In the Life: Interview with series producer Charles Ignacio

[Charles Ignacio] My name is Charles Ignacio. Um, I was the producer, then the executive producer at, "In the Life." I, was, um, on staff from, 1992 to 2002. I came to "In the Life," through an interesting, roundabout way. I read about John Scagliotti's effort to create, ah, the first, gay series on public television in a, magazine that doesn't exist now in New York, called, "Q Magazine." So, I, um read about him. I saw that he was going to give a talk at the New York Community Center. And I went there and, um, I, offered my services as a volunteer. At the time I was, working at HBO, I believe, um, and then after that I worked at Channel 13. But, during those, that time, I helped him stuff envelopes to try to do fundraising, to raise money for the first episode for the pilot. And, um, over that first year, I, left Channel 13 and I had coffee with John and I said, "John, I'm leaving my job, um, so I'm even more available to you," and, he said, "How would you like to co-produce the pilot?" And, so I had never done anything like that before. I was out of, I went to film school at Columbia, but I never produced a television show, but I, thought for a second. I said, "Sure." So that was the beginning of my, um, my time at, "In the Life." I helped produce, the pilot with him, um, which was quite a ride. And, um, eventually became his successor and stayed on staff for ten years. When, "In the Life," first started, um, there was no, visibility, really to speak of, for gay and lesbian, people on television. Um, this was way before, Ellen had her own talk show or even had her own TV series. Way before, "Will and Grace." Um. Ah, Clinton had just been, ah, voted as president. So there was a sense of, um, possibility, and, um, change in the air. But it was still very early. And so it was really exciting to be part of an effort that was going to try to change that. Um, we really, there wasn't a whole lot of out, gay, um, icons or out, gay heroes yet. Not, ah, now looking back, it's hard to, to think about what that would be like, but really there wasn't anybody, that I can remember that was on television, at least on a regular basis. We were trying to counteract that by really getting people to, ah, say that they were out. That they were, proud to be gay and lesbian. And I think that was something that we did that was different. I know it was really important for us on the production staff to, really show the, the diversity of the LGBT community, so, we really, ah, made an effort to, get different representations. Make sure that we had, like on the pilot, the ah, lesbian and gay, Lavender Light Gospel Chorus, for example. That we had, um, a lesbian dancer on that show. That we even had a panel of filmmakers. Back then, it was, gosh, it was Todd Haynes and B. Ruby Rich, on the pilot. Um, Marlon Riggs, even we were able, I, I remember now, that I, I shot an interview with Marlon Riggs, probably one of his last interviews, before he passed away. To be part of our segment on LGBT filmmakers. So, that was really important to get that, diversity across, and I think that really shows throughout the twenty years of, "In the Life," that really from the get-go, it was a big, um, it was part of the effort to really show the breadth, of the LGBT community, and to do service to that. It was important to me, that anybody that we had on the program, we attributed their name on the show. So we told them, we said, if you want to be interviewed on "In the Life," we're going to put your name on, ah, the lower third, we call it lower thirding or putting your name on the screen. And so some of, some people that we approached didn't want to be on the show because of that. But, I'm very proud that, um, all those early episodes, the people that we got on, they really wanted to, take a stand and say I'm going to be on this LGBT program. I'm gay. I'm lesbian. I'm proud of that. That was new. Nobody, I don't think there was any, TV show that, um, allowed that kind of, um, dis, display of being out. When, "In the Life," started in '92, ah, we'd just come out of a very conservative period In American history when Ro, Reagan was president. Um, there's a lot of anti-gay sentiment. Um, we were dealing with the AIDS crisis already. It had been around for several years. So it was very oppressive for being LGBT person at that time. Um, I think, that being part of a show that was trying to celebrate, being gay and lesbian. That was something new. And to have it on Public Television, that was almost kind of subversive because, Public TV is, is an American institution, so right away, you're dealing with a segment of the population who at the time was, thought, thought to be really fringe, or out there, or not worthy of serious, discussion or contemplation, and all of a sudden, we are going to be on, Public Television. You know, wow, that's, that's something different. One of the things that made, ah, "In the Life," unique amongst shows that were, broadcast on television, any kind of television, really, is that its funding came from, really came from the viewers. I mean, John Scagliotti who created, "In the Life," before we even shot the pilot, he would meet people and say, "We're doing this gay TV show. Um, "make sure you can, you can be a part of it, by making a donation. Give us ten dollars, twenty, fifty dollars, what ever. "Be a member of "In the Life." And I think John got that model from PBS. Because on PBS, you'd see a lot of these shows, they'd say, "Supported by members of PBS." John did the same thing with the show, "In the Life," but made it very personal. Made it about the show, so really, "In the Life," was, when it started, was dependent on individual, donors. Really, just ten