Most people call me a “documentary filmmaker” when they introduce me. That’s cool. I have made more docs than fiction films, and I love that people introduce me as a filmmaker. I still have to pinch myself because it means my dreams are coming true!
Internally, however, I don’t spend too much time distinguishing myself as one or the other. Fiction is just as much fun as documentary filmmaking, although the process and challenges are obviously quite different. My thinking is so visual it’s almost a handicap — no matter what I’m working on.
Perhaps that’s why I find it so troubling when I’m introduced as a DOCUMENTARY filmmaker, not just a director or simply a filmmaker. Why are we all so hung up on separating the two? I’m so curious about that.
Long before I was making films, I was writing. It has been a life-long love affair for me. It makes sense that my self-taught filmmaking lessons started with screenplays. It’s much more affordable to experiment with pen and paper.
There’s one story in particular that has stayed with me for nearly 15 years. I’ve never quite had the clarity to finish it. That changed last fall.
While sitting in the Illumination Experience workshop for the second time, the fog finally lifted. I saw the movie perfectly for the first time. I knew how to make it — and it was beautiful.
This story is so incredible. It humbles me. I absolutely must find a way to make it. It’s such a beautiful, heart-warming story.
Although I’m presently finishing Brewconomy and starting a new documentary, please don’t pigeon-hole me as a documentary filmmaker. That would be a mistake. I absolutely love documentaries, the doc community, and everything these films stand for (changing the world for the better). But documentaries aren’t the only type of film that’s captured my heart.
There is a beautiful new story I long to tell.
It may take me 15 more years to get it on the big screen with the right funding, talent, and distribution. There’s no doubt it will take the right partners to tell this story. I’m hoping to find them.
But make no mistake, it will happen. It will be glorious.