Being a filmmaker who happens to be Republican, I had long considered making a documentary about why there are so few Republicans where I live and what that means in a city with an African American-majority population and Democratic Party-controlled government. But not being a documentarian, I never knew how or where to start.
Then, in late October 2004, I read in a local newspaper that Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters of Los Angeles was coming to my hometown of Trenton, NJ. She was coming to stump for Democratic Presidential Candidate John Kerry and our local Democratic Congressman, Rush Holt. In this election, New Jersey was considered “up for grabs” and both parties were duking it out.
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Being a constituent of Congressman Holt and having made friends with some local Democrats, I got permission to film the event as a filmmaker. However, while I set up my camera, a pair of African American women approached me and flatly asked if I was “a spy.” (Supposedly, the Republicans were going around filming and disrupting Democrat events.) I told them that I had permission to be there and to shoot. One of the women stayed with me, while the other one checked out my story. After a few tense minutes, they got the word that I was “okay.” But, I did get a few suspicious looks as I waited for the fiery Congresswoman to speak to the mostly African American crowd. And when she finally arrived, she spoke words that would change my life. Because being on the inside of a mostly African American Democratic Party election rally and seeing and hearing what was inferred about the Republican Party and several prominent Black Republicans… reinforced my suspicion that that there was more to this “Black Republican” thing than just a punch line.
My wife and I would then spend the next six years researching, filming and editing FEAR OF A BLACK REPUBLICAN. (Being a Public Enemy fan from my college days, there was no other title for me). While making my documentary, I would travel to a Presidential Inauguration to kick off the project; follow a Congressional Campaign in Georgia; criss-cross a Hurricane-devastated New Orleans; visit the birthplace of the Republican Party; make multiple trips to the National Archives and the Conservative Political Action Conference; and close out principal photography by filming my Party’s future Presidential nominee campaigning in the first suburb across the border. And along the way, we’d also have to figure out what kind of film we’d make and what kind of filmmakers we are. Because being a filmmaker who happens to be Republican is one thing. Being a filmmaker who happens to be Republican and is making a film about Black Republicans is something else.
So for the first two years, I filmed mostly on my own, thinking we would make a “Maysles Brothers”-style film. However, as the project went on, we found that no “cinema verite” or “real cinema” technique seemed to work for us. Most difficult for me to accept was that the problem wasn’t in the material, but in my Direction.
Over time, I realized that my “Directing problem” really had to do with the White Filmmaker/Black Film issue. Admittedly, I had let myself become overly conscious of race and storytelling. I’m old enough to remember the Steven Spielberg/Spike Lee controversy over THE COLOR PURPLE. My being of the “Caucasian persuasion,” that surely played a part of my trying to just be “a fly on the wall” directing-wise. The funny part is that after interviewing each participant, we were usually thanked profusely for taking this subject on and asking questions that hadn’t been asked before. Folks were happy to be a part of the film. But, when I got to the editing suite, I didn’t remember all that and just saw great interviews that had nice back and forths and no way to cut them together. Cutting my questions and my voice out of the film would be real tough and probably would negate any real storytelling. We didn’t want a collection of talking heads. We wanted real people and real conversations in the film. Was I really afraid of my own film? Was there a solution to this?
Yes, there was. What helped me quickly get past all this and find my voice was taking a Documentary Producing seminar in NYC and asking the Instructor (a proud Liberal, but I didn’t care) to look at my fifteen-page treatment. Two weeks later, she mailed it back to me with a big stickie note saying, “Why is a White filmmaker making this film?” That just pissed me off. A lot. So, after a conversation with my Producer (and wife) in our kitchen – we decided that I was going to be a part of the film. Because it had become obvious to us, that my making it should be part of the story. I would be in the film as questioner, narrator and with the help of some friends, cast member. Directing and editing problem solved. My determination to finish the film… increased by a ten-fold.
As a first-time feature Director, I tried not to think about film festivals or how we would actually release our little epic. I wanted to concentrate on doing a good job making the film. We spent a lot of time adding hi-res archival photos from the National Archives, the Library of Congress and other places. We shot a lot of B-roll and photographs ourselves. We even bought some broadcast-quality archival footage as I kept re-recording and improving my narration in our 3rd floor bedroom (AKA, our “Hustle and Flow” recording studio – with old sheets and quilts serving as sound blankets.)