dollars, fifty dollars, two hundred dollars. There were very few major donors, came on board the first year of, "In the Life." So we really, [laughs] put together the pilot on such a shoestring budget that the majority of everything that was done was, through favors that were called in. Through an army of volunteers to wrangle the studio audience. We even had a volunteer audience coordinator to try to even get a studio audience. I remember, [Laughs] We, we unfortunately we kept our studio audience for like three hours to tape two back-to-back episodes, and they were like looking at their watches, and really wanting to leave, but. It was, um, it was kind of like a circus backstage. The transition to the different stages of, "In the Life," now that I think about it, um, did not go smoothly, I would say, um. Although it, we did discover, our eventual host in Katherine Linton, through that first, series of news magazine programs. We actually had a core of six, correspondents and two co-hosts. One of the two co-hosts was Katherine Linton, who eventually became our host. But, because we had such a shoestring budget we were shooting in our volunteer directors studio, um, lofts in Chelsea, which was this ratty space on like the upper floors of this old building. And we didn't have much of a set to, to, um, shoot on, so what he did was he chroma keyed, or used a green screen to create, this backdrop behind our co-hosts, that he created on his computer. Which you know, was not the most ideal situation and, frankly, it's kind of a little embarrassing, when you look at it now. Um, but that did lead us to wanting to get out of that studio situation. And that led us to bringing our host, we finally went down from two co-hosts to a single host. We decided to shoot her on location in various places around the city. And sometimes around the country. So that was sort of the transition from the variety show format. Actually the biggest transition from the variety show format was we ran out of money. I think it was the sixth episode of, "In the Life." when John Scagliotti said, "I'm sorry Charles. We really don't have a budget. I'm going to have to let all of you go." I said, "No, John. There's been, there's a way we can do another episode. Let's do a, "Best of." episode of, [laughing] "In the Life." "All we need to do is to shoot the wraparound host." So, we actually shot John Scagliotti, as the kind of co-host of the show having, a dream that he was going to create a TV show and, [Laughing] and in the dream he was visited by this, fairy that was played by another stand up lesbian comic named Sara Citron. I don't know how, who came up with these ideas, but we shot them and it was really very funny. So he, in this conceit, he is dreaming that he's going to create a show. This fairy is going to show him what, he could come up with and we intercut it with some of the best of stuff that we had done in the previous five episodes, but we were able to deliver a, new episode to our public TV stations. And that's how, we kind of got through that season, and it gave us the summer then to, do some more fundraising, to then do the, the fall premiere episode which was our last, I think, that was becoming more like a news magazine, at that point. Getting us out of the studio. Getting us on location. We shot at the New York City, Pride Rally of '93. We got, ah, Lea DeLaria to host that episode. And, um, I guess the rest is history in terms of becoming a news magazine. One of the things that surprised me as a young producer of a TV show, is that especially one who's audiences, primarily again, lesbian audiences. Is that you really can't please your whole audience. And, as we try to make the show something that, appealed to all aspects of the gay and lesbian community. We often would alienate another part of our, community. I know that we would get, um, criticisms from people saying we don't have enough women on the show, and we really worked hard to try to make sure that, that was the case. Or, we didn't have enough people of color. Then we'd have people of color on the show, and then we get criticism from gay white men that it's too lesbian. When we had Lea DeLaria on as the, the host she, they said, she's too in your face, and she's too, you know, lead too dykish. You know, it was hard to hear, the prejudices even within the LGBT community about the way the show was being done. But, it was easy for me in other ways because, because we had such a limited budget and we were always, scrambling. I didn't really, take any of that personally. I was too focused, as the producer to just get the show in the can. We were just so busy running around shooting things and in the edit room. I knew, I can tell when something, um, was off the mark, but I can pretty much say that every episode that I oversaw, as a producer and then the executive producer, I'm very, very proud of. I, can't say that I feel, um, that we missed the mark or anything. It always seemed to be that, they coalesced somehow. And if we weren't able to cover, the trans community so much in this episode, I knew we were going to get to it in the next episode, or two episodes down the line. Because I came from small-town life in Indiana. I went to high school there. I also went to college there. That was always in the back of my mind in putting the show together. I wanted to make it accessible to as a much of mainstream audience as possible and especially, I would think about, um, maybe the gay teen that I was. Um, that wouldn't it be great to have this kind of a TV show or source of information that I didn't have, when I was growing up. I also thought too, of my own parents, especially my mom. You know, my mom, is an immigrant to this country from the Philippines. So English is not