11/19/04

LC041119

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

What happens when two former TV journalists move out of news and
into the world of helping lawyers win big cases?

Rob Feldman>> You need to be able to communicate with a
generation that's been brought up on MTV and flash and fancy
video. I think our society, the general populace, has just been
conditioned to expect a sophisticated presentation.

Val>> And then, the living legacy of the blacklisted
screenwriter who wouldn't name names. Ring Lardner's daughter
talks about life as a blacklisted kid.

All that and more straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> We're about to take you behind the scenes and into the
world of high-stakes lawsuits and multi-million dollar legal
settlements. We've all seen how costly the outcome of some big
civil trials can be. Well, now you're about to meet two former
TV journalists who are making a big impact on civil cases before
they ever make it to the courtroom. They've traded in their
news credentials and have created a new business producing
something called "Settlement Documentaries". Their stories may
look like something you've seen on "60 Minutes" or "Dateline",
but as Toni Guinyard tells us, these reports aren't news.
They're a powerful legal tool.

Browne Greene>> We're in the business of persuasion. We're
salesmen when you get right down to it. What does a salesman
sell with? He sells his goods with demonstrations.

[Film Clip]

Browne Greene>> He sells his stuff with the best means he has
to be able to persuade someone to buy what he's offering. So if
you want the jury or a mediator to actually understand a complex
scenario in an accident, you can have it animated.

Toni Guinyard>> The combination of animation, graphics and
videotape is giving attorneys like Browne Greene additional
means of presenting clients' cases. There is really nothing new
about the use of videotape in the courtroom, but this era of
high-tech legal videos has reached a new level. Tapes like
these -- are being used to force a resolution in cases before
they go to trial. Tapes like these called "Settlement" or
"Mediation" tapes are not made for jurors or the public to see.

Rob Feldman>> We're producing documentaries for a very small
audience. It's generally about four or maybe five people who
are ever going to see this and a lot of work goes into these.

Keiko Johnson>> The objective on both sides in this entire
legal process is to settle the cases before they go to trial and
to save the courtrooms for cases that really cannot be resolved.

Toni Guinyard>> Rob Feldman and Keiko Johnson are former Los
Angeles television news producers. In 2002, they walked away
from the newsroom, but with their team of producers and editors,
they are still in the business of storytelling. The stories
they tell now never air on TV. They're viewed during the
mediation of lawsuits.

Rob Feldman>> Kind of our signature piece is the settlement
documentary and that looks like --

Toni Guinyard>> -- you call it a documentary?

Rob Feldman>> We do use the word "documentary" in our pieces.
They're absolutely documentaries.

[Film Clip]

Rob Feldman>> They combine narration, interviews, animation,
video, all to tell a story.

Keiko Johnson>> I tend to think there are a lot of people who
produce documentaries who don't use narration and don't use
scripts and they do interviews and that tells the story. But
with attorneys, they're always trying to make a point and
sometimes they're trying to highlight either part of an argument
or a piece of evidence and you can't necessarily do that with
just the interviews.

[Film Clip]

Toni Guinyard>> The inclusion of narration is what's new in the
use of legal videos. The result? A professionally produced
story from the plaintiff's point of view built on a foundation
of input from experts.

Rob Feldman>> When we create an animation, we speak to an
expert accident reconstructionist usually. They will feed us
all the physics involved in the accident. We translate that
into the computer. The computer is smart enough now to be able
to interpret the physics.

Toni Guinyard>> Because the mediation videotapes are made for
use in mediation and not in court, Juris Productions and their
clients, the attorneys, have a lot of latitude in how stories
are presented.

Browne Greene>> In mediation, there are no rules of evidence.
Either side can come in and basically tell the mediator and the
other side what they think is relevant and why the other side
should settle.

Kieko Johnson>> If we can do a good job and put together a
powerful piece and if the attorney's case is strong, it
shouldn't have to go to trial.

Browne Greene>> A picture tells a thousand words far better
than the best advocate ever could.

Toni Guinyard>> But doesn't that bring show biz into the
courtroom and does it have a place there?

Browne Greene>> Of course it does. Show biz has always been in
the courtroom. Abraham Lincoln tried a case where basically he
used the moon and the phases of the moon to prove that his
particular client did not commit a murder. Okay, now that was
in 1856.

Toni Guinyard>> But the expanded role of high-tech in and out
of the courtroom to tell a client's story raises concerns about
the potential manipulation of videotape.

