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Former state Sen. Atkinson launches 'Table,' a new film series A scene from Jason Atkinson's first "Table" film shows the group discussing civility. Atkinson sits at the head of the table. Image courtesy of Jason Atkinson Monday Dec 26, 2016 at 12:01 AM Dec 26, 2016 at 1:28 PM By Mark Freeman For the Tidings After 14 years in the public eye in the Oregon Legislature, Jason Atkinson is now both in front and behind the lens of a new online film project that he considers a form of public service to help change attitudes and relationships instead of policy.  The Central Point Republican last week launched his new series, called "Table," a 21st century take on Jeffersonian dinners meant to bring together big minds to solve big problems and feature food as part of the cast.   The project brings eight diverse Oregonians together with Atkinson for a dinner in which they discuss a single topic and try to come up with a solution that creates a public good. "It's a complete rebellion against what you see in cable TV, where you only care about celebrities and people who yell the loudest," Atkinson says. The first episode, called "Civility," comprises three short clips showing diners explaining their experiences with civility and ending with one of the diners, former Gov. John Kitzhaber, concluding what the group considers is needed, but missing, in current political discourse. "Civility is the foundation of communication," Kitzhaber says in the film. "It's what allows you to have people hear you, not just listen to you." Viewing is free and "Table" can be seen at http://tableshow.online/. It also can be accessed through Facebook, YouTube and Vimeo. Atkinson, 46, says "Civility" and episode two, called "Grace," are getting in front of a lot of eyeballs as viewership gains momentum online. "This is getting more interest than anything I could have done as a senator," he says. Atkinson's life in the public eye began through the Legislature, where he was elected to the House of Representatives in 1998 before moving to the Senate in 2000. He won re-election to the Senate twice by generous margins, earning praise on both sides of the aisle for his work on environmental issues. He ran unsuccessfully for the Republican nomination for governor in 2006 and toyed with running again in 2009, but opted not to. In 2012, Atkinson decided not to run for another term, moving out of the spotlight to get behind it. He began working on films, an old passion that dates back to stints in his family's local radio and television business. It also includes what he calls "a really bad" fly-fishing movie he screened in 2010 to a packed audience of mostly peers and government types in Salem. It became much more serious when he later turned his eye toward the Klamath River, where five generations of Atkinsons have fly-fished while staying at their riverside family cabin. Atkinson wrote and produced a full-length, award-winning documentary called "A River Between Us," which explored the various people and interests on both the Oregon and California sides of the Klamath, which is mired in fights over water allocations, potential dam removals, drought and protected wild fish. The documentary, which came out in 2015 and has won more than a dozen film-festival awards, addresses many of the political issues, but it focuses more on the people who live along the storied stream, including those who cast flies for its fish. Atkinson also recently completed a documentary about Syrian refugees along the Syrian-Jordanian border. "Table" came as a concept 11 months ago, built around Thomas Jefferson's famous dinners where he brought in the best minds of the day to solve a single issue over a feast. "I thought, what if I put really diverse people around a table in the same model: One issue," Atkinson says. "One issue." He believes audiences can connect with the discussion and that the table and the actual dinner prove to be barrier-breachers.  "Everybody's equal around the table," Atkinson says. He "boot-strapped" the funding himself by soliciting friends and associates and "called in favors" before cobbling together enough funds for the first two episodes, which were shot and edited in Portland. Atkinson hopes the episodes will carry the water toward getting funding for six other episodes exploring other facets either missing from or dominating contemporary discourse. "It has the effect of creating discourse and that's one of the things I love about public service," Atkinson says. "I've enjoyed that public service with a creative bent," he says. "I hope it works." Reach Mail Tribune reporter Mark Freeman at 541-776-4470 or [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/MTwriterFreeman.