Documentary filmmaker Dan Sturman has won Oscar, Emmy, and Peabody Awards, and his films have been shown at the world’s most prestigious festivals, from Cannes to Sundance. He has interviewed presidents, war criminals, movie stars, and ordinary people with extraordinary stories.
In this episode, Dan takes us behind the scenes of some of his films, including “Nanking,” “Soundtrack for a Revolution,” “The Hollywood Complex,” and “Twin Towers.”
He gives us an inside look at documentary filmmaking:
Dan also sings the praises of composers who score films. (Imagine how scary—or rather, how NOT scary—a horror movie would be without the music and sound effects!)
Dan shares the challenges (mostly related to financing independent films) and the joys of being a documentarian (such as getting to meet inspiring people and in turn being inspired by them).
Dan’s films are consistently thoughtful and thought-provoking. Here are some ways you can watch the films discussed in this interview:
"The Hollywood Complex": https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1754351/
"Twin Towers": https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0344503/
"Nanking": https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0893356/
"Soundtrack for a Revolution": https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/soundtrack/
Want to know more about Dan?
Want to know more about The Experience Podcast?
Documentary filmmaker Dan Sturman has won Oscar, Emmy, and Peabody Awards, and his films have been shown at the world’s most prestigious festivals, from Cannes to Sundance. He has interviewed presidents, war criminals, movie stars, and ordinary people with extraordinary stories.
In this episode, Dan takes us behind the scenes of some of his films, including “Nanking,” “Soundtrack for a Revolution,” “The Hollywood Complex,” and “Twin Towers.”
He gives us an inside look at documentary filmmaking:
Dan also sings the praises of composers who score films. (Imagine how scary—or rather, how NOT scary—a horror movie would be without the music and sound effects!)
Dan shares the challenges (mostly related to financing independent films) and the joys of being a documentarian (such as getting to meet inspiring people and in turn being inspired by them).
Dan’s films are consistently thoughtful and thought-provoking. Here are some ways you can watch the films discussed in this interview:
"The Hollywood Complex": https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1754351/
"Twin Towers": https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0344503/
"Nanking": https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0893356/
"Soundtrack for a Revolution": https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/soundtrack/
Want to know more about Dan?
Want to know more about The Experience Podcast?
Unknown Speaker 0:07
how do you create a film that people want to watch? And in particular things that are of significance, like the history of the civil rights movement? I mean, it's, it's well worn. And so how do you figure out a new way of telling a story that might attract an audience that wouldn't otherwise go see that?
Unknown Speaker 0:25
How to tell a story, how to attract an audience, how to get money to get your film made. These are just some of the challenges that documentary filmmakers face. I'm Elizabeth Pearson, gar, and this is the Experience podcast. On this episode, we go behind the scenes with award winning independent filmmaker Dan Sturman, he won an Oscar with his co Producer Bill guten tag for their Documentary Short Twin Towers, which we'll discuss. We also talk about their feature film, Nan came about a small group of Westerners who tried to protect Chinese civilians in the town of Nanfang. While they were being invaded by Japanese during World War Two, that film won an Emmy Award. Dan has directed produced and written films that have been screened everywhere from the Cannes Film Festival to Sundance to the White House.
