The Wall Street Journal - 21.10.2019

Philharmonicplayed Beethoven in-

side, people outside gathered to

watch the concert live.

“This is a great delivery system

for sharing the arts with a broader

audience,” said Mark Blakeman,

the center’s executive director.

Performing arts centers face

challenges as audience members

age and they compete for new ones

who have a bevy of entertainment

options to choose from. Orchestra

audiences declined 11% between

2010 and 2014, according to a 2016

study commissioned by the League

of American Orchestras.

Outdoor projections present some

challenges. They can involve signifi-

cant investments in technology to

provide a show that is free for the

public. But arts institutions are hop-

ing to convert some newcomers out-

side into paying patrons inside, and

to attract public and private funding.

institutions experiment-

ing with outdoor projec-

tions of performances as

a way to cultivate new

audiences and improve

the institutions’ long-

term prospects. They

aimtocreateacasual

cultural experience that

can appeal to younger,

more diverse viewers

who might not think of

attending a show inside.

Last month, the Ken-

nedy Center in Washing-

ton opened a $250 mil-

lion campus of pavilions

and event spaces called

the Reach that includes

an outdoor video wall.

In July, the Kentucky

Center for the Perform-

ing Arts in Louisville un-

veiled Old Forester’s

Paristown Hall, a $

million venue aimed at

drawing millennial audi-

ences for events ranging from rock

concerts to Louisville Orchestra

performances. It has an outdoor

public garden with a projection

wall to display simulcasts as well

as art installations and movies.

The new McKnight Center for the

Performing Arts at Oklahoma State

University that opened earlier this

month includes an outdoor wall

with a 32-foot LED screen overlook-

ing a lawn. As the visiting New York

CHRIS

LEE

Aperformance of the New York Philharmonic at Oklahoma State University was projected live.

BYELLENGAMERMAN

Whistleblowers Dish

In Books and Movies

Protagonists take on the powerful and wrestle with the consequences

MiamiBeach’s New World Sym-

phony, which coined the term wall-

cast, broadcast its first in 2011. Ac-

cording to a 2016 study by research

firm WolfBrown, 30% of the audi-

ence at NWS wallcasts is under 45

and 34% is people of color—making

it younger and more diverse than a

traditional concert crowd.

An orchestral academy co-

founded by Michael Tilson Thomas,

music director of the San Francisco

Symphony, it has hosted visits from

arts institutions around the U.S. to

study how it produces wallcasts.

NWS uses at least 12 cameras

during a concert, positioned

throughout the hall and among

musicians, including at the base of

a cello. A typical show involves

800 shots, scripted and timed to

the music, said Clyde Scott, direc-

tor of video production.

Among the more than 8,

members of the orchestra’s wallcast

concert club, 65% are new to NWS

and 6% of that group went on to

buy a ticket inside the concert hall,

according to symphony data.

While that might not help the

bottom line much, the success of

wallcasts has led to significant

backing by corporate sponsors, said

Howard Herring, president of NWS.

“It’s informal, it’s outside, it’s

sophisticated music coming to you

at the highest levels of amplified

sound and projected image,” he

said. “That’s a powerful thing.”

On a night out to hear the New

World Symphony in Miami Beach,

Fla., earlier this year, Michael

Phelan and his friends never actu-

ally entered the concert hall. In-

stead, they camped on a lawn out-

side, among hundreds of other

people, sipping wine and snacking

on crudités and cheese.

On a 7,000-square-foot facade of

the building before them, the per-

formance was projected live, in

what’s known as a wallcast, while

170 speakers throughout the park

filled the area with rich, clear

sound. As the musicians played

Haydn and Mozart, high-definition

camera shots captured the full or-

chestra or zoomed in on a per-

former’s face or fingers.

“I like that you can see the

hands of the pianist, the expres-

sion on the face of the violinist,”

said Mr. Phelan, 67 years old.

These wallcasts routinely draw

more than 2,000 people—a mix of

older classical-music aficionados,

young couples and families, who

tend to sit near the perimeter so

restless children can run around.

“It enables community to have

these spaces,” said Patricia Ara-

gon, 32, attending her first wall-

cast earlier this year. “It’s the key

to having a happy city.”

