FEATURE: UN TEAMS WITH ‘REVOLUTION’ TV SHOW TO HIGHLIGHT REAL CHALLENGES OF A WORLD WITHOUT POWER

From: UNNews <UNNews@un.org>
Date: 18 Sep 2013 17:00:01 -0400
Subject: FEATURE: UN TEAMS WITH 'REVOLUTION' TV SHOW TO HIGHLIGHT REAL
CHALLENGES OF A WORLD WITHOUT POWER
To: news11@ny-mail-p-lb-028.ptc.un.org

FEATURE: UN TEAMS WITH 'REVOLUTION' TV SHOW TO HIGHLIGHT REAL
CHALLENGES OF A WORLD WITHOUT POWERNew York, Sep 18 2013 5:00PMThe
fictional concept at the heart of the television series 'Revolution' –
which picks up 15 years after the start of a worldwide blackout – is
the day-to-day reality for billions of people living without power, a
reality United Nations field staff helped flesh out for the show's
writers ahead of its second season, which premiered last night at UN
Headquarters in New York.

Portrayals of endless tents at "Savannah Refugee Camp" and war lords
offering hostages sweet tea at the beginning of a meeting are taken
directly from experiences UN workers have had in places like
Afghanistan, Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), Sudan, and Syria.

"We spent a lot of the first season talking about 'what ifs' and that
has become 'what can we use," said actor Billy Burke during a
post-screening panel that brought together some of the cast and crew,
and the UN experts who had collaborated on the second season of the
show.

'Revolution' is a post-apocalyptic science fiction television drama
series that takes place in the United States 15 years after the start
of a worldwide blackout, according to NBC.

Series creator Eric Kripke said it was "surreal" when the UN reached
out to ask for help in highlighting the global energy crisis to the
show's audience in a meeting that included Under-Secretary-Generals
Valerie Amos, who heads the Office for the Coordination of
Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), and Peter Launsky-Tieffenthal,
responsible for Communications at the Department of Public Information
(DPI).

Worldwide, almost 3 billion people rely on traditional biomass for
cooking and heating, and about 1.2 billion have no access to
electricity, according to UN figures.

Lack of electricity impacts every aspect of life ranging from how
people store food, to how they learn, to their sanitation and access
to medical aid, Mr. Launsky-Tieffenthal said in his welcoming remarks.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon launched in 2011 the Sustainable
Energy for All Initiative. It aims to achieve three inter-linked
global targets by 2030: universal access to modern energy services;
the doubling of energy efficiency; and the doubling of the share of
renewable energy in the world's energy mix.

Speaking on the panel, UN Development Programme (UNDP) energy policy
specialist Bahareh Seyedi stressed that living without power is not
just a developing country issue.

"We are all interconnected. We all rely on the same ecosystem that
sustains life on earth. Our actions in New York affect a woman in
rural Bangladesh," Ms. Seyedi said, adding that Manhattan on its own
consumes as much energy as all of Kenya.

She suggested a greater emphasis in future episodes on sustainable
energies, such as wind turbines and solar panels that use the power of
sun and wind.

The opportunity to work with UN field experts such as Derk Segaar, who
had spent several years in South Sudan and Darfur providing
humanitarian support with OCHA, and to get stories directly from
people on the ground is "ideal" for the show, said Steve Tao, head of
TV for J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot production house which is responsible
for "Revolution."

It was the UN Foundation that initially approached Good Robot, the
philanthropic arm of Bad Robot, about collaborating.

"The United Nations is sometimes bad about getting its messages out to
the world, particularly in a way that makes sense to the general
public," said Mr. Segaar, OCHA Chief of Communications in New York.

Following a screening of the season premiere, he said the portrayal of
a warlord, whose character emerged fully from conversations between
the show writers and the UN, was realistic.

"We were a week's travel in the middle of nowhere to meet one of the
most notorious war lords and spread under a tree was a picnic with
little tea cups," Mr. Segaar told the panel recollecting negotiations
for safe passage of food convoys in Darfur.

The leader was well-educated and polite, "and then in the middle of
the picnic he takes out his gun," Mr. Segaar said.

He also made reference to portrayals of refugee camps, "Just imagine
the scale. In every single tent there is a family that doesn't want to
be there. It is a history of broken dreams times a thousand."

The relationship with the UN also impacted filler dialogue. At one
point, one of the main characters offhandedly remarks that someone he
had gone to school with came down with polio, a reference to lack of
vaccinations and re-emergence of long eradicated diseases – also
priority themes for the UN's work.

"Power is literal and metaphorical," said Mr. Kripke about
'Revolution.' "Financial power doesn't matter. Political power doesn't
matter. It is about how fragile our society really is."

Actors Giancarlo Esposito and Tracy Spiridakos also participated on
the panel, which was moderated by director and producer Fisher
Stevens.

Season two of 'Revolution' premieres on 25 September on NBC in the
United States, as well as on Foxtel in Australia and CityTV in Canada.
It will also air on 27 September on Syfy in Spain; 2 October on Star
in India, TVNZ in New Zealand and SOHU and IQIYI online outlets in
China; 5 November on Cinemax LATAM (HBO) in Latin American countries
and February 2014 on NOTTV in Japan.Sep 18 2013 5:00PM
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