Unknown Speaker 1:19
Dan, thank you so much for doing this. Really appreciate you joining me on my podcast. I'm happy to be here. I'm excited for our conversation. Because as you know, I'm a big fan of documentaries, and yours are consistently outstanding. I feel like whenever I watch your films, I find there's a real emotional heart to them. And I feel a real connection to the characters and the stories. And I wonder, Is that something that you look for when you're looking for a topic? Well, first of all, it's incredibly kind of you to say, at the end of the day, I think my main criteria and looking for a topic is is to find just subject matter that's going to interest an audience, there's plenty of films that I would sort of like to make just from the point of view of, Wow, this is fascinating to me. But filmmaking is such a time consuming and expensive and exhausting process, that the idea of going through all that and then not having anybody actually see the film just is too much to face up to. So my end goal is simply trying to find subjects that are compelling to a wide audience. If possible. Do you have some that you start researching, you go down the path and then have to say this is just not simply going to work because can't find great subjects or can't find enough historical footage or any
Unknown Speaker 2:42
sense? I think like most independent filmmakers, I've devoted countless hours to speculative work that ultimately doesn't yield anything. And, you know, there could be a million different reasons why something doesn't pan out. Oftentimes, a significant one is that you just can't get funding for the project anywhere you are, you can't interest anyone to potentially back it, which is I guess, to some extent, might be a good indicator that maybe you're heading in the wrong direction commercially. But there's so many people now making films, and there's so much product, that there's a lot of competition for the relatively little money that's out there. There's zillion reasons why projects don't pan out, there was a subject to I'm trying to romance to convince them to participate. And ultimately they decided they don't want to participate. Circumstances change were something that seems incredibly compelling. And also, by the way, definitely, I've gotten very deep into what I think are really compelling ideas. And ultimately, I find that the people involved in those things are not ultimately that interesting. And they wouldn't be really that interesting on camera. I mean, these projects take a long time. And so finding myself working with people where it's like, I want to spend a year in this person's orbit, I don't like them enough to want to be able to be around them, or to devote time to telling their story because they're just not somebody who, you know, I'm on their wavelength. That got me thinking of the Hollywood complex film you made, I don't know, 10 or 12 years ago, which for any listeners who haven't seen it follows aspiring child actors in an apartment complex in Los Angeles. So I'm curious sort of how long you kind of camped out there and how you decided which of those kids to really follow and highlight and what that process is like to really sort of be in someone's life for days and months. So yeah, the apartment complex that we were profiling is kind of like the Ellis Island of Hollywood.
Unknown Speaker 4:45
It's famous as the place where aspiring actors aspiring musicians, when they arrived in Los Angeles, they will often live there as they try to make it and there are a bunch of like major stars like Nirvana actually came and stayed. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 5:00
At the Oakwood apartments early on in their career, and didn't they mentioned like Hillary deaf and other additives, Zac Efron and you show in the film like there are successful child actors that have come from, I don't know if they still do. But at the time we were filming, they had a program where people arriving, they had seminars and agents and managers and all sorts of like savvy industry, people would come and speak to the literally hundreds of kids and their families who would like get apartments. And they specifically got apartments during pilot season, which is the time when a lot of network shows cast their new shows for the new season. And so as a result, it was one of those things where, unlike certain films, it was not in the least bit difficult to get people to want to be on camera. So you weren't trying to coax somebody who was reluctant, for the most part that people were talking to her like, oh, my gosh, cameras get me in front of them. My partner, Dylan Nelson, and I basically decided, let's do a project where we can cobble together for virtually no money. I think that there's the mythology of people making films in Hollywood, where they only spend $1,000, it's like, it's kind of nonsense, we ended up paying our editors. And we ended up ultimately signing an international distribution deal that helped pay for our edit. But basically, it was done in me buying a camera at the apartment complex is a 12 minute drive from my house. And it was one of the things were actually I was working on a completely different project at the time that we're filming. But it was flexible. And we weren't embedded at the Oakwood the apartment complex. We weren't there literally nonstop. We were filming, I think like 12 different families. And we were constantly in touch with all of them. And if anything interesting was happening, we would zip over there, you know, at a moment's notice and capture things. And then obviously, there