her first language. And I had already had come out, out to her before I started working on "In the Life." But I was always thinking, you know, I can't just reach gay teens. Public television is on for all people in this country, so we also have to reach, non gay people. And they are part of our audience too. And, when we started getting comments from non gay people, or parents of gay people, I knew we were doing our job. So it was always important for me in producing the series for a TV audience that I'd always be reaching, I was always thinking of my classmates or friends or even my parents back in the midwest. Is this going to reach them is this going to, speak to them. And one of the, my favorite moments, was when I had a chance to, go back to my Alma Mater and I, I assigned this story to our host Katherine Linton, to produce a story on what it was like to be a gay and lesbian student, at the University of Notre Dame, that would not allow gays students to organize and form a club. This was back in '95. They've since changed that policy. But back then that was really, really gratifying to me that I was able to do that. One of the great things about what, "In the Life." was trying to do, which was to present, ah, gay and lesbian lives to a mainstream audience was showing that we really exist in all aspects of American life and in all institutions. And I took great pleasure, in, assigning stories and producing stories that would take, something that most Americans think of our bastion of, traditionalism and showing well there's gay people there too. So we would do stories about, um, the church for example, or different religions. And we'd find, people who were affirming of gay relationships in those faiths. We did a story because, um, our host Katherine Linton came out of, Clown College. She was a, a, a, a graduate of Clown College. We did a story of gays and lesbians at the circus. We did stories in the heartland about gay farmers. And one of my favorite stories was I got a chance to come to Los Angeles. And visit the Walt Disney Studios and talk to out lesbian, gay people, animators, um, producers at the Disney Studios. So, it was kind of, I really took pleasure in that, I thought it was great. And I thought it was important. Not only was it fun to show, look gay people are at Disney. They're at your, they're your doctors and lawyers. We did a great story on a lesbian doctor, um, in Seattle, um. Judge Debbie Batts, a Federal New York Circuit Judge, an out lesbian. This is in the late Nineties. These kinds of institutions, that you don't think there are going to be gay people in, we, we lifted the curtain, and pulled it back and said look, we're everywhere. And so those are some of my favorite, stories that I got to either produce or to assign. The thing that made me feel good about, "In the Life," and, and, made me know that, we were, not only, documenting, We were not only documenting the LGBT history at the time, but we were also kind of making history. Just the fact that we had a chance to put on camera some of the last, interviews or last performances of some people in our community who we've lost. And so that was really Important to me, that for example, we had a performance of Michael Callen, a great AIDS activist who was a member of the, singing group, The Flirtations, an a cappella group that, was, they performed on our second episode. Um, Tom Stoddard, who was one of the early people at Lambda Legal. We interviewed him, um. Marlon Riggs, the African American Filmmaker who directed, "Tongues Untied." To talk about what it's like to be a black filmmaker working with gay issues. I knew that those interviews were going to be really important for, saving for posterity and for the fact, the fact that those are now available here at the UCLA Film and Television Archives is, really gratifying and knowing that people can now access them for people who are gone. I have always been a pack rat and so it was great to be able to be, in a situation, in an organization, where I could use, that part of me that likes to save things. Um, as well as knowing that, what we were shooting was going to be valuable for history. So I was really, really, um, adamant that we not throw anything out. And we really kept, we kept all the source tapes for everything that we shot at "In the Life." People who have an interest in gay rights, or the gay community or just trying to, fight for their rights, around the world, in different countries, can now have access to that. So, I think it's extremely important that it be made available. Also, um, documentarians or filmmakers who want to know what it was like, for gay people, in, those twenty years that, "In the Life." was on the air. They now have a resource to take a look and see what were some of the things that were important to the gay community. You know, workplace issues, um. Getting your relationship recognized by your community or your religion or the government with marriage equality. Um. What it was like to come, to come out to your family. On those early years in "In the Life," we had a lot of stories on coming out. Since that would seem to be the main thing that was hindering, the, um, getting rights for LGBT people was just to come out. So, it was important that we did stories of kids coming out to their families. Um, organizations like, Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays, PFLAG, to highlight the work that they were doing. Highlighting all the work of all the LGBT organizations. We're also a great record of that, so when some of these organizations, maybe down the line won't exist anymore. There's a record of all the LGBT organizations on the "In the Life," program. So, I think it's really important that there's this record that's accessible.