The New World Symphony is

one of a growing number of arts

BYARIANCAMPO-FLORES

Symphony Orchestras Try a Twist on the Wall of Sound

andoffer financial incentives for

speaking up, he adds.

The archetype has a long cine-

matic history. Meryl Streep, Rachel

Weisz, George Clooney, Matt Da-

mon and Al Pacino have all played

versions of whistleblowers.

“The conflict is so profound,”

said Michael Mann, director and

co-writer of “The Insider,” a 1999

film starring Russell Crowe as

real-life tobacco industry whistle-

blower Jeffrey Wigand. “It’s very

dramatic to do something that’s

against all of your interests. Imag-

ine a Fortune 500 company with a

blank checkbook designed to de-

stroy your life and make you ques-

tion your own sanity—and yet the

impulse to come forward is so

strong that if you don’t, your inner

self will be annihilated.”

The new movie, “The Kill Team,”

grew out of a real-life whistle-

blower-intimidation case. Alexander

Skarsgård plays an enigmatic com-

mander leading his men to murder

three unarmed civilians during the

war in Afghanistan. Mr. Skarsgård’s

Sergeant Deeks pressures soldier

Andrew Briggman, played by Nat

Wolff, to keep quiet.

“The idea of violating that cama-

raderie to stand up for what you

believe is right, it’s almost unthink-

ably challenging, emotionally and

logistically,” said Dan Krauss, who

directed “The Kill Team” and a 2013

documentary about the episode.

Filmmakers also are drawn to

corporate whistleblowers. In

“Bombshell,” debuting this Decem-

ber, Nicole Kidman stars as former

Fox News anchor Gretchen Carl-

Publishing is a popular landing

pad for whistleblowers. Last

month marked the arrival of “Per-

manent Record,” a memoir by Ed-

ward Snowden, the former intelli-

gence contractor who leaked

classified documents on govern-

ment surveillance programs. The

U.S. Justice Department immedi-

ately filed a civil lawsuit to seize

proceeds from the book, alleging it

violated non-disclosure agree-

ments. In a statement, publisher

Macmillan supported Mr. Snowden

and defended the book.

Some whistleblowers experi-

enced difficulties in childhood that

they believe made them more sen-

sitive to injustice. In his book, Mr.

Wylie describes growing up gay

with a medical condition that con-

fined him to a wheelchair during

high school.

“From that point on, I’ve a de-

veloped a characteristic to call

stuff out,” he said in an interview.

A data scientist who helped set up

Cambridge Analytica, the 30-year-

old London-based author was the

first to come forward publicly

about the company. He partici-

pated in government investiga-

tions and testified in Washington.

Kory Langhofer, a lawyer for

former Cambridge Analytica CEO

Alexander Nix, objected to claims

in Mr. Wylie’s memoir. “We don’t

view him as blowing a whistle. So

much of what he has said has been

invented,” he said, alleging that

Mr. Wylie left the company on bad

terms. “He has an ax to grind.”

The Cambridge Analytica contro-

versy revolves around whether the

British consulting firm improperly

obtained and exploited user data

from Facebook. In a settlement with

the Federal Trade Commission,

Facebook recently agreed to pay a

$5 billion fine and add new over-

sight to its privacy practices. Face-

book, which hasn’t admitted or de-

nied wrongdoing, didn’t respond to

requests to comment.

Cambridge Analytica, which de-

clared bankruptcy last year, has de-

nied misconduct in the Facebook af-

fair. The firm acquired its data

lawfully and later deleted it at Face-

book’s request, Mr. Langhofer said.

Whistleblowers can be polarizing

figures who have contributed to the

very abuse they claim is occurring.

That ambiguity is at play in “Tar-

geted,” the memoir by Ms. Kaiser,

former business-development direc-

tor at Cambridge Analytica.

“The heartbreaking thing about

being a whistleblower is that you

have to have been involved in

something in order to whistleblow

on it,” she said in an interview.

“There are some people that will

never understand that and will

never forgive you.”

The 31-year-old Texas native,

who provided documents to author-

ities and wasn’t charged with any

offense, is at the center of “The

Great Hack,” a documentary about

Cambridge Analytica that debuted

on Netflix over the summer. The

filmmakers first tracked down Ms.