Having volunteered for years at the Independent Feature Project’s Market in NYC and having directed a film festival here in Trenton- I thought our film would have a decent chance on the festival circuit. A documentary on Black Republicans was a fresh topic, we did a good job shooting it and we had “great stuff” and even some “stars.” So in the spring of 2009, we began to submit “rough cuts” to a few festivals. Applying to film festivals isn’t easy or cheap. Application fees were running $35-$100 and shipping, DVDs and other costs were adding up quick. After several months of no word, we got some e-mails rejecting our submission. One of them was even in French. Admittedly, the film was longer than we wanted, but it was a “rough cut” and these festivals all accepted “rough cuts.”
So, we kept whittling down the film, “killed some darlings” along the way and got the film’s running time down a lot. With a shorter and stronger film, we started applying to the Spring and Summer, 2010 festivals with our “fine cut.” Some festivals were big, some not so big and some were documentary-only and prestigious. As each festival deadline went by… still no luck.
We could have given up, but we wanted to push on and break through the festival wall as Filmmakers who happen to be Republican. Our subject matter was too important to us to simply turn tail. We just had to find the one festival that would accept our film. If that happened, other festivals would follow and FEAR OF A BLACK REPUBLICAN would be the “feel-good movie of the summer.” Well… summer came and WAITING FOR SUPERMAN took that slot.
For our last shot, we applied to a small, boutique documentary festival thinking a smaller festival (it got less than 400 submissions) would be easier. Wrong again. No love would be sent our way at all. I won’t name names, but we applied to fourteen different film festivals and went 0 for 14, baby! What really stunk was that only a few of the festivals would ever give us feedback. The little feedback we did get was that our film was interesting, had an impressive cast, but was “a little too long to get a screening slot.”
So, DIY (Do It Yourself) Distribution would now be our route. With limited funds (ours) and no distributor, we decided to go DVD first and then work our way through semi-theatrical, streaming, VOD and so on as opportunities arose. We wanted to launch the film before the 2012 Presidential Campaign really got going. So, to prepare for a Spring, 2011 release, we had to plan out an affordable budget, find a DVD vendor, finish up our graphics, and finally, create a realistic marketing and distribution plan.
A Cardinal rule in Filmmaking is “Don’t let the Director edit the trailer.” Well, a rule that I go by is from the Young M.C. – “Got no money and you got no car, then you got no woman and there you are.” Well, we didn’t have money for a trailer editor ($5K-7K), but I still have my 1996 Geo Metro (122,000 miles) and my amazing wife (and Producer), Tammy. So, I set to work. Sitting in a diner by myself (I’m from New Jersey. We do diners, not Starbucks), I went through our transcript and picked out great lines of dialogue or other bits that really jumped out on their own. Underlying all this was making sure that our three-minute trailer was entertaining and that it represented the film well. We showed it to a bunch of family and friends during the Holidays and the feedback was good. Weeks later, our lawyer cleared everything and we put the trailer up on our website, www.fearofablackrepublican.com and on YouTube. That began the launching of our movie.
Our next step was finalizing everything with our DVD vendor and completing the final prep work. We did the basic DVD artwork and copy on our end. A good local artist and neighbor created our key artwork in barter for some hand-crafted jewelry made by guess who? Our Producer, Tammy. We got everything to the DVD vendor and – FEAR OF A BLACK REPUBLICAN is now available on DVD and for screenings.
To “officially” launch the film, we decided to go to the 2011 Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Washington, DC. I would go by myself for the first two days and Tammy would be there with me for the last day. Our strategy: treat CPAC like it was our Sundance.
Showing up with 2,000 postcards, I was pretty pumped and nervous. There aren’t any case studies on launching an indie doc film like ours at an event like CPAC. Particularly, given the subject matter and questioning tone of our film… who knew what would happen?
But, as I approached people and tried to strike up conversations about the film and why we made it – I realized that we made the right decision. Not just going to CPAC, but to DIY our own distribution. That feeling of controlling your own destiny, while fleeting at times, just can’t be beat. As I shook another hand and gave each person a postcard, I became more confident in myself as an artist and as a filmmaker.
We are just getting the film out of the editing room (our spare bedroom) and we don’t know what will happen – but, we aren’t going to wait for someone to come along and knock on our door. We are going to do the best we can and hope that people will respond and buy the art that we created. And while that happens, we’ll start working on our next film.
I want to thank Big Hollywood for everything they have done for right-leaning artists and entertainers. No place like Big Hollywood existed when we started our film. Now that it does and is thriving, other filmmakers and artists have a place to feel safe and at home.
See you on the next one…