Browne Greene>> Any lawyer that's good or wants to be good, who
wants to win, he's using some form of show business. Show
business meaning not in terms of something that's hokey or
circusey or anything like that.

Rob Feldman>> You need to be able to communicate with a
generation that's been brought up on MTV and flash and fancy
video. I think our society, the general populace, has just been
conditioned to expect a sophisticated presentation.

Browne Greene>> Contrary to all the nonsense that's described
about the system and juries and so forth, you've got to have a
real case and what you do with videos and with graphics is you
enhance that case and you describe for your client's benefit in
a better way what they've gone through.

Toni Guinyard>> Greene has had a lot of success using so-called
"day in the life" videotapes in court. They're often admitted
into evidence and seen by juries.

Rob Feldman>> A day in the life video is something that we
prepare for court and we will follow someone around who's
catastrophically injured and see how their injury affects their
daily life.

Browne Greene>> You can't just make something up. You've got
to basically show it to a judge and to the other side and
withstand objections and withstand the test of the rules of
evidence to get it admitted into evidence and shown to a jury.

Keiko Johnson>> It's an extremely effective tool, but it's also
because it's evidence that you have to be really careful about
being really balanced, really objective.

Toni Guinyard>> Still, there's a chance the videos will never
make it before a jury. Opposing attorneys often fight to keep
these tapes out of court.

Browne Greene>> Why challenge? Because it's going to hurt
them. It's going to be very effective. It's going to be very,
very persuasive.

Toni Guinyard>> While Greene embraced the use of videotape,
animation and graphics, doing so meant taking a risk. Through
trial and error, Feldman and Johnson learned it's a risk some
attorneys aren't willing to take.

Rob Feldman>> A lot of plaintiffs' attorneys are very set in
their ways and they go back to what has worked for them over the
years. So to try to get them to try a new technique or try to
get them out of their comfort zone was a little challenging at
first for some of them.

Keiko Johnson>> We went a good eight or nine months without a
client.

Toni Guinyard>> How much did you make that first year?

Keiko Johnson>> Nothing, nothing. I didn't make a penny the
first year.

Toni Guinyard>> They're making money now. Juris Productions
charges an average of $15,000 to $35,000 to produce one
mediation video.

Browne Greene>> They deserve and they receive appropriate
compensation.

Toni Guinyard>> And attorneys are spending thousands on the
videos hoping to win multi-million dollar judgments.

Browne Greene>> When they come to me, I'd better spend the
money and I'd better get the best experts and I'd better do
what's necessary to win for them because they don't get another
shot.

Toni Guinyard>> While use of videotape does not guarantee a
victory, this method of presenting a plaintiff's story is
becoming more widely used and, in the process, two former news
producers are making headlines as part of the story.

Keiko Johnson>> Somebody asked me the other day, they said did
you have to have a lot of legal background? Do you have a legal
interest? Is that why you did this? I said, no, I have a human
interest.

Rob Feldman>> Make no mistake, we are not lawyers and we do not
practice the law. We're storytellers and that's our passion.
That's what we love to do.

Val>> You would think that here in the land of lawsuits and
television that settlement documentaries would be rather common,
but in fact they're quite rare, and we're told they originated
on the East Coast.

Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and
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and Times".

Val>> During the infamous Hollywood blacklist days, Ring
Lardner refused to name names and went to prison. At the time,
he was one of Hollywood's biggest screenwriters and his career
soon fell apart. Now Lardner's daughter, Kate, is telling his
story and her own in a new memoir. It's called "Shut Up He
Explained" and she tells Philip Bruce what it's like to be a
blacklisted kid.

Philip Bruce>> Kate Lardner, a lot of people have written about
the black list, but you tell it from a very different
perspective as a child, not as one of the people who was
actually on the list. What was that like for you to be in a
family that was so profoundly affected by the Hollywood black
list?

Kate Lardner>> Well, I don't know any other families
(laughter). I don't know. It was an interesting family that I
grew up in and the black list certainly altered our lives
dramatically because my real father, David Lardner, war
correspondent, was killed as a New Yorker correspondent. My
mother remarried and married his brother, Ring, and we moved out
to California to marry Ring.

Philip Bruce>> Is that the way it felt? The whole family was
coming out to marry him?

