In our very first Alumni Update article, we are highlighting the work of Dean Hamer and Joe Wilson of qWavesProductions. Wilson presented in Docs In Progress® first Peer Pitch program in October 2005 with Heartland USA [since retitled Out in the Silence], a work-in-progress about the controversy surrounding a same-sex marriage announcement appearing in the local paper of a small rural town in Pennsylvania. Hamer presented his short The Preacher and the Poet about the challenges of being young, black, and gay at the May 2006 Docs in Progress public workshop. The film was a national finalist in the Independent Lens Online Shorts Festival.
Like many independents, filmmaking is not a full-time career for Wilson or Hamer. Wilson works for a foundation that supports human rights work in the United States, Haiti, South Africa, Mexico and Northern Ireland. Hamer is a scientist working on two socially charged issues – HIV/AIDS and the biology of human sexuality – and an author of popular science books including the controversial The God Gene, which was featured on the cover of Time Magazine. However, both have always combined their passion for justice with their work and see documentary filmmaking as an extension of that. “For us, filmmaking goes hand in hand with social activism.” says Wilson, “The world is full of important stories that need to be told to a broader audience and we think that film is a wonderful way to accomplish that aim. That was the incentive for us to form qWaves and start making short documentaries.”
The two started out making shorts for several practical reasons. “Neither of us had any prior experience making films,” admits Hamer, “This made the idea of spending years on a feature film pretty scary – like starting a novel without ever having written a full paragraph.” But they also saw that the short form had another important benefit — outreach. According to Hamer, “The young audience we want to reach is more likely to watch a three minute film on the Internet than a 90 minute film in a theater.”
Instead of uploading their projects on YouTube only to get lost in the morass of content, Hamer and Wilson have instead focused many of their efforts on another mainstay of viewer-created content – Current TV. Rolling Stone Magazine recently called Current TV “the best integration of television and the Internet to date.” While Current TV may have benefited initially from the publicity of its co-founder being Al Gore, it is the work of independent filmmakers like Hamer and Wilson which are sustaining the network.
Wilson and Hamer were drawn to Current TV because it would allow them to get their films out faster than waiting for festivals, which Hamer says was especially important for a film like The Preacher and the Poet since it was drawing on the topical issue of Reverend Willie Wilson’s controversial remarks about homosexuality and youth. “Current TV is a terrific way to get your short works seen by a broad audience, to obtain national television broadcast without having to go through a network, and to interact with a community of documentary filmmakers interested in social issues,” says Hamer.
They were also drawn to the fact that Current TV offers multiformat platforms, since online films – which are usually anywhere from one to ten minutes long – can be “greenlighted” by viewers to be broadcast on Current TV’s television network. A licensing fee is paid for any films broadcast on the network. The two have had eight short forms selected for broadcast on topics ranging from the lighthearted (bodyboard surfing) to the weighty (HIV prevention and homophobia). “Although our aims are serious, our approach is playful,” says Wilson, “We want to make people think, but also to laugh.”
Wilson submitted the first film he ever made, Otros Amores to Current TV’s Videomaker Magazine Challenge on a lark. It ended up winning an award. He was also a national semi-finalist in Current TV’s 2006 Seeds of Tolerance competition for We Belong, a short film he made as he and Hamer were shooting Heartland USA. “When we saw the mission of the Seeds of Tolerance competition, we knew it was just the right match for the type of work we do, which is to use film as a way to promote change in the community,” says Wilson, “We had the perfect story – a gay teen who sought our help to make a documentary about the discrimination and violence he had suffered in his rural school.”
After a story consultation with Docs in Progress, Wilson submitted We Belong into the competition where it went through a three-stage judging process by staff, sponsors, and celebrity judges, and eventually was selected from nearly 400 submissions to be among the six finalists to be voted on by the viewing public. Once the finalists were announced, Wilson and Hamer went to work on getting as many people as possible to see and vote for the film. “Little did we know that we were in for a long and anxious month of digging, scratching, begging and scrounging for votes through every blog, website, friend or foe we ever had, ” says Hamer, “It was occasionally frustrating because the voting format made the competition a bit of a popularity contest. But we learned a lot about film promotion and marketing, which are essential skills for any documentary filmmaker.” The film ultimately attracted about 10,000 views and over 3,000 greenlights. It won third place in the competition and was shown on the big screen at a red carpet ceremony in Hollywood. Wilson received a $10,000 award which he is going to use towards the cost of making Heartland USA. “More importantly,” he adds, “we garnered wide public attention to the important issue of homophobia in the school system.” As a result of the publicity, PFLAG (Parents and Friends of Lesbians and Gays) groups around the country have begun using We Belong for education and outreach. Additionally, film festivals are now requesting screeners of the film. “It was something of a reversal of the usual path to outreach, broadcasting first and then going the festival route” notes Wilson, “but it’s certainly been seen by quite a few people.”
Hamer and Wilson both found their Docs in Progress experiences essential to their growth as filmmakers. In just a few short years, they feel they have improved beyond simply grasping the technology of the camera and editing system to really focusing on storytelling: to look for characters and how they change, to try to document action over talking head interviews, and to show multiple sides of an issue. “We Belong was our first attempt to actually tell a story rather than simply paint a picture or portray a performance,” says Hamer, “Sitting in on the Docs in Progress sessions were key to learning how to do that.”