Kaiser in Thailand while she was

hiding out after alleging unethical

practices at the company.

“We looked for someone on a

journey, about to jump off a cliff to

a destination they don’t really

know, someone who has a lot of

stakes, and Brittany encompassed

all that material,” said Karim

Amer, who directed “The Great

Hack” with Jehane Noujaim.

son, whose lawsuit accusing late

Fox News CEO Roger Ailes of sex-

ual harassment led to his ouster.

(The Wall Street Journal parent

News Corp and Fox News parent

Fox Corp. share common owner-

ship.)

On TV earlier this month, an ep-

isode of “Succession” featured

scheming media heiress Shiv Roy

defending her family’s company by

convincing a whistleblower not to

testify before Congress.

“For two or three days you’re

going to be kind of famous, but

then the caravan moves on,” she

tells the witness. “From tomorrow,

that’s all you’ll ever be to your

grandkids, to the people you meet

on vacation, when they google you,

pages and pages of filth and lies,

the first line of your obituary.”

Nat Wolff, left, and Alexander Skarsgård clash in ‘The Kill Team.’ At right, Keira Knightley stars in ‘Official Secrets.’

CL

OCKWISE FROM TOP: MARK MATCHO; IFC FILMS; A

W

antto know

where pop cul-

ture is right now?

Just whistle.

Books, movies

and television are taking a page

from politics and making it a big

moment for whistleblowers. Pro-

tagonists who take on the power-

ful draw in audiences as they

wrestle with moral conflicts, huge

risks, divided loyalties and com-

plex truths.

In theaters Friday, “The Kill

Team,” inspired by a true story,

explores a military whistleblower’s

attempt to expose murders by his

platoon in Afghanistan. The HBO

drama “Succession,” whose second

season just ended, hinged on a

whistleblower’s threat to a corpo-

rate giant. Memoirs out this

month on the Cambridge Analytica

scandal written by former employ-

ees—“Mindf*ck” by Christopher

Wylie and “Targeted” by Brittany

Kaiser—brim with allegations

about the improper use of data to

influence elections.

“This is the age of the whistle-

blower,” writes Tom Mueller in

“Crisis of Conscience,” a nearly

600-page analysis of whistleblow-

ing and corruption. “Rarely have

the voice and conscience of private

citizens had more resonance.”

Whistleblowers in arts and en-

tertainment often are depicted as

heroes whose stories end in tri-

umph, but in real life, their fates

are far less certain. Many are un-

knowns whose allegations won’t

be championed in the media,

heeded by employers or investi-

gated by authorities. Even dedi-

cated workers with solid records

may be committing career suicide,

blacklisted not just by a company

but an entire industry. Divorce, de-

pression, unemployment and fi-

nancial struggles often follow their

solitary acts.

“It was a difficult period—iso-

lating, worrying and being unsure

of the future or the outcome,” said

Katharine Gun, the whistleblower

played by Keira Knightley in this

summer’s docu-drama “Official Se-

crets.” The movie hinges on

whether Ms. Gun, a British intelli-

gence officer, will end up in jail af-

ter leaking secret information

about an American scheme to

force United Nations members to

support the invasion of Iraq. The

British government eventually

dropped its case against her.

Last month, a CIA officer alleged

that President Trump sought to use

his office to press Ukraine’s leader

into launching an investigation into

Democratic rival Joe Biden, trigger-

ing an impeachment inquiry by

Congress. The president has denied

any wrongdoing and called the

whistleblower’s complaint a fraud.

In recent years, whistleblowers

have helped expose unlawful car

emissions at Volkswagen, faulty

blood-testing methods at Theranos

and toxic-lead levels in drinking wa-

ter in Flint, Mich. Whistleblower

lawsuits have recovered more than

$60 billion in federal funds and

helped prevent another $1 trillion in

losses since 1986, Mr. Mueller

writes in his book, published this

month. Over the past two decades,

more than 50 countries have en-

acted whistleblower laws often

modeled on American statutes that

protect insiders who come forward

THEWALLSTREETJOURNAL. Monday,October21, 2019 |A

LIFE & ARTS