An Introduction to the Opposites

Although I am not a devout practicer of yoga, I will compare film making to the process. You must hold your self in a very uncomfortable position, and breathe. Most of this pain, that you will experience making a film is emotional, soon leading to physical. However, it is the realities that you discover which will cause you most the emotional distress.

Film making is the play on opposites. And I find it hilarious.

It takes a million dollars to make a film about poverty. When I was taking "Woman's Prison" to different producers, they all mentioned that the film would cost at least one million dollars. I mentioned that I did not want established stars to be in the film, I wanted all unknowns. Still, they insisted. This million dollar price tag on a story about poverty seemed ridiculous, especially since my goal was to make a completely honest film about the subject matter. And I did.
Drive and passion carried "Woman's Prison" to completion not a million dollar budget.

A studio may make a film about being poor white trash, but you can bet that almost everyone on the set has little or no experience living as such. Most of the film business is saturated in wealth, ran by people from comfortable means not impoverished backgrounds. Which is reasonable when one must face the demands socially and emotionally of the "business." However, this gap leads to the misrepresentation of poverty and how it translates emotionally and intellectually to people. Absolute poverty is not just something that exists in Africa and South America. Absolute poverty exists in South Bend, Indiana, Detroit, Michigan and in East St. Louis, and its not only black people, yet white people as well. These are American third world nations.

Growing up around such lives motivated my decision to make "Woman's Prison" under the circumstances that I did. It was important to not tack on a comfortable ending to this story just because most would not "believe" that Julie Ann's circumstances were possible. The truth is "Woman's Prison" does not even touch the iceberg of these invisible lives. The media's inability to allow these women to been seen or heard humanely only adds injury to the situation.

Film is a chance to correct dangerous misconceptions about poverty and the choices it presents. It is humanity's chance to share honest emotion and be introduced to new perspectives collectively. It allows dialogue to happen and puts audiences in other people's shoes. Which is why every filmmaker has a responsibility to create work that is honest. Shock is over. Honest and sincerity are the new trend.

Film is the process of delayed gratification. Contrary to watching a film, which supplies instant gratification in a hour or two, shooting takes weeks and editing takes even longer. Overall, it takes months to see the finished result. By the time the film is finished, gratification is the tingling of a invisible limb.

When Indie films were a blossoming art form in the early 90's, they were made for almost nothing, by unknowns, with unknowns and were greeted with great admiration. However, now an "Indie" film is considered made for 5 million dollars and casted with a star who has taken a "pay cut." And what was once considered "indie", controlling content, making a film with passion, is now considered "amateur." Yet, this is such of the opposite of what "Indie" should mean. Indie should not only be about famous people making their own films. "Indie" should be about the story and passion attached not the Hollywood name attached. "Indie" should be independent of status quo and formula.

All this said, I am not done making films and working in film. These realizations are only little cramps after one has ran a mile. Although, I will say, the toll that film making takes on your body and mind is not something to play down. The process continuously triggers my sensitive nature and burdens my conscience. However, film needs a new perspective now more then ever.

Most people would have walked away and settled on being a gaffer or an assistant to producer rather then do what I do. If you settle into that position you luckily avoid humiliation of the Indie process. You are treated with basic respect from your fellow peers and receive instant admiration from the public who may ask what you do for a living. There is not such public admiration coming at you when you have given up your phone service to pay for kraft services or are vomiting on set from stress.

However, then you have to live with your artistic conscience knowing it missed out. I have to know what it feels like to have the film come through me. And while the process is an uncomfortable one and forces one to be instantly 50, I will say that if you have it pestering inside, the only freedom you will ever have is in making the film. There's no easy way out.

So practice film yoga. Learn to breath while holding an uncomfortable position for a long time. When you are finished, you may be sore but its only because you just moved a mountain.

Pain is Temporary, Film is Forever

June 9, 2009,

I no longer feel broken. I am in awe of what we created. I want to live now, and repair so that I can continue onward in this process. I did not know, but waiting on the other side was the life that Julie Ann and Susan both deserved. A life without the haunting of violence or poverty. At the end of the film, Julie Ann's only freedom is her death, and this film was how I freed myself. And now, I have exchanged despair for the truth of myself to exist. For the first time, I am surrounded by the positive things that Indiana has given me. Those things, my Mother, my close friends will always outweigh its ugliness.

Always.

The Emotional Toll of "Woman's Prison"

Before I set off to make "Woman's Prison" I was completely ready, there was no doubt in my mind that making this film, in the summer of 2008, was exactly what I had to do. And even during production, I attacked each day with a bolt of electricity surging through me. However, that all took a turn once I finished the film.

Now, I do not know why I made the film. After a visit to the heart specialist ordered by my doctor, I question if it was worth it. As I laid there, listening my heart beat back and forth, it was true, my heart was broken. My emotional symptoms were now physical.

