Making
the Documentary
Why
a Documentary About a Leather Club?
In
the early '90's, I was volunteering for a statewide Lesbian/Gay newspaper,
producing "People Profiles" of individuals in the community. My editor
suggested contacting Bill Costomiris, winner of the Mr. Charlotte Leather
title for an interview.
I
had seen Leatherfolk at the bars, had seen books and magazines about them
at the local bookshop, but was always a little put off -- after all, these
are kinky people that look and act so different from everyone else.
The
interview with Bill resulted in my later joining TLC. About the same time,
I was starting to develop a direction for my video work that I had pursued
in my spare time since college. I wanted to focus on minority issues and
people and how emerging lower-cost video and computer technology could
open up avenues of documenting minorities and reaching an audience. I
also felt that I was ready to put my knowledge to the test, so to speak,
in a feature-length video piece that I would try to bring to an audience
for the first time -- up to that point, my work had gone unreleased and
unscreened for others as I explored and learned.
In
choosing a subject for my first feature-length piece, I wanted to tackle
a subject that had not been touched by other filmmakers. It was surprising
to me, as a member of one of over 600 Leather clubs and organizations
in the United States, that the clubs had not been examined in a documentary.
At the time, several books were available on the topic of Leather/SM,
some of which dealt indirectly with the clubs, but nothing was out there
that would give one a good snapshot of a club on an organizational level
or portrait of the people who chose this path.
Developing
a Proposal/Getting My Feet Wet
Taking
on a first feature is an enormous task -- much larger than I initially
realized. Using what I had learned over the past few years producing short
video pieces and by researching technology and the market, I came up with
an outline and proposal for the piece that included a budget, narrative,
and timeline. I talked with the leaders of the club about the project
and produced a simple "one sheet" outline of the project for the club
members themselves. The group voted to allow shooting of the documentary
and I obtained release forms from each member.
Initially,
the script was rather vague. My original plan was to follow the club’s
activities through a one year period and begin shooting interviews about
six months into the project. The first interview, as it turns out, was
shot with member Jim P. about two weeks into the project. Looking over
the transcript now, you can get an idea of how broad the subjects were
that I was considering at the time. Eventually, more concrete ideas developed
and I produced a standard set of questions that was used for the interviews.
I
tried to obtain as much background material as possible on the club and
the people shown in the video and the project progressed -- one of the
high priorities with my work is collecting auxiliary material that could
be useful to researchers and historians at a later date. So, some of the
material was shot with this in mind, delving deeper than was necessary
just for the purposes of the video. Eventually, all of the original videotapes,
newsletters, correspondence, photographs, and other materials will be
donated to the Leather Archives and Museum in Chicago.
I
insisted on authenticity for the video. No events were staged for the
camera and no supplemental lighting was used in order to make the people
in the club as comfortable as possible with the process. Of course, this
was a two-edged sword -- individuals were more at ease and did open up
about subjects that had not discussed before, but the particular camera
I used for the project (a Canon H-800 Hi8) did not perform well under
low light. After the editing process, the low-light footage took on a
grainy, almost ethereal quality that I aimed for as an overall look for
the piece.
The
Editing Process
Shooting
thirty-six hours of footage over twelve months and collecting hundreds
of stills and a ream of print material was the easy part. I had to assemble
the raw information into a coherent piece.
The
first step was to transcribe and index all of the materials, initially
on 3x5 index cards. When my budget allowed the purchase of a $300 used
386 laptop, the information was transferred into a database program where
I could pare down what would be used in the final cut.
One
of the most daunting difficulties in the process was my equipment. The
Hi-8 camera used for the project did not include time code capabilities
(a process where individual frames of a videotape are marked with unique
numbers that can be accessed during the editing process). There was no
studio in the area at the time that could stripe time code onto my tapes
and I couldn’t afford a machine to accomplish the task. So, I came up
with the idea of making a VHS dub of each tape, turning on the camera’s
HH:MM:SS counter so it would display this quasi time code on-screen. I
feed the signal through another VCR first and turned on it’s display with
no tape inside, cueing up it’s on-screen display to show a tape number.
So, the final result was a set of VHS dubs that included a tape number
and on-screen time code for any scene on the tape.
