Here Goes...

We've begun to edit our POC for our documentary Voices for Change

If this sounds old hat I apologize in advance but I’m finding the thing I thought I was making isn’t really the thing I’m making. And that’s okay. To refresh those who haven’t yet been following my journey, I decided to make my first documentary at 62 with my kid Ray, who’s been making all genres of film for about ten years now. The idea I had was to make a documentary about activists. I’m a long time activist and organizer (with a dash of international development work in Haiti from 1985-1987). I’ve come to know and love hundreds of amazing activists over the years. Their stories begged to be told. I wrote a treatment. Planned the interviews. Met with an archival producer. Reached out to fellow activists who’ve been filming protests for years. I was all set!

Then I began interviewing. My good friend Steve Rogers (producer of “Here’s the Story” on PBS for the last 13 years) gave me my first interview question; “tell me about your childhood”. What a great question! I was interviewing people that have been interviewed many times, some on places like CNN, CNBC, FOX but they rarely, if ever, had been asked that question. I found out so much about my subject’s background, their influences, where they drew their inspiration.

Well sort of. I was finding out a lot more about them from what they weren’t saying. The connections I (and my crew) saw that they didn’t always see. We had a different perspective. I don’t know if it was by accident or intention, but at the end of my second interview I turned to my crew, my kid Ray and another young filmmaker, Vinny Albano, and asked if they had any questions. And they did! Great questions! They perceived the interview differently than I had. They asked questions I would have never thought of asking. Looking back, here is where my documentary began to take a different direction. It wasn’t all at once, but it gradually creeped in and started to change the way I was thinking about the focus of the documentary.

Where I eventually landed after completing 8 interviews was radically different than from where I had set out. I decided no archival footage, no verite. I would focus on the stories themselves. But not just the stories, what the interviewees were saying, but what they were SAYING. My documentary took on a much more experimental, poetic focus. I realized in the interviews that I wasn’t hearing a “how to” on being an organizer. It wasn’t this is this and that is that. It was more poetic, where this is that. I brought on a composer for original music, an animator to represent and express protests but not be literal.

Now I understood the central question I really was trying to answer. But discovering it was like being in therapy. Someone or in this case something else has to at times pull that reason out of you. The experience up to this point of making the documentary allowed me to see what I was looking for. When I realized what it was it was one of those duh! moments.

So here it is: drum roll please! I was really trying to find out who I am. It was as simple and impossibly complex as that. Isn’t that what we’re all doing? I hope so.

Why was I this kid, from my earliest memory questioning why things were like they were. This couldn’t possible be the way things had to be. I have to tell you (many of you probably already know otherwise you wouldn’t be filmmakers) this is not an easy way to start off and find your way in this world. It wasn’t until I found comrades in the activist community that I started to find my way. Started to find answers. This is why I’m making this documentary. Trying to find answers. Or at least some good travel partners along the way. Hop on board!