DICK: Early on, my films had a great deal of verite--not necessarily the pure verite of a filmmaker like a (Frederick) Wiseman, whom I respect. But my verite, which has to do with supporting and crafting a subject’s story. There’s no such thing as a fly on the wall. Wiseman would allow a scene to develop in a more desultory way, I guess, than I do because I’m interested more in targeting an audience and getting a certain kind of a response.
The biggest experiment for me, I think, in verite was in Chain Camera, where I gave ten Los Angeles high school kids cameras for a week and when they were done shooting whatever they shot, they gave the footage to me and passed the cameras on to ten different kids. And those students filmed their lives for a week, and then passed the cameras on again, and so forth. Those cameras circulated through the school for an entire year like chain letters, hence the film‘s title. That was an interesting experiment because rather than having the filmmaker find the subject, I wanted the camera to find the subject -- and putting cameras in so many hands accomplished that. I ended up with more than 700 hours of footage. It was fascinating.
The Filmmaker's Presence
DICK: There’s something radically different that happens when there isn’t a filmmaker present. I mean people are still performing, but they’re not performing for somebody in the room and it‘s interesting to figure out just who they’re performing for -- themselves, other students, an audience?
I mean, they’re culturally savvy, but it’s still hard to imagine yourself in front of an audience that’s seeing a film. So, are they performing for this amorphous idea of a non-person seeing the film, perhaps like an inner self? It was really interesting because the dominant style was for them to shoot other people, but sometimes they’d turn the camera on themselves.
That was in 2001, and that was a style I developed and used in other films. And then along comes YouTube! The first time I saw YouTube, I thought that’s what I’ve been doing for four or five years. And, there it was. Well, it’s different, too--but what I was doing was a sort of proto-YouTube.
Originality of Vision and Voice
MERIN: There’s a bit of cache for a narrative filmmaker in being dubbed an ‘auteur.’ Would you say that all documentary filmmakers are, by the nature of their process, auteurs?
DICK: I’ve always been suspicious of the term auteur as applied to filmmakers, because there’s an implied hierarchy, and I find that a little off putting. First of all, filmmaking is a collaborative art, and especially in documentaries. In fact, often times a producer directs, or a director produces -- I mean, there’s a lot of interchange like that. That happens on all sorts of occasions with me. But I think that for some documentary filmmakers, the term auteur might apply -- especially if they’re working from a script first. But with me, I definitely don’t have a script.
Sticking With The Experiment
DICK: I may have an idea of where the film might go, but I don’t want to be limited by that because, again, it’s an experiment. I want to shoot every imaginable subject, angle and dimension, and pursue the subject as far as I can for as long as I can.
Actually, I start editing a film while I’m shooting it. And I’ll keep looking what I’ve shot, and I’m always going out to get more based on what I have already -- and that happens weeks or sometimes just days before a film has to be finished.
Finding The Story
MERIN: But if you start editing before you’re finished shooting, how do you know what’s a pivotal scene or piece of footage in the overall arc of the film?DICK: Well, I find that editing while shooting helps with that…because often times you’ll shoot something and you think it’s terrific, and you see in the editing room that it doesn’t have quite the same impact you thought it would. Or the reverse. I used that same chain camera technique on a film I did about hospice, so I wasn’t shooting, but I was constantly editing the footage that came in -- so, in that way, I found that I should focus on the story of a seventeen year old girl who died, but the footage about her didn’t seem to have that much impact until I started cutting it, and then it became one of the most important elements in the film. If you edit while you’re shooting, it allows you to see where your film is going to go. Because in a documentary you’re not working with a script, you’re always getting a piece of this and a piece of that and when you begin to put it together, you can actually see where the holes are. Or you can see that something you thought was slight has a lot of potential.
Examples From Outrage
MERIN: Can you specify any examples from Outrage?DICK: The Charlie Crist story came in very late. I was aware of Charlie Crist and the rumors about him, but it wasn’t until we were very far into shooting this documentary that he announced his candidacy and got married, and then it all fell into place. We got reliable sources, so we could include the Charlie Crist story. And, he has such a bad record on civil rights for gays and lesbians, it‘s a very important element in the film.
There were other stories that came to us, too. But they were based on rumor. So much of the reporting about closeted gays and lesbians in politics is based on rumor, and we didn’t want this film to be more of that--everything is sourced reliably, credibly and with substantial investigation backing it. But we didn’t have Charlie Christ until quite late in the making of the film, and now he’s a key element. That’s a really good example of how my process works.
MERIN: Thanks for answering my questions and sharing your thoughts in such an interesting way.
DICK: Thanks for asking interesting questions. It’s unusual to have such a thoughtful conversation in an interview. I’ve really enjoyed it.
