This spring our friends over at South Side Projections present The Streets and the Classroom: Educational and Industrial Films in an Era of Massive Social Change, an ambitious & inspiring series of educational and industrial films that address social change. We are super delighted that our 16mm print of Roadmap for Change: The Deming Approach (Chuck Olin & Jill Singer, 1984) is included in the series’ first of four programs, “Kartemquin Members’ Work for Hire.”
Roadmap for Change (found in our Chuck Olin Collection) looks at a radical experiment at a Pontiac car manufacturing facility. The film highlights the fourteen steps for better productivity among management and hourly workers, initiated by W. Edwards Deming – a renowned American engineer, statistician, professor, author, lecturer, and management consultant.
More on the series and program below (courtesy of South Side Projections):
The Streets and the Classroom: Educational and Industrial Films in an Era of Massive Social Change (April 24-May 16, various venues)
Throughout much of the twentieth century, millions of students learned about the world by watching educational films, and many workers learned their jobs by watching industrial films. These films are mostly forgotten today (or remembered for their unintentional comedic value), but looking at how they addressed important issues can tell us how and what students learned about the tumultuous changes in American and global society after World War II. This in turn can give us new insight into how modern media is used for education.
The four screenings in this series look at how educational and industrial films addressed massive social change, how that social change affected the films, and how working on these films affected documentary filmmakers in Chicago. Speakers at each screening will introduce the films and then lead a discussion about what the films said about the era in which they were made, and how they continue to be useful tools for social analysis.
“Kartemquin Members’ Work for Hire” (April 24, 7PM, Logan Center for the Arts)
Presented by Judy Hoffman (University of Chicago, Kartemquin Films member) and Gordon Quinn (Kartemquin Films Co-Founder)
Chicago’s Kartemquin Films is known for its socially engaged documentaries, but funds haven’t always been plentiful. So, like many Chicago-based documentary filmmakers, they did work for hire to raise money for their projects and pay their rent. But it wasn’t just about getting paid: they used this work as an opportunity to hone their craft and learn about different worlds of work, from fast food to organ transplants to automotive plants. This in turn opened the filmmakers up to thinking about their own relationship to the film industry. In films like Strange and Beautiful (about quality control at McDonald’s) and Roadmap for Change: The Deming Approach (about a radical experiment at a Pontiac factory), the filmmakers behind such classic documentaries as The Last Pullman Car and Hoop Dreams figured out how to survive and perfect their craft. Most of these films have never screened publicly.
1976-1990, 81 min., 16mm and video projection