was some planning in terms of like, we want to be sure that we captured the morning routines of these various people. We know that next Tuesday, this really absurd, charming, ridiculous, outrageous agent was going to be speaking, we wanted to be there filming for that. And so we were able to do some planning. And we're also able to be there spontaneously. And I think the most important thing is that the concept of pilot season, it's basically a three month window. And so built into the DNA of the project from the very outset was, we're filming something that has a beginning, a middle and an end. And there's a definite definitive end date, when we will be there when the last pilot is cast. And in fact, we were there when this very significant talent agent who attracted like standing room only crowd announced in her presentation today, the last pilot was cast. And so all these kids are sort of left in theory without actually gotten their big break, which is statistically how it is for 99.99998% of people who come to Hollywood. The idea was that we were not going to be filming indefinitely. There was a three month window. And when we were done filming, we were going to have the footage in theory to make a film out of it. And did that happen? You didn't have to go back for oh, maybe you went back for like, yeah, or something. I won't ruin the ending. But
Unknown Speaker 8:02
we Yeah, like a year after there was sort of an introductory meeting that we filmed. And so a year later, there was the exact same introductory meeting with a different cast of characters who'd shown up and some of the people who were there the previous year, were out there again. But it was sort of a nice bookend, and really does kind of capture the fact that like, there was just a siren, Song calling kids to wreck themselves on the rocks of Baja kids and their families actually, yeah, and so it goes every year, I was thinking, when you were talking about how projects can take on a different nature. I was watching Twin Towers, and that project clearly started out as something different than it became, you seemed like you were following these brothers. And you had no idea, obviously, that 911 was going to happen. So can you talk about that? Sometimes you have to you pivot in the midst of a project? Well, so that was actually a weird piece of serendipity where I was working at the time on a project for wolf films. It's Dick Wolf. It's the guys who make law and order. And it was an NBC series that was like real life, law and order. It's called Crime and Punishment. I should say that I'm quote, an independent filmmaker, but I'm constantly going back and forth between doing work for hire, and doing my own independent projects. Because at least in terms of my own career, I've never been able to sustain financially, doing my own independent projects, just because they're so hard to get funded oftentimes, or they take so much speculative work before there's any type of payoff that it's just you can't sustain. So anyway, I was working on this NBC series, Dick Wolf's company had hired a guy to make a nonfiction pilot about the emergency services unit in New York City. And basically, it's like an elite unit of the New York Police Department. And they have all these sort of weird mandates where like, if there's somebody who's trying to commit suicide, jumping off a building or
Unknown Speaker 10:00
Bridge are like we have footage them climbing the Brooklyn Bridge like and so they're trained at doing rescues, they they're trained at, like, getting people out of building collapses. And it's like a very elite unit. So anyway, this guy pitched will films, hey, I want to do a series about this elite unit. And so he filmed for a few months, he ultimately put together it was a pilot that just didn't really work. They rejected it, and they put it on the shelf, and they gave up on it. And then four or five months later, 911 happened. And unsurprisingly, this elite unit that deals with building collapses and rescuing people, they were the first responders. And so although they weren't filming that day, you know, they long ago given up on the project afterwards, they came to realize that they had all this footage of these people who were first responders, and some of them had done incredibly heroic things. And a significantly disproportionate number of them were among those in the New York Police Department who died during the collapse. So will films basically re approach the guy who was they were like, Hey, do you want to see if you can take all this footage that you shot. And so he went back. And I think it was within a week or so of the buildings collapsing, he did interviews with these really sort of hard boiled, kind of macho New York police officers who were utterly distraught and weeping. And the interviews he did were incredibly, incredibly moving incredibly powerful. He had a hard time ultimately then trying to craft it into a film. The wolf people were not happy with the actual film that he created out of it. They sort of handed it to my partner, Bill and I and said, Hey, you guys want to try to take a whack at doing it. So we went through all the footage and ultimately created a film. It was a weird situation, in the sense that we were repurposing and ultimately, it was a really challenging project. It was a really, I mean, just utterly heartbreaking experience. 