And the reason for this heart break was that I faced my mortality making this film. I felt everyone place their burdens on me for 11 months. It was constant taking. As the demons that created the content slowly made their way out, my physical defenses were dissolving as well as any rationality. The dark energy of the film entered me and would not leave.

It was not as if we just made a film about women in poverty, I was filming the movie in the city that had been responsible for much of my emotional turmoil and negative energy. Seeing youthful girls without emotional baggage from from New York enjoying Indiana and not immediately seeing my past experiences, made me feel more alienated and isolated. I sought to rid myself of the violence of my adolescence , yet that violence resonates within your being forever. And seeing a person living out the life that I escaped, triggered on going panic attacks for the next 11 months.

The panic attacks had much to do with the fact that content of the film was not self contained to set. So many women we worked with lived Julie Ann's life. In one case, an actress's boyfriend would not let her come to set to shoot her scenes. How could she argue with him, she did not work, she did not pay rent, she cooked and cleaned and lived in his house. We lost a day of shooting due to her troubled relationship.

I carried the burden weight of those possible fates back to New York City, believing that the hardest part was over. I had no idea was going to be exchanged in order to finish the film.

My life was on hold for 11 months. There were moments so tense that I do not even remember them. Sleep was interrupted with nightmares reliving production traumas. My face was covered with red patches of dry skin. Purple bags outlined my eyes. My two pairs of jeans spouted dozens of holes. The only human contact that I had was with the post production staff, making me emotionally needy and cynical. I passed out on the subways trains. Images of Holocaust victims and Detroit poverty ran uncontrolled in my mind. I knew how bad life could get. I did not need any well off white person who grew up in the suburbans to tell me about who was being cheated. Their ramblings triggered my anxieties and worsened my condition. As they extended their hearts to residents of Bed-Stuy, they seem to lack the immediate compassion to notice that the person in front of them was experiencing this first hand. However much guilt motivated them to preach, they were certainly was not being cheated, just lazy.

And these encounters contributed to my isolation. While I was able to see how others were feeling, most people I ran into on a daily basis were only out for you to be an audience for their hangups. Now when you are in a normal, healthy state of mind, this is fine to deal with. Yet, when you are having images of slain populations flashing in your mind, you do not need to hear self absorbed left wing rants masked as compassion. You need to watch soap operas or Disney movies.

As post-production dragged on, anger and resentments at how things occurred on set bubbled to the surface. I felt neglected by my crew in the face of a particular problem person on set. I realized that while I envisioned having a whole female crew as honest way to make the film, I had not foreseen the fact that people in general fear and respect father figures and do not respect a woman without some intimidating male presence protecting her. I would pay for this during production.

The main lesson learned, sexism is not carried out by men alone, but by women--by women who have never been able to take out their anger on men. Rather then take out their rage on men, they will target each other because they are allowed to and by assaulting other women they will not harm their chances to gain approval from men.

And since most girls do seek approval from men, the boys put girls in check. Had I had a male assistant director, there would have been less gossiping, needless flirting and rantings. My male AD would have put a certain actor in his place when he sat in car for a half hour and yelled profanities at me. The fear of another male would have kept his behavior respectable.

All of these realizations took a toll on my body. Late in post-production, I went to see a doctor for a physical and she asked "Why is your blood pressure so high?" and I said, "it is?" and I paused. "My left side of my face is numb and tingling." I was having a mini stroke.

When you are under the creative demands of directing, you must be completely surrounded by protective people. There must be buffers away from excited crew or emotionally burdened actors. And this lack of protection took its toll on my health, both physical and emotional. Worse, was that my even though my ailing health was visible, the reaction from my superiors and peers ignored those signs. No one was taking into account my sickeningly body, therefore I continued working until I became sick with pneumonia and took four days to sleep. When my sickness was seen, I was ordered to "take care" of myself, which is more of burden then something that I could actually do. There was no time for my body to exist, or there to be any delays. Money was extremely tight. I subleted my room for 11 months and slept on my couch. I ate the frozen vegetables and noodles three times a day.

I turned in the film on April 17. New York City's noise and busyness felt as if it was attacking me. I started screaming and jumped in my car and left. I cried the whole 11 hour drive to Indiana. Not because, I was emotionally hurt but because I felt nothing. These were new tears, tears that I cried because I wanted to be a human again and I had no idea where to start. I wanted to experience romantic love without thinking about domestic violence. I wanted to find people that were not so selfish and obsessed with celebrities, that could appreciate things for just existing. I wanted a genuine friend who did not want anything from me. And as music played on the radio, songs that used to inspire, amounted to nothing that I could believe in anymore. My heart was broken, and it happened to break because I followed it.