When he's not working as a children's librarian at the Valley Center library, Richard Rivera has another career to occupy his time.
He's an award-winning documentary filmmaker.
Rivera has won two regional Emmy Awards in the last five years. He took home his first golden statue in 2003 for best historical documentary with “Building the Big Eye,” a film about the construction of Palomar Observatory. In 2006, he received an Emmy in best writing for “Grave Secrets,” about local cemeteries. Both aired on San Diego public television station KPBS.
He is working on another cemetery-themed film for KPBS with the working title, “San Diego Six Feet Under.” The documentary will look at local cemeteries and who is buried where, which in some cases will be challenging to explain.
Rivera said Mission Hills Park, also known as Pioneer Park, was a cemetery in the 1800s, but headstones were removed in the 1960s and a park was built over the graves.
“When you are lying on the grass with your sweetheart or throwing a Frisbee for your dog, you may not realize that several feet beneath you are hundreds of dead bodies,” Rivera said.
When “Grave Secrets” as a short piece got a positive reaction, KPBS decided it should be made into a feature-length documentary. So “San Diego Six Feet Under” will look at several cemeteries, including the one in Old Town where part of it was paved and where grave markers in the street are driven over daily.
Rivera hopes the film will be ready for airing in October, in time for Halloween, but it depends on funding.
Rivera began his filmmaking career in 1986 when he worked for SeaWorld and did “scores” of in-house films for the company. He went out on his own in 1995, making documentaries for KPBS and the Discovery and History channels, while earning a master's in library science. He graduated in 2006.
“I feel very fortunate to have him,” said Sandy Puccio, Valley Center branch librarian. “In addition to his documentary skills, he also has a theatrical background, so we have had a Renaissance fair, readers theater and he offers creative children and teen programs.”
Rivera said his careers dovetail, since both entertain and educate his audience.
In his film, “Harlem of the West,” which he made for KPBS, Rivera spotlights the Creole Palace in San Diego, a nightclub inside the Hotel Douglas, both owned by blacks.
“The Creole Palace was a hoppin' place,” Rivera said. “All the greats like Nat King Cole, Louis Armstrong and Billie Holiday came to play there.”
The Creole Palace, at Third and Market streets in downtown San Diego, became know as the “Cotton Club of the West” with glitzy showgirls and an entertainment lineup that included black singers topping the music charts in the 1930s and 1940s.
In his documentary “Slave Ship,” Rivera concentrates on the revolt aboard the ship Amistad by captives from Africa bound for slavery in 1839. They were apprehended by the U.S. Navy, but were able to return to Africa in 1842 after the Supreme Court upheld a federal court's decision that the trafficking of people across the Atlantic was illegal.
The film, done for the Discovery Channel in 1996, was made about the same time that Stephen Spielberg was directing “Amistad,” Rivera said.
For filming, Spielberg and Rivera used the same ship, the Californian docked in Long Beach, and the same costumes. The casts were different.
“We couldn't afford Anthony Hopkins,” Rivera said.
Spielberg's generous budget from Dreamworks allowed for more technology and the ability to turn day into night. When night shots were needed, Spielberg used huge black tarps to block out light.
Rivera, the writer and narrator of “Slave Ship,” said his crew had to film night scenes at night, positioning the actors to block out the city lights behind them.
Rivera and KPBS officials are eager to get started on the new film once funding materializes.
“Sometimes things come together swiftly and sometimes they take years,” said Keith York, director of programs and production for KPBS. “This is a perpetual problem, challenge or opportunity, whatever you want to call it. This is how we do business.”
