Liz Carpenter Documentary: Her Daughter Tells Her Story, Part 1

What does it take to tell your own mother's story on film?

Christy Carpenter spent years going through her mother's papers. Liz Carpenter, as Christy says, was "a complete pack rat," and Christy was planning to write a book. Then her old friend Abby Ginzberg, a Peabody Award-winning documentary director, called and said she'd like to make a film instead. "She's too funny," Abby remembers thinking. "We need to put her up on the screen. Then you can put her in a book later."

In Episode 245, the first of two parts, Christian talks with Abby and Christy, the co-directors of Shaking It Up: The Life and Times of Liz Carpenter. Liz was a Texas journalist, a key aide to Lyndon and Lady Bird Johnson, and a leader in the women's movement. Christian worked in media in Washington in the early 1980s, and she says Liz blazed a trail for her. Abby and Christy have been friends since they were housemates in London in 1969. Abby tells how she went from practicing law to making training films for workers, where "all I had to do was make people be able to stay awake," and why she thinks her Peabody came from choosing a story nobody else was telling.

Then they get honest about what a film like this costs. They raised a little over half a million dollars, much of it from friends, and gave their own time for free. Archival rights, Abby says, "have gone through the roof." They talk about why an archival producer is worth it, the music they couldn't give up, the song they couldn't get, and how Christy's notes on her mother's papers sent the search for footage in the right direction.

WATCH THE FILM: Shaking It Up: The Life and Times of Liz Carpenter is on PBS. Learn more at lizcarpenterfilm.com.

In this episode, you'll learn:

• Why Liz Carpenter meant so much to Christian as a young woman in Washington media
• How Abby went from criminal defense lawyer to documentary filmmaker
• Why Abby credits her Peabody to picking a subject nobody else had filmed
• How Liz's 100th birthday led to the film
• Why Abby pushed for a film before a book
• The three chapters that shaped the story: journalism, the White House and the women's movement
• How childhood friends helped pay for the sizzle reel
• What archival rights cost for festivals, for PBS and in perpetuity
• Why you can love a song, budget for it and still be told no
• How two editors helped weave the story together

FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS

Who made the Liz Carpenter documentary?

Shaking It Up: The Life and Times of Liz Carpenter was directed and produced by Abby Ginzberg and Christy Carpenter, Liz's daughter. Christy had spent years reviewing her mother's papers. Abby, a Peabody Award-winning director, likely first met Liz when she and Christy were housemates in London in 1969. Christy says it took roughly three years, the last two of them "really hard work."

How much do archival rights cost for a documentary?

Abby Ginzberg says archival costs "have gone through the roof." Their rights for a year of film festivals cost over $60,000 or $70,000, and upgrading for public television doubled it. They licensed footage for five years for the PBS broadcast, because rights in perpetuity roughly double the cost again.

Why hire an archival producer?

Abby and Christy say their film depended on archival material spread across the networks, C-SPAN, presidential libraries and smaller archives. Christy says keeping track of who owns each item is "tedious work that takes an expert." Abby puts the going rate at $50 to $60 an hour, and says they also hired a separate music rights producer.

How did Shaking It Up raise its budget?

Christy Carpenter says the budget was a little over half a million dollars. Her childhood friends came through early, including one who paid for the sizzle reel and another who gave the largest single donation. Every dollar came in as a charitable gift through nonprofit sponsors, including Austin PBS. Abby and Christy were never paid for their own time.

DOCUVIEW DEJA VIEW PICKS

• The Vote (2020), American Experience, written and directed by Michelle Ferrari. Christy's pick, about the last push to ratify the 19th Amendment, told in two parts.
• Porcelain War (2024), by Brendan Bellomo and Slava Leontyev. Abby's pick, about Ukrainian artists who keep making porcelain figures during the war.
• No Other Land (2024), by Basel Adra, Hamdan Ballal, Yuval Abraham and Rachel Szor. Abby's second pick, made by Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers together in the West Bank. She says it made her cry many times.

See every guest pick on the DocuView Deja View page.

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ABOUT THE GUESTS

Abby Ginzberg is a Peabody Award-winning director and an inductee of the Silver Circle of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, and has been making documentaries about race and social justice for more than 35 years. A former lawyer, she won the Peabody for Soft Vengeance: Albie Sachs and the New South Africa (2014). Her film Barbara Lee: Speaking Truth to Power won the 2022 NAACP Image Award for Outstanding Documentary. Abby's bio

Christy Carpenter is Liz Carpenter's daughter and the film's co-director and co-producer. A graduate of Brown University with a law degree, she worked in early interactive media, public relations and communications, and served as EVP and COO of the Paley Center for Media and as CEO of the Winthrop Rockefeller Institute. The film's website

The conversation continues in Part 2 (Episode 246), on who Liz Carpenter was, how they balanced the portrait and the politics, and how the film got to PBS.

ABOUT DOCUMENTARY FIRST

Documentary First is a weekly podcast about the people behind documentaries and how the work changed them. Host Christian Taylor, director of the award-winning The Girl Who Wore Freedom, talks with filmmakers, distributors, entertainment lawyers, actors and more, from Ken Burns and PBS American Masters creator Susan Lacy to first-timers, across nearly 300 conversations. Each week brings one of two formats: a long-form conversation with the people behind films for HBO, Netflix, PBS and independent film, or The Deep Dive, where Christian takes one insight from a recent conversation and follows it wherever it leads. Listen Notes ranks the show in the top 5% of all podcasts worldwide. New episodes every week.

RESOURCES MENTIONED

• Shaking It Up on PBS: PBS
• Liz Carpenter: Wikipedia