Needs More Extras

This evening I was explaining to Randy Rowland, founder of PepperSpray Productions, what being a part of the resistance in Denver and St. Paul was like this summer.

Working with so many underground media activists in both cities this summer was an amazing experience. The spaces (about 4 or 5 of them in each city) sprang up spontaneously as the alternative media crews rose to the occasion. Denver was shocked to see independent media work so well like this.

Here is an anecdote:

Senior students at the Colorado Film School felt that they needed to capture this "indymedia scene" while it was still hot. One day at the Denver Open Media space they filmed Flux, the Stimulator, me, and Joan Sekel's team editing and talking about our videos. I have no idea what the students are doing with all that footage, but hopefully something useful, and something we can eventually see.

But the students came back the next day and decided they were going to make a short film reenacting what had just taken place the day before. They told us to continue our work and added, "feel free to look up here every once in a while", just to show that we were paying attention to whatever it was they were doing. This part shocked me.

As they acted out the scene, it was obvious that they took the script straight from our mouths and began acting it out right in front of us using their own actors! They told us that this was "a short film about indymedia", and that we would be included in it as "extras". Can you believe that? Indymedia as "extras" in a fictionalized film based on true events about Indymedia.