Kate Lardner>> Yeah, I think that that was the way it was put
to us. I think my mom said we're going to California to marry
Uncle Bill.

Philip Bruce>> Uncle Bill? And that was Ring?

Kate Lardner>> Well, Bill was what he was called in the family,
but he preferred to be called Ring. I hardly knew him. I mean,
I'd met him several times maybe.

Philip Bruce>> And you got this intriguing illustration of how
when you and your family were coming out to Santa Monica, Ring's
old family was on a train going the opposite way, going back
east.

Kate Lardner>> Yeah, we were actually -- first we lived in
Coldwater Canyon, so we were moving out. Yes, his ex-wife and
two kids, my cousins soon to become stepbrother and stepsister,
were coming east and we were moving west.

Philip Bruce>> Did you wave at each other on the way back
(laughter)?

Kate Lardner>> No.

Philip Bruce>> That had to be an odd situation.

Kate Lardner>> I don't think anybody -- yeah, you bet. I mean,
I don't know what they knew, I don't know what I knew at the
time, but looking back on it, we were -- I don't even like to
say it -- we were the replacement kids in a way. We've never
really had this discussion (laughter). I think I'd better go
and have it.

Philip Bruce>> You talk about how at a very early age Ring gave
you a spanking for using a racial slur?

Kate Lardner>> Yeah, and it was very -- when I was, I guess,
six or seven, I was spanked for using the word "nigger" and I
didn't know what the word meant.

Philip Bruce>> How did you use that? How did that come about?

Kate Lardner>> I might have been jumping rope or something.
You know, "Eenie, meenie, minie, mo, catch a nigger by the toe".
He flew out of the house and I was spanked for using the word
and it had a profound effect on me.

Philip Bruce>> Now Ring Lardner at the time was huge. He was
such an incredible talent in this town. He had won an Academy
Award and --

Kate Lardner>> -- for "Woman of the Year", yeah. It was the
first film that Spencer Tracy and Kathryn Hepburn did together.

Philip Bruce>> And then all of that came falling apart very
quickly.

Kate Lardner>> Yeah, but I was a kid. I mean, I do remember
going to the studio to pick him up and my mother was an actress.
I remember going to the actors' lab and picking her up. I know
that we moved to a small house. I mean, I didn't think, oh, my
God, now we're poor and we were rich then. You know, I didn't
think that way. I do remember being told that, when we looked
at a menu when Ring was in jail, we had to think about reading
from right to left.

Philip Bruce>> Where you had to check the prices first.

Kate Lardner>> Yeah, yeah. And I knew also that my father had
been asked questions that he felt, you know, was nobody's
business and that he had essentially told them that.

Philip Bruce>> Now Ring Lardner was the last surviving member
of the so-called Hollywood Ten, the people who refused to answer
those questions. He refused to implicate anybody and he went to
prison for it.

Kate Lardner>> Yeah, he was sentenced to a year of prison and
served about ten months. He got out early for good behavior.

Philip Bruce>> When he got out, there was no work?

Kate Lardner>> No.

Philip Bruce>> So he wrote under an assumed name?

Kate Lardner>> There was some work before he went to jail. You
know, undercover work for less money. But after, the atmosphere
was really, you know, much tighter and he couldn't get any kind
of work really. So we moved to Mexico City. He came home and
we moved to a slightly bigger house and then, very shortly
after, we joined a number of other people who were affected by
the black list in Mexico City.

Philip Bruce>> So in the early days, you were young and none of
this probably registered on you. But in the years that followed
as you got older and life changed significantly for your family,
how did it impact you then?

Kate Lardner>> Well, I think it did impact me early in that I
knew that there were things not to talk about. You know, I knew
that. I remember when I was -- I knew that we were leaving
town. We were leaving Los Angeles because my parents, I guess
most significantly my father, could not get work. I was very
aware of that. I don't know what I did with this information,
but I was aware of that. We moved to New Milford, Connecticut
which was about less than a year later, so I was still nine. I
knew there were things not to talk about.

For example, my parents were picking us up at school and rushing
home to listen to the Rosenberg -- first of all, we listened to
the hearings and then I remember when the Rosenbergs were, you
know, going to be killed. I remember my mother being very upset
about that. I remember being a great fan of Charlie Chaplin and
knowing at that age that that perhaps was not something to share
with my friend, Sally, because he was also suspected.