911 happened at a point in time when I think the iPhone came out in like 2006 or 2007. Yeah, so everybody on earth didn't have a camera in their pocket. But there was enough like sort of technology out there that there were hundreds of people filming. And so we did this thing that was kind of novel in the moment, which was to basically crowdsource every scrap of footage that we could possibly find of the event, end of the day. And in the end, I've seen the building collapse from every angle on Earth. And I spent months doing that, and it was exhausting. And really debilitating and sad. The film, it's so sad. And we were trying to do something that in some way, was uplifting, at the end, something to just sort of make it so people didn't walk out of the theater, you know, catatonic. And in the end, like after lots and lots of sort of attempts in different directions, we ultimately settled on using a eulogy that was given at the funeral of one of the police officers. And it was sort of inspiring, and it felt like the best choice in the moment. And the fact of the matter is, is that eulogy was given by Rudy Giuliani and Rudy Giuliani is one of the sort of the two heroes in the film. And other of the heroes in the film is this guy, Bernard Kerik, who was a New York City police commissioner at the time. And it's funny, because in the moment, it felt so right. And now I can't stand watching it. I mean, as thing that felt so right, in the moment, it feels so wrong to me. Now, there are many aspects of it that I think are still incredibly moving. But the way that it sort of ultimately wraps up is just so warped by what's happened in the past 20 years. But isn't that interesting that that's, that's how film is you have to watch everything in context. Rudy Giuliani was America's mayor. At the time, he was heroic, then we didn't know what he was going to come and do. I mean, he did do a great job for New York City. Right, then, you know, it seemed, yeah, I totally buy that. A lot of things that I took for granted, are really believed to be fundamentally true in the immediate aftermath of 911. And the way I felt about my country and the way I felt about Rudy Giuliani,
Unknown Speaker 14:14
and so much more, was informed by the intense information overload and emotions that one feels in that moment. And it's only in retrospect that you can see things slightly differently. And so, I guess what I'm saying is like, as much as I loathe the direction that our country is heading in certain regards. I think that like, we're all sort of ultimately liable to be with limited information. If we're only in a specific social circle. It's so hard to think independently, immediately after 911. What I remember feeling was that the entire world was on our side, and that we were sort of buoyed by the goodwill of everyone around the globe that we had really suffered and that people really sort of look to us with empathy and support. So that film
Unknown Speaker 15:00
It won an Oscar. And it was one year, they didn't have like a red carpet. Because like, essentially, they were worried about terrorism. So they had blocked off Hollywood Boulevard. And we had to drive through these like concrete barriers and like a zigzag pattern to make sure that nobody had like a truck bomb or anything like that. And so it was all like this massive, massive, massive security. And because that was right around the time, they've just gone into a rack. And basically, a lot of the film, you know, it's dealing with the politics of what was going on in the moment. And 345 years later, after we had completely sort of botched our time in Iraq, all that goodwill, all that sort of empathy had kind of dissipated. And the reason I bring this up is because what I remember vividly is, Phil and I were doing this project in Japan, and we went to the school in Japan and showed the film. And I haven't seen the film in a few years. And in watching it, like all the stuff that we figured people would be responding to. It felt like people are not and I felt embarrassed watching the film, because I suddenly realized, the goodwill the sort of presumption that we had had completely disappeared, and it actually felt like jingoistic the film. And this thing that I felt so proud of three years earlier, I was now kind of embarrassed about in the wake of the events that had happened in that period of time. I think that that's a really interesting arc. Because from my standpoint, not having been in the trenches, as you were, the heart of it is still this family. That was New York City, police and firefighter family for a few generations, and then had this incredible loss. Like, to me that is still the heart of the movie. Beyond all the politics. Yeah, I mean, the film fundamentally, is about these two brothers, one's a firefighter, and one is a police officer. And they both died. And it's that absolute tragedy, and I have immense love and respect for that family. And that is also what it's about, but then it's also about them being caught up in this global catastrophe that took their lives. I just wanted to assuage your feelings of that it's jingoistic, or to be embarrassed to show it to other. Well, I suspect. I mean, I It's been years since I've seen it again. And like, I suspect I'll have a very different reaction when I do watch it. And yeah, absolutely. There's very intense emotion parts of it are absolutely heartbreaking. And it's genuine. And it's unrelated to anything other than just the nature of all humanity. But it's just absolutely tragic to see a father heartbroken because of the deaths of his sons. This just leads me directly to a theme of another really powerful film you've made, which was Nanking. And you mentioned being in Japan, my jaw just dropped at some of those interviews of the Japanese soldiers, who are now