I
purchased an off the shelf consumer product, Video Director, that allowed
me to control my VCR’s with the computer. This worked well in some of
the initial editing work, but each of the cuts might be off by 2-5 seconds
because my equipment did not include time code. It allowed for very rough
databasing of the material, but I did not have a full palette of tools
available. I could do no supers of titles, no transitions, and
could not substitute any audio.
By
far the best method to obtain what I needed -- a rough cut on VHS that
I could send to potential donors and foundations to complete the editing
-- was to assemble it by hand. I spent about year producing four of these
tapes; the first running about two and a half hours with over 400 cuts;
the last containing almost 300 cuts and running about 90 minutes. It was
a painstaking process of checking log sheets, fast-forwarding or rewinding
tapes, and meticulously and carefully dubbing a few seconds of video or
audio from one machine to another.
In
order to produce a video for release, I had to find a way to access editing
equipment (a difficulty I still face with my work today). Cable access
was out of the question -- my local channel was just getting started and
barely had the equipment for in-studio productions. I had no access to
equipment at the university where I worked. Commercial facilities were
available in the area, but cost $100-$200 per hour to rent; a total of
25-50 hours could be required to finish the piece and there was no way
I could raise that much money. One public access video editing facility,
which was located two hours away and offered low-cost editing time for
individuals putting together "grassroots" video, was a possibility.
Even though I could have afforded their rates over a long period of time,
they turned me away and would not allow me to work there -- "We would
loose grant money," the director of the facility told me, complementing
me on the work I had done so far and calling the footage "fascinating".
Despite the lack of four-letter words, the small amount of nudity present
in the footage, and the fact that no actual or simulated sex was shown
in the video, the documentary was still too controversial for their mainstream
supporters.
Finally,
a small amount of grant funds came my way. The Weinbaum Foundation, set
up to fund projects that focused on community education concerning Leather/SM,
gave $1,000 to help finish the video. That wouldn’t begin to cover the
costs, but I did manage to find an editior with a private digitally-based
system that agreed to produce a master in exchange for some funds and
a share of any proceeds.
It
took three months of editing before we were ready to show the piece. Material
was fed into the editor’s Macintosh Quadra. Then, titles were added, transitions
were put in place, and the material was honed and refined further. The
Weinbaum Foundation even scheduled a well-publicized New York showing,
but the Mac completely crashed just a few days before the premiere and
we had to start virtually from scratch. The master tapes were printed
in January, 1996, over three years after I had first picked up the camera.
Reaching
an Audience
The
final test of any filmmaker is their ability to bring their work to an
audience. I agree with John Waters who once lamented the fact that so
many people make films or videos without thinking of this final step --
what is the point in doing a film or video if no one will ever see it?
My
intended audience was outside of the Leather/SM community; I wanted the
video to overcome many of the stereotypes that people have in the Gay
and Lesbian and larger communities about Leatherfolk. Initially, I went
the traditional route of shopping the video around to distributors and
entering the piece in various festivals, but with no results.
So,
I turned to the Internet, putting up one of the earliest World Wide Web
pages concerning an independent documentary. For the first year after
the completion of the video, I distributed the video myself, designing
a box cover on my computer, dubbing tapes, assembling and sending them
out myself. I offered the video for public showings to any small non-profit
group that wanted to use it for fundraising purposes. I mailed review
copies to the LGBT and Leather/SM press.
Ironically,
I have had the most success in reaching my audience with the cheapest
means available -- direct mail, the Internet, and small public free or
fundraising showings.
Looking
Back
Four
years later, I can look back at the experience with some sadness, joy,
and sense of accomplishment. I started with nothing and created a valuable
document of a subculture and educational tool. Producing TLC: Year
With a Leather Club brought to light just how difficult it is for
anyone with a different point of view to create and get their work to
a larger audience.
Computers
and the Internet may be the final keys in making the true video revolution
that everyone talked about in the 1970’s. Until now, equipment for editing
video to a watchable form has been prohibitively expensive. Desktop computer-based
equipment to allow a full range of expression can be obtained at a relatively
cheap rate (though still too high for someone still carrying a hefty debt
from shooting a documentary). With its instant access to information produced
by the grassroots, the Internet can be a valuable tool in letting an audience
know about a film or video.
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