A DOCUMENTARY SENSIBILITY

In my previous (and first!) Documentary Notebook newsletter I promised to let you inside two films I am making. So, here we go.

Untitled Tom Girardi Film

 I wish I had a better title, but it will no doubt emerge when a word or phrase jumps out during editing.

To refresh: Girardi was the most successful plaintiffs’ attorney in California history. Now he’s doing time in federal prison for stealing millions from his clients, He is married to a star of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills, and known as the “Erin Brockovich attorney” having won a $375 million settlement from a utility company, the basis of that film starring Julia Roberts.

Filmmakers reading this know a typical post production schedule for an unscripted feature-length documentary (80-100 minutes) with lots of raw footage — 120 hours at last count — can easily take a year.

I’m nine months into editing. It will be three or four more months to get to a rough cut.

Naturally I started without a script since this was a breaking story with lots of twists and turns. So for five years it was shoot, shoot, and shoot some more.

As a documentary filmmaker friend put it, we’re vultures. We want it all. Fear of Missing Out is real because missing a moment means it’s gone forever. You could use workarounds such as animation or recreations, but they're not my cup of tea.

I know how to edit but I prefer bringing on an editor. I treasure the benefits: fresh eyes on material you’ve watched a million times (or even shot and foolishly fell in love with), an approach to telling the story you (the director) may not have imagined, and a partner with whom to collaborate and test out ideas.

Last year I spent many months putting a first assembly together (well over two hours) to hand over to my trusty editor based in New York City, along with all the raw material. It would save him time, being able to start with edited scenes. They were rough, not necessarily in the most creative order, and certainly to be improved upon.

Here is a sneak peek at the film via a three-minute trailer. What do you like, what don’t you like? Let me know what you think!

Discord Democracy

This film with my partner Jon Lee Anderson, staff writer at The New Yorker magazine, is at the opposite end of the process. About to turn on the camera for the first time. We are going on a global journey to find out how social media impacts democracies and democratic movements. It’s usually for the worse. But not always.

We plan to start in Bangladesh, where an uprising among young people in 2024 essentially overthrew the government. The protests and organizing started on social media, as in the Arab Spring. At least 1,400 died at the hands on the army and police. Prime Minister Sheik Hasina fled to India. She was tried in absentia and was sentenced to death.

You can read more about it here and here.

Elections for a new government are scheduled for February 12. We plan to be there several days beforehand to start filming for a week.

To introduce you to Jon Lee I pulled this sequence from The New Yorker at 100, a feature documentary released in December on Netflix. It’s a terrific look inside the magazine. I recommend watching it.

In this short excerpt you can see Jon Lee in action, reporting from Syria. You’ll also see him meeting with editor David Remnick in the magazine offices.

A bit of backstory about how Jon Lee and I connected. It’s emblematic of what I call the “documentary sensibility”.

Several years ago, I started (with my son Walker’s able assistance) a documentary about cybercrime and cyber-surveillance. After meeting with various sources, we got a sit-down with Craig Newmark of Craigslist. He liked what we were trying to do and introduced us to the security team at Facebook.

Very long story, short: we worked out an access agreement and started filming in a cinema vérité approach at Facebook, observing security operations over many weeks. Eventually Facebook backed out, sensing we had filmed situations that may have portrayed them in a bad light and possibly violated international privacy laws, even though we had permission.

After losing Facebook access we pushed on and obtained exclusive footage with an activist Syrian doctor in exile who told his story about being surveilled online by the Assad regime during the civil war. He was detained, jailed, tortured... and finally escaped.

Magnolia Pictures and BBC, the financiers and distributors that put up the full budget, decided to pull the plug.

The film went dormant.

Until the Assad regime was overthrown a year ago.

I spoke to the Syrian doctor who was thinking of returning to the country. At the same time Jon Lee filed two compelling stories from Damascus for The New Yorker.

I had always been a big fan of his reporting. He just might be interested in my unfinished film. I wanted to find him.

Jon Lee is not on social media, period. Contact information, non-existent. Not surprising for a war correspondent who writes from conflict zones.

I found a website for a journalism conference he attended, and wrote the director asking him to forward my introductory email. Three weeks later I got this reply from Jon Lee:

“Hello Charlie: How can I be of help?”

We spoke a couple of times, met in person in New York, and decided to work together. Discord Democracy is the film we decided to make together.

Against all odds, connecting with Jon Lee through a third-party cold contact leads me back to the idea of the documentary sensibility.

Being a documentary filmmaker means embracing risk and the unknown, fueled by creative optimism that things can work out in the end if you trust your instincts, embrace the unfamiliar, and put yourself out there so you can get lucky.

It's a way of moving through the world, and why I love what I do.

Filmmaker Nick Broomfield is an inspiration and mentor who early-on showed me that sensibility because he lived it.

More about that in the next newsletter. It will include a podcast conversation between Nick and Rick Rubin. record producer and co-founder of Def Jam Records.

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