elderly men seeming to talk with pride about the atrocities that they committed. And I just was wondering, as you were doing those interviews, or watching those interviews, I don't know if you were the one conducting the interviews. But what was it like to be a part of a project like that to get such absolute pure, no contrition in some of these answers? That was just heartstopping. To me, that was in many respects, it was the opposite of the Hollywood complex in the sense that we actually had extraordinary funding for that. We had a guy who was very passionate about the subject matter, and has a lot of resources, Ted leonsis, and Ted made sure that we were able to do the best possible job we possibly could. So we scoured film archives, and like 13 different countries, we were able to do these, like, while research trips, and ultimately, were able to find these people, man King, the invasion happened in 1937. So basically, if you were an 18 year old Japanese soldier, at the time of that invasion, I think they were at nine at the time that we started doing interviews. And so we ultimately found a handful of Japanese soldiers. Most of the interviews that we used in the film, were done by these two really unusual characters in Japan, a man and a woman who separately are just hobbyists. One of them is a school teacher, and she devoted her weekends to basically tracking these people down in the preceding 1015 years. The school teachers basically spent her weekends going house to house pretty much knock on people's doors. At the end of the day, those really, really revealing horrifying interviews didn't come from us. I think they didn't come from us, in part because I think that there's more of a mistrust. If you're not Japanese, and you're being interviewed this woman Matsuoka, who did some of the interviews and then this other guy, I think they were able to get more candid interviews. And frankly, I think that a couple of the interviews were done when these guys had been fed a bunch of alcohol. So they were like, ultimately far more open in terms of talking about what they done in terms of their
Unknown Speaker 20:00
The utter lack of contrition, it's the same thing. People do what they do, not thinking that they're wrong. They believe that they're doing the right thing because of whatever bubble that they inhabit. And I think that's true today. And it's true for me. And it's true for everybody. I think that in a significant way, the Japanese soldiers doing what they were doing, were basically I don't think brainwash is the proper term, but they were absolutely convinced of the righteousness of the choices they were making. Yeah, I think that's the only explanation. Because otherwise, you have to just believe they were pure evil, which some of the Chinese older folks, that's what they kept saying, the devils the Japanese. Yeah, that was just an extremely, extremely powerful film. So can you go back to a little bit of that process? So you said you had a lot of funding for that? And so was it just months and months of research and finding footage and pre production? That project? Probably I think, I worked on that for maybe like, a couple of years. We ultimately I think we interviewed 30 people in and around Nanking, or Nanjing, who had been there. What we decided early on, is that we were not going to do like a Ken Burns type film, in the sense that we were not going to speak to any historians or any experts. The only people we wanted to hear from were people who were physically, actually on the ground in the moment of time. And so that was our mandate. So we found about 30 Different Chinese people to talk to us. And when I say we, I mean, basically what happened is we found this extraordinary woman, Violet Fang is her name. She's a graduate of Berkeley journalism school. She grew up in Shanghai. And she came on as a researcher. And so we sent her to Nanjing for a month with like a handycam. And she like, went around and interviewed. I can't remember how many people with this handycam networking are away. I mean, there's one guy, I'm not kidding. Basically, she was told this is a guy who's homeless, he oftentimes can be found near this dumpster in this parking lot. And so she spent a couple days sort of going back and forth and sticking out this dumpster and ultimately finding him and he's in the film. And I mean, he tells an incredibly horrifying and incredibly powerful story, incredibly memorable person in the film. And I think you're talking about I was crying. She then came back with all this footage. And we went through the interviews that she'd done, everything is in Mandarin. And so the guy that you're talking about what happened is, you know, Violet was there kind of playing the video that she'd filmed explaining, oh, this person is talking about this. Now this person is talking about that, that kind of thing. And every time we were sort of mystified, it's all like complete, like, we have no idea what's being said, except the one guy that you're talking about. And that guy who's in the film, there's like a five minute long, uninterrupted story, he tells, he spoke, and he's so incredibly expressive and powerful that we had no idea what he was talking about. But like just watching him, it was like, whatever he's talking about, we need to get this guy. And so we then went back and did interviews with like, 30 other people that violate them. So we had incredible resources to do that advance work. You know, the Japanese stuff that we filmed, I went to Japan for two weeks doing scouting work beforehand, as well. We had huge, huge depth of