Philip Bruce>> Did Ring feel, in the latter days of his career
and in the latter days of his life, that he had been vindicated
in any way? Because after this huge black hole in his career,
he was able to come back and win another Oscar for "Mash"?

Kate Lardner>> Well, you know, he doesn't really talk that way.
But I do know from interviewing him -- I interviewed both my
parents a lot -- that had he not been blacklisted, he probably
would have become a producer, so he would have had more control
over his work, and he might have become a director, which
astounds me, but he mentioned that. That would have been
interesting to him. He did work. You know, he was one of the
lucky ones, I think, partly because he was very talented.

Philip Bruce>> What was his attitude toward the people who
talked when he didn't? Did he have that antagonism?

Kate Lardner>> My mom was much more vociferous about that. He
said he didn't believe in blacklisting people. I can't say that
-- certainly, he didn't socialize with people, but if he ran
into somebody like Bud Schulberg who had been a really close
friend, you know, I think he would say hi because he didn't
believe in blacklisting.

Philip Bruce>> Kate Lardner, thank you so much for sharing your
time with us. The book is "Shut Up He Explained".

Kate Lardner>> The memoir of a blacklisted kid. Thank you.

To send a comment or a question to our program, you can reach us
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Val>> Tonight we're going to take you into a most unusual
place, a place in San Pedro where more than three hundred
mentally ill people live and work. But they don't just receive
traditional care. They also get a chance to express their own
personal creativity. It's a landmark building in San Pedro
built in 1926.

This former Army-Navy YMCA takes up an entire city block, but
since 1967 it has taken on a whole new purpose. It is home to
hundreds of mentally ill people. At a time when thousands of
mentally ill are untreated and often homeless, Harbor View House
is a place where they can get off the streets and find safe
shelter and effective treatment.

>> "Will you take a picture of me?"

Val>> There are 287 residents here. Many take part in an art
program called "The Living Museum". I talked with three of them
who were willing to speak openly about their mental illness.
Harold Plople has lived all over the country. He was in San
Francisco and had wanted to be a cartoonist when he started
having problems. He told me some of his story. How old were
you when you started having problems?

Harold Plople>> I can't remember.

Val>> Like twenties or thirties?

Harold Plople>> I was in my twenties. Then I just had way too
many breakdowns over the years.

Val>> Was there anyone there to help you when you first started
experiencing mental illness?

Harold Plople>> No, no, no. You know, I lived in cheap hotels,
I drank way too much. The manager of the hotel used to call an
ambulance and have me shipped off to the Veterans Hospital
(laughter). I came back to Los Angeles to be with my mother.
She just couldn't take any more. She's been dead for ten years
now, rest her soul (laughter), but in those days she couldn't
take it anymore.

Val>> So how did you find help and how did you come to be at
Harbor View?

Harold Plople>> Well, I was living in downtown Los Angeles with
my wife and I just caused some trouble. In fact, they were
shooting a movie. They were shooting a motion picture.
Somebody told me they saw this picture and it wasn't very good.
It was called "The Million Dollar Hotel". It was supposed to
have a good director, some German, but it wasn't a very good
movie.

But they were shooting this motion picture and I just lost my
temper because you know how motion picture companies do. They
just took over everything. I think I did something I shouldn't
have done. They put a light and some props in the hallway right
by our room and I knocked it over. The police said I was drunk.
I could have been. I was drinking in those days. I don't drink
anymore. I've been sober almost five years.

They called the police and I remember they said we don't know
what to do with you. So I wound up in a hospital where a doctor
said he had a great place for me and I had no idea. I just knew
that I didn't want to go back to downtown Los Angeles. I'd been
there almost five years. Either somebody would have killed me
or I would have killed myself. I would have went to the top of
a building and jumped.

Val>> For a while, Harold was in a locked facility. Then the
doctors referred him to Harbor View House.

Harold Plople>> And they sent me here which was the best thing
that ever happened to me.

Marika Zoll, PhD.>> "Your interpretation of it is entirely
different. I like yours better."

Val>> Marika Zoll is the Program Coordinator. She turned a
drab empty room into a colorful gallery for the residents' work.
The art is sold and the proceeds are shared between the artist
and the gallery.

Marika Zoll, PhD.>> We have people in this program that
typically were in and out of hospitals, you know, every three or
four months. Since I've been here for four years, some of these
people have never been back into the hospital.

Val>> Not all the residents draw or paint. Alphronzo Moseley
writes poetry.

