What's Henry Ansbacher Thinking About?

What projects have you been involved with this year? 
We’re just finishing up a film about physician-assisted suicide.  Booth Gardner (former Governor of Washington) introduced a law about this.  Booth is a 2-term Governor with Parkinson’s disease.  This is an intimate film about him as he fought this public campaign for Physician Assisted Suicide.  It will hopefully be finished by the end of June.

The broadcast HBO did of They Killed Sister Dorothy in March was well received.  We are now on a push to release the DVD into education and non-theatrical markets.  We have a bunch of other projects in development.

One project in development that we have begun shooting is about the rising threat of evangelical Christians in the US military (see May issue of Harpers).  The real threat of that is to the constitution as well as international and national security.  If you have all of these people who believe these end-of-days fairy tales who are in charge of the military, this could be scary.  They are all about conversion and saving souls.  We have a 3rd generation Air Force Academy grad. He has made it is his mission to fight these Christians, suing the defensive department.

How are you choosing the projects you work on? 
It’s a pretty loose process.  These are mission driven – social justice themes.  We are trying to find subjects that will compete in this entertainment /news world.  We have to please or get broadcasters on board.  We try to get a lot of ideas out there and see which ones go.

Is the economy affecting your business?
I have scaled back our staff and moved to a smaller space.  If we can keep one project funded and going we can keep at it.  We are getting a good reputation and able to keep things going.
The Rocky closed here in Denver.  That palpable fear in the room a year ago was justified, and I imagine it has only gotten worse.

And in your personal life?
I have twins in 2nd grade and a little one in kindergarten.  Their lives are filled with piano lessons and gymnastics.

Any question you’re living in currently? 
Yes, how do we select projects? As organized news gathering and dissemination is changing, it is a more personal choice.  You don’t have an editor telling you what story to cover.  People need to take stock personally and decide what are my goals and objects.  Working independently, I have to internally decide on those and then externally get support for those. I have to decide where to spend my energy and what to make my focus.

At a macro level I'm wondering as the media landscape shifts, what opportunities are ahead for content and story producers like all of us.  For documentaries there may be opportunity in outsourcing those things...as news rooms don’t have the resources.  MSNBC is doing a lot of outsourcing and using a lot of independents.