interest and resources to go and find anything, any piece of footage, any relevant human on earth that was alive. And as a result, we had a film that really reflected what one can do if you're given the resources to do something that you're passionate about. So deciding not to use historians did decide to use actors reading diaries, or letters that were written, acting as people who were there at the time. I don't think I had often seen that used before. Can you talk about that decision, about the process of working with actors and kind of directing actors? I don't know how much you've done that before as a documentarian, this actually goes back to what I was saying, at the very beginning of our discussion, which is, I think the challenge with any of these projects is, how do you make a film that people want to see, that's going to engage an audience, it's not enough to make the film you have to make it so that then it gets seen, or else? What's the point? I think when we were first talking about this project, the vision was, Well, God who's gonna want to see a film of like, a bunch of elderly people speaking a foreign language about an incredibly depressing topic. It's just gonna be a drag. It's just so sad, but it's also so inaccessible. So the challenge is, how do you overcome these things? And, I mean, this is gonna sound really dumb, but I've been working on a project that was stuck in a hotel in San Diego for months. And I remember at some point, watching on PBS, this documentary about Benjamin Franklin, and basically, it sounds really cheesy, but what they did is they dress some guy like Benjamin Franklin, and they had an interview with Benjamin Franklin, and he's speaking the words that Benjamin Franklin himself wrote down so it's authentic and it's
Unknown Speaker 25:00
So he's expressing Benjamin Franklin's thoughts. And it suddenly, like kind of came alive. And it felt real, you know, watching this kind of silly documentary that worked really magnificently. With Benjamin Franklin. Like as an interview subject, it was like, oh, you know, maybe we could potentially do the same thing with all these contemporaneous accounts of what was going on, and then King and we were not looking for history books, or interpretations of what was going on. We relied on the literally 1000s and 1000s of pages of diaries and letters that people were writing on the ground and King in the moment, and then putting them in the mouths of actors portraying the people who wrote those things. And then you cast Woody Harrelson and Mariel Hemingway and accomplished actors to Yeah, to bring Yeah. I mean, that's another part of the documentary game. It's like you're constantly trying to figure out, how are you going to do things to attract an audience? And so it was like, Oh, well, if we get some actors who might have a little bit of fan following, or prestige or marquee value, then maybe that's the kind of thing that would attract an audience to want to see this thing that's otherwise like, kind of sad and heartbreaking. And Woody Harrelson. It was kind of a fun and fascinating experience working with actors, for sure. And they were really, really lovely. As with any doc I've done, where there's been, sort of, quote, talent involved. It's like, you don't have a lot of money to pay these people. So you got to find people who are passionate or engaged enough in subject matter to want to like participate. It's not to get rich. Speaking of big names, and I see you have a poster behind you of soundtrack. Yeah, revolution, I was fascinated by how that film came together. Because for anyone who hasn't seen it, it's about music from the Civil Rights Movement. And you use modern day people a cut in with footage from the era. And you said, John Legend and Josh stone performing and I How did you decide to weave all that together? So basically, there are sort of two kind of streams of thought, my first film I ever worked on, was right out of college I worked for this guy named Charles Guggenheim, who is a doc maker was a dock maker based in Washington, DC, we were hired by the Southern Poverty Law Center to do a film about people who were murdered. During the Civil Rights Movement. People know about Martin Luther King, they know about the three civil rights workers during the Freedom Summer, they know about Emmett Till. But you know, there were scores of people who were lynched, horrible things happen to a lot of people in the South, in the 50s, and 60s who were fighting for their rights, we made this film and as a part of the film, I got my hands on what at the time was a record album, it was actually a double record, I think, from the Smithsonian. And it was the recordings of activists who, when they were marching and jail cells in mass meetings, they would sing songs, a lot of them were sort of derived from gospel music. And they were called freedom songs. So basically, it was a couple of albums worth of field recordings of these freedom songs that were sung by the activists themselves. And the music is absolutely incredible. It's just really thrilling. I'm now incredibly into gospel music as a result, but basically, when I was listening to this music, I loved it so much that I ended up duplicating them onto cassette tapes, and I would listen to them in my car, these freedom songs, they're so good. And so many of the people involved, there's a handful of people in particular, who were really kind of like the superstars in the movement in terms of singing, and you listen to them, and they're just spectacular. And then like, 15 years later, I watched a movie about the music