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Frances Negrón-Muntaner  Dear Independent Producer: Have you ever thought of applying to the Independent Television Service (ITVS) but feared that your beloved project would get manhandled by an anonymous bureaucrat who would also take pleasure in humiliating you? Or have you received one or more letters with the painful second sentence that reads "We are sorry to say that your project was not selected" and immediately felt a soulful connection to PBS-hater Jesse Helms? Or perhaps you simply don't know anyone who has been supported by ITVS and are profoundly discouraged by the fact that ITVS funds less than five percent of the proposals it receives, an intimidating—not to say scary—statistic plastered in all of the organization's application forms. If you ever had any of these (or other) negative feelings about ITVS, this letter is intended to be sung along with Gloria Gaynor's classic disco hit "I Will Survive." Trust me, I have. I received ITVS funding in 1993 for Brincando el charco: Portrait of a Puerto Rican, an internationally acclaimed one-hour experimental narrative that is largely thought of as a meaningful contribution to Puerto Rican/Latino/queer filmmaking and an ITVS flop. I also had the misfortune of participating in the ill-fated ITVS-funded series The Question of Equality and painfully contributed a segment that seems to have been edited by Edward Scissorhands for a second series. As of late, I have been turned down by ITVS twice on a project that I thought was deserving of the institution's full support. My extravagant resume is not, however, my only—or main—qualification in addressing you. For the last two years, I have been an ITVS reader and panelist and have been able to observe up close how ITVS makes its funding decisions. Although initially I thought that the invitation to become a panelist was a form of cooptation—bring in the critic so she gets a sense of power and forgets past grievances—I have now come to appreciate ITVS's invitation as a generous investment in my career. Participating in the decision-making process has made me not only demystify the ITVS funding procedures and witness first-hand ITVS's professionalization under former director James Yee's tenure, it has also helped me to improve key fundraising skills and better understand ITVS's mission as an organization. This knowledge has even emboldened me to the point that I may apply again, something I swore I would never do after consecutive years of rejection. When, a few months ago, The Independent asked me to share my experience inside the ITVS panel room with you—with ITVS's blessing (indeed they are brave)—I accepted the assignment with missionary zeal, hoping that by writing this letter, at least some producers could avoid getting the other, dreaded one, and take another look at ITVS.  The Review ProcessIf you already think that the ITVS peer panel review process resembles the reality show Survivor, you are right. ITVS takes the country's demographics into account in selecting its panelists. It also factors in the several constituencies that make demands on the Public Broadcasting System, namely ethnic groups, sexual minorities, geographic regions, and filmmaking communities in recommending grants. But it also never forgets the Congressmen who wish ITVS wouldn't exist, the political groups who take offense at homosex, the largely indifferent taxpayers of America, and the broad gamut of "viewers like you." As the verbally incisive Director of Production Patrick Wickham put it during a recent meeting: "We serve many masters." And producers of all stripes are only one of them, something that we often forget. Luckily there are important differences between the Survivor and panel tribes. Good looks aside, the panelists are pretty smart people following fairly transparent criteria, and the money at stake is not going into their pockets. All conflicts of interest must be revealed and documented, and people take their jury duty very seriously. In the last panel session I sat in, an ITVS D.C.-based arts advocate who was observing the process could not help but contain his admiration: "I am very impressed. I witnessed how the NEA panels operated a number of years ago, and this is extremely thorough." Indeed. Panelists spend an average of 30 hours thinking about each application and its merits. Unlike most state council and foundation panels, ITVS is unique in its painstaking process. And it goes something like this. After grabbing continental breakfast at the ITVS offices on the impossible-to-find Federal Street in San Francisco—some people would think that this Kafkaesque location was purposefully chosen—the meeting begins by introductions of all present, and is guided by Claire Aguilar, who recently joined the staff as director of programming. The composition of the programming and executive team at ITVS is fairly diverse, including Anglos, Asians and Latinos. I don't know if it's because I am writing about the ITVS decision-making process for publication, but there is someone transcribing the entire set of sessions, word by word. [Ed.: Transcripts are created for all panels to be available to panelists during the review process. In addition, when ITVS provides feedback to producers about their applications, passages pertaining to their projects will be read to them over the phone.] The general ground rule for my spying is that I can only mention the staff by name. All panelists and other observers will remain anonymous. Prior to this panel meeting, 19 readers across the country helped ITVS narrow down 260 proposals to 18. [Ed.: This was for the DV panel. For the Open Call panel in February, there were 490 applications reviewed by 45 readers, which were winnowed down to 32 finalists.] Having also participated as a reader, I can say that the main difference between this and the panel phase is that the staff has a greater role in establishing this preliminary group. The producers who make it to the second batch are asked to submit a second and more extensive application along with sample tapes, and this is when panelists come together. The main—and obligatory—goal of the panel meeting, an almost 10-hour marathon, is to debate and then modify scores that each panelist had sent into ITVS before the meeting. To start, the panelists examine the ratings sheet prepared by the staff. The lowest rating is 1 and the highest is 5. Depending if you have a nice or mean panel, there will be a lot of 0s or a lot of 5s. The fundamental criteria that serve as the basis for evaluation, discussion, and funding consideration are as follows:
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