[2] The majority of her work was filmed on small gauge, home movie formats (8mm and Super 8mm), which she has advocated as political decision because it not only increased intimacy with subjects but was more affordable and accessible, and appropriate for small-scale viewing.
"[1] While living in San Francisco, California, and Yellow Springs, Ohio, where she attended Antioch College, Elam had completed several documentary films on what she called "everyday life".
Rape gave women a platform to articulate and express anger about their experiences with sexual assault, and they are portrayed without the typical diffusion through "titillation or pathos".
[4] Everyday People has been of interest to art and film communities because of its incomplete state and the insight into the postal service, where she worked as a letter carrier.
[5] After graduating high school, Elam lived in Yellow Springs, Ohio, where she attended Antioch College for a year before deciding that she would not pursue a degree.
[2] Elam decided to stay in Yellow Springs because she found an interest in the progressive, political atmosphere of the community surrounding the university.
Finally, with Bill Brand and their friends Warner Wada and Dan O'Chiva, the four formed the Film Group, now Chicago Filmmakers.
Where the man simply wants to express and portray himself without broader political regard, the woman argues that there is a power dynamic between the person behind the camera and the subject, and that it would be irresponsible to ignore it.
[11] The visual track portrays technologically modified videos of women with occasional conceptually relevant printed titles, revealing Elam's stance on the issue at hand.
[12] Everyday People is a short, experimental documentary film focusing on the lives and struggles of mail carriers in Chicago and their relations with their communities.
[2] In 1973, while Elam was co-founding The Film Group, she also started working as a mail carrier for the United States Post Office in Logan Square in Chicago.
She quickly became an involved figure in the labor movement and served as a union delegate several times at the National Association of Letter Carriers biennial convention.
This involvement is reflected in several of her works, which document tension and protests on behalf of the Post Office workers union.
However, Elam stayed close to her main focus on gender issues and feminism by stating in her notes on this work that, "the narrators of the film are black, Puerto Rican, and/or women.