avid readers and collectors with a strong interest in maritime heritage, including members of maritime museums and historical societies and the captains and crews of sail training vessels. A well-defined and targeted international audience will be enthusiastically engaged, educated and entertained on the subjects of commercial maritime history and women's relationship to business practices within the great harbors of the world. Via international public broadcast systems and cable television, maritime academies, societies, learning centers and museums, the goal is that the world's populations gain awareness that commercial success on the sea not be allowed to ignore the inevitable third and fourth waves of feminism.

Copyright 2010 G. Leo Maselli

THE MAKING OF "CROSSING THE BAR"

CONCEPTION AND THE IMPORTANCE OF FOREPLAY - Blog 6 of 10

The film portrays the fictionalized biography of Aimee Tanneur and the influential role she played during the Twentieth Century's "second-wave" expansion of the Feminist Movement on the Bay of San Francisco

The film's Treatment continues:

Aimee (now know as Amy to her friends) and her closest friend Ella are in their final year at the California Maritime Academy and are both at the top of their class. And yet they are learning that success in their chosen profession may well be determined by patriarchal men.

After a long day in class, Amy and Ella discuss what should be their strategy for success in this environment. They have each followed their passion to become mariners and now swear a vow to support each other in achieving every ambitious goal they have set for themselves. They are well aware that they face an all-male dominated, gender barrier that is pervasive in the world of maritime commerce. It appears that there is nothing but "white water" ahead for any female wanting to go to sea. That's when Amy's father dies and her mother instructs her to return to Port Revel or the family risks loosing the contract to operate the facility. Amy refuses to leave her career path despite the knowledge of the possible consequences, including her mother's loss of income and by necessity her return to Polynesia. In her anger at her daughter's arrogance, the mother refuses to pay any future tuition or living expenses in or out of her higher education. Amy is on her own.

Amy struggles on but upon graduating she is saddened when her mother refuses to attend the ceremonies. Amy takes a long shot my applying to join the Chevron Oil fleet, the world's largest, and is granted her wish. Ella signs on with Exxon. For the next ten years Amy overcomes countless trials and tribulations as a woman at sea, but the greatest danger comes at the hands of opium smoking pirates encountered off the coast of Africa. For her exceptional ability to negotiate with the pirates as well as her bravery under the most difficult situation when she calls in commandos at the peril of her self and her crew, the episode brings her once again into national view. Eventually she captains Chevron's biggest ships, traveling to all the deep water ports of the world. It is during this period of her remarkable career that she becomes involved in a huge explosion that throws her Antagonist, Captain Harl Buckridge, into the cold waters of San Francisco Bay where he must fight for his life. Amy dives into the water and saves his life and wins his everlasting support. Or so he claims.

Based on all that Amy has seen and experienced, she remains convinced that she can achieve every goal she sets for herself. Until, that is, she confronts the male dominated world that was, at the time, a fact of maritime life here in our bay. Through all the proper channels she has asked to be allowed to earn a position as a San Francisco Bar Pilot. Her multiple bids to even apply have been rejected three years running when her so-called guardian angels (the original eight SF pilots she met as a kid) are forced by political circumstances to betray her. And then when her first romantic relationship that she was certain would last forever falls apart because of her feminist attitudes, she loses heart and escapes to be with her estranged mother in Bora Bora. The emotional cost of her life choices has been great and for the first time in her life she feels defeated.

The final section of the Treatment will be continued next time.

Copyright 2010 G. Leo Maselli

THE MAKING OF "CROSSING THE BAR"

CONCEPTION AND THE IMPORTANCE OF FOREPLAY - Blog 5 of 10

The Film's Treatment Continued

The dashing ship pilots from the Bay of San Francisco have just arrived for their twelve days of advanced training at The Port Revel Centre in Viriville, France. After watching them celebrate their arrival with too many bottles of red wine and all the carousing they can muster, they are harshly reminded that this is not at all a holiday they're on. Classes begin early the next morning and continue 24-hours a day no matter the weather conditions. Each day becomes endless hard work followed by constant proficiency testing. Their days become all about stern and rigorous instructions, hustle, hustle, with very early morning sit-ups, running and rowing.

During their two-week training (interspersed with a long weekend of R&R in Paris) the pilots have a chance to work along side Aimee and the rest of the first-rate staff of instructors and crew. They are particularly impressed how Aimee totally loses what is taken to be her shyness when she's at the con of a ship. She handles boats like a master. Their admiration grows until on the third day they make her their mascot because she is always in high spirits and amazingly talented at moving heavy objects through the water safely and with ease. It's suggested that she has a great career ahead of her piloting ships. However not everyone is on board with that notion. San Francisco Bar Pilot, Captain Buckridge actually lobbies his fellow pilots to leave the girls alone and, rather, encourage her to avoid anything maritime and instead to seek her parent's goal of becoming a doctor. Buckridge admonishes, "The sea is no place for woman."

During the two-weeks of training, Aimee has many occasions to sit outside the men's circle and listen to the pilots and her father as they enjoy after dinner cigars and brandy, and speak philosophically of a life at sea. From time to time the conversations touches on the historical record of sexism in the Navy.

The night before the pilot's farewell breakfast, she dreams that she is a working ship pilot mounting a rope ladder up the side of a mammoth ship during a storm. When she awakens she makes a decision that will change her life. At breakfast that morning she proudly and confidently announces to the SF pilots that she will be the first female ship pilot on the Bay - and that she will achieve it more quickly than any man ever has. And finally, to her parent's surprise she adds, "Will you please support me in my goal by donating to my maritime academy tuition fund that I am establishing here this morning?" Nearly all the pilots stand to cheer and applaud her. Many checks are written that morning. With these eight men acting as her guardian angels it would seem that her future is assured. And yet her father along with Captain Buckridge suggest that she must forget such goals, "For two hundred years the pilots on the Bay of San Francisco have always been men. And before that, for thousands of years."

The film then cuts to the California Maritime Academy. We meet again Aimee at age twenty and now referred to as Lieutenant Amy Tanny at the prestigious maritime academy in Vallejo. Ranked first in the her class set to graduate in just two months, she stands before 199 male and other female cadet dressed in their formal whites and commands them to dig deep to strive for honor and country. She reads aloud a poem by George Bernard Shaw: "This is the true joy life. The being used for a purpose recognized by yourself as a mighty one." The cadets respond with tears and cheers. Later, she is in the dinning hall that has become a set for her first television interview which is to be broadcast nationally as part of a story on the international expansion of feminism. Her unconventional responses revolve around the subject of maritime commerce from the woman's angle and the reality of choosing it as a viable career choice.

The Treatment will be continued next time.

Copyright 2010 G. Leo Maselli