Alphronzo Moseley>> "Eternity is harnessed in this moment.
Heaven is set free. Our eyes speak, expressing thoughts our
voices cannot utter, words our mouths cannot compose."

Val>> Alphronzo is a graduate of Princeton University. About
six years ago, he was diagnosed with psycho-effective disorder.
He sees his mental illness metaphorically.

Alphronzo Moseley>> In many ways, I see myself as kind of like
a butterfly. That is like you have a caterpillar that starts
off as, you know, as an individual and whatever and they have
certain functions. They go into a transition and that
transition is, of course, into a cocoon and that cocoon is a
dark place. I think there are a lot of individuals who
experience that dark place in their lives.

I know that, for me, I've been in a lot of dark places and, if
you can't reach in there to try and open the cocoon or try and
take that process out, otherwise you destroy the whole process
even though it is a dark area and we all have to go through it.
But when in fact you emerge from that, you come out as a
different individual, as a different being. It now has wings
and now it's majestic and now it's beautiful. "I will meet you
here until the day I see you in reality and I'll take you to the
place where we met in my dreams".

Marika Zoll, PhD.>> It's a whole story you can do about the
stigmas of the mentally ill and how that's what they walk around
with, a label on their back, so to speak. I'm mentally ill.
Those same people are now walking out the door here saying, you
know, I'm Harold and I'm an artist, I'm John and I'm an artist,
you know.

Val>> And then there is Michael Weiner. His father was in the
Army. His mother was a teacher. He's lived all over the United
States.

Michael Weiner>> I had all kinds of mental illness. I was a
bedroom-ridden fanatic. I was hearing voices. I couldn't get
out of my bedroom because I was afraid to go out of my bedroom.
I thought, well, somebody cast a spell on me. I couldn't do
artwork. It was a sin.

Val>> So what does this place offer you? Why do you like this
and why do you come here?

Michael Weiner>> I come here because I don't like just sitting
around in my room all day, you know, and being a vegetable and
wearing out CDs and staring at the TV, you know. I don't want
to be a vegetable.

Val>> Oh, it's much better to come here and do something
creative.

Michael Weiner>> Of course, of course, I'm creative.

Marika Zoll, PhD.>> It's important to know that this is not art
therapy in the traditional sense. It's therapeutic. There's a
therapeutic component. It helps them. They benefit from it,
but I do not psychoanalyze their work. In fact, it's very
important that it's totally free.

>> "I'm doing some Bird of Paradise."

Marika Zoll, PhD.>> I feel very fortunate to be able to have
been a part of bringing this program here which originally
started in New York at Creedmoor Psychiatric Center, which is a
huge psychiatric facility, and the program that's been there for
fifteen years was brought here basically. I interned there and
then they hired me to come and try and make it happen here and
we're making it happen.

Michael Weiner>> I hate to brag about this, but I'm the most
cleanest guy in the whole wide world.

Val>> You've never used drugs?

Michael Weiner>> No. No cigarettes and no drinking.

Val>> Good for you.

Michael Weiner>> I wasn't brought up that way. I wasn't
brought up that way.

Val>> Harbor View House gets funding from the county and the
state as well as foundation support. Funding for the mentally
ill is always precarious and never enough.

Marika Zoll, PhD.>> It's unfortunate that we just don't have
the staff available to be open seven days a week because they
love it and they wait for us to open in the morning and there's
a line outside the door.

Alphronzo Moseley>> Now I'm in this process that, through a lot
of things in my life from whatever help that comes from family,
whatever help that comes from friends, whatever help that comes
from Harbor View, you go into that process to where eventually I
believe that I'll emerge successfully as that butterfly.

Val>> Since that story first aired, the residents of Harbor
View House have produced so much art that they've converted
their thrift shop into a gallery. It's on the first floor,
which means easy access for the public who's invited to come in
and browse. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala.. For
everyone at Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you
next time.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> Next time on Life and Times --

It was supposed to be temporary, but now it's sprouting trees.
Can neighbors make this mountain of earthquake rubble go away?

>> People have asthmatic conditions. They didn't think of
those. They thought of what they were going to put in there.
They never thought of us. That's a crime.

>> They didn't take into consideration the community that lives
here. If they would have brought it to Beverly Hills or Palos
Verdes or a community that has more wealthy folks, it would have
been out of here in months.

Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.