of the anti apartheid movement called Mandela, which is incredibly powerful, and so compelling, and really inspiring. And the credits were rolling. And I was thinking about how great this movie was, I was thinking, maybe there's a way to try to tell the story of the American Civil Rights Movement through the music as well. I think the foundation of that idea was, it's the same thing that I'm beating the drum, it's like, how do you create a film that people want to watch? And in particular, things that are of significance, like the history of the civil rights movement? It's like, how do you figure out a way to get people? I mean, it's, it's well worn, there have been many, many films about the Civil Rights Movement, you know, eyes on the prize, in particular, I think is just one of the best documentaries ever made. But it's not necessarily being seen as widely as it might be. And so how do you figure out a new way of telling a story that might attract an audience that wouldn't otherwise go see that? We decided, let's try to make a film about the movement, as told through the music that the people themselves saying, Yeah, I thought it worked so well, because like you say, the songs are so compelling. I mean, there was a phrase that I wrote down that one of the people said it like policemen can't stop you from singing. They can take away everything else. Yeah. The heart of the movement was the music. Yeah, the very beginning of the film. There's a line that Harry Belafonte said which is, you can cage the singer but not the song.
Unknown Speaker 30:00
As an aside, I mean, we interviewed Harry Belafonte, we interviewed a handful of like, quote, celebrities, but the music itself, it was not sung by, I mean, certainly there were all these folk songs and all these like sort of other sort of r&b artists who did these incredible songs about the movement and inspired people. But these were songs that were sung at the grassroots level. And everybody together, we're seeing them not just some artists on a stage. Yeah, I thought it was great. How you got there was that couple guy Karawang?
Unknown Speaker 30:30
Yeah, who's he's one of the guys who wrote We Shall Overcome. And the sort of bringing things full circle, the field tapes that I listened to, early on that were on that Smithsonian album. A lot of those were made by Guy Carolina, who had this like reel to reel recorder, and was going into mass meetings with this recorder and a microphone and recording the activists as they were singing. And that's what went into that Smithsonian album. And it's so great then to meet him, and to have him talk about his experiences and played guitar and just a really fantastic human being. So how difficult is it to get someone like him? Or someone like Coretta Scott King, or Harry Belafonte or Congressman John Lewis, you have these people in the film? Is it hard to get them to participate? Every person there's like different trials and tribulations or not, as I recall, guy, it was a pretty simple process. I think I found his daughter initially, and she helped me contact him. Coretta Scott King had passed away at the point that we were making the film. But Bill, my colleague on the project, had done a film years earlier, where she was interviewed. And so we were able to use parts of that interview for the film that we were working on. Harry Belafonte, one of the ways that we got that specific film funded is that we ultimately connected with Danny Glover and his production company. And he was an executive producer of the film and a huge supporter of it. And as I recall, it was Danny Glover, calling Harry Belafonte and appealing to him to get to participate. It's definitely beyond me how you convince or even find a lot of these people. I think, as with so many projects, as with every film project I've ever done, it's not like a thing that you do on your own. It's a collaborative process. And the films are so much better, because you're working with a whole group of talented people who bring you ideas, who come up with all sorts of pathways that you wouldn't have necessarily been identified in terms of like working talent in terms of like, finding footage in terms of even coming up with like, just the ways in which you tell a story. Yeah, I was curious about that. So even though you're mostly an independent producer, do you tend to work with the same people over and over? Can you kind of walk through your process? Do you start coming up with an idea, and then there are certain people that you bring in to start doing research with? And then how do you kind of build your team, every film is like, completely different. And new experience, I think of it as like creating a startup company, it's like you're building something from scratch. For sure. There are a variety of different people that I work with, who I've worked with in the past, as the years have passed, I feel like I've collaborated with a variety of people. And some of those people, I get along with incredibly well, and to some extent, maybe a situation where you're traveling with them for a week or a month, and you want to feel good about that person. And so they're camera and sound, people who I really enjoyed working with their editors who I have, through trial and error, come to believe are incredibly talented, and that we kind of get each other. As the years have passed, I've come to find myself working with a bunch of people I really, really like. Everybody's doing their own projects, but then sort of coming together at various points to help one another out with projects that one of us might be up to.
Unknown Speaker 33:50
How would you do the bits of recognition mean film festival awards? And all of that? Does that just feel good? Or does that help you in future to get funding more easily, and that kind of thing for future projects? I think that the landscape is constantly changing. And it has been since I've been making films, the internet has completely up ended the way that people consume films, or content of any kind, really. And the roles that film festivals play, the roles that broadcasters and streaming services play. I think every time I've ever created a new film, the rules have completely changed. And so it's hard to say, I know in the past, the thing that I liked the most about festivals is how how much energy and excitement and inspiration comes out of them. Apart from festivals, most years, I'll be involved in like, the awards committee for like the Directors Guild or the Writers Guild or something. And so as part of that, I'm finding myself watching 50 or 60 or 80 different films, some or all of those films in the fall as part of the awards process. And I think the thing that's so great about that experience, is that you're constantly being
Unknown Speaker 35:00
exposed to whatever new films are out that are worth seeing. Now I have a sort of ongoing list of my favorite films my favorite Doc's and in many ways, I actually think that there's more innovation in the world of documentary filmmaking than there is in the world of fiction filmmaking, in terms of people coming up with really compelling ways to tell stories, and really visually dynamic ways of telling stories. And so, you know, I have this sort of snowballing List of films that I particularly love. And every year, I think it's incredibly inspiring to expose oneself to whatever's new. And there are films that just blow your mind in terms of the innovation, in terms of like, the sort of ecosystem of how films get seen and how films get financed, and stuff like that. I mean, festivals are meaningful, or sometimes they're completely not, I think it's just year to year to year, it's, it used to be that you can get a huge distribution deal from like a broadcast outlet. Now, broadcasters are way less significant. And streamers are far more significant. I used to be even just a few years ago that like, as part of the sort of four year consideration, approach that different studios had, I would get like a huge like stack of DVDs of like all the fiction movies that were out every year, because they're trying to sway voters to like vote for them. And it was always really fun to like, suddenly have all these DVDs of these films that you would otherwise only be able to see in theaters. And now, like this year, I got like 40 DVDs, and I would say 37 of them are ones that I can just go on to Amazon or Netflix or something else to watch. And so suddenly, it's not that special. But it's literally like it just happened in the past two or three years, this has changed. So we're we're going to be two or three years, who knows? What do you consider the most challenging or frustrating part of your job? And what is the most rewarding? Well, I mean, certainly, without a doubt, the most challenging thing is just getting the funding to make films nowadays, you absolutely can make a film with an iPhone and a laptop, doesn't necessarily mean it's gonna be a good film. And the challenge ultimately is coming up with a really compelling story or a compelling subject, that you can tell that story in a really compelling way. But regardless, it's just the competition to get funding to convince people that what you're doing has worth. It's like salesperson with any product, you're trying to convince somebody to back you because there's value in what you're trying to create. And before you've created it, can they envision the potential and realize that you're worth supporting? So that's definitely the most frustrating and challenging thing, and it's a big part of the work is just trying to raise money. I think the most satisfying thing is, it's just the creative process. Well, actually, I would say certainly, the great thing about certainly the films that I've made over the years, you're constantly becoming many expert in whatever it is that you're learning about. And I find that really satisfying. I love history, I'm constantly reading nonfiction. So the opportunity to do these deep dives into aspects of our culture or other people's cultures, really satisfying. Beyond that it's being able to meet people who are inspiring, and who've led these extraordinary lives and being inspired by them. John Lewis is an extraordinary human being. And absolutely one of the most remarkable human beings of the 20th century, as far as I'm concerned. And being around him and meeting him and listening to him is really a thrilling experience, get to meet people and go places that you wouldn't necessarily ordinarily ever find yourself in. And by the way, I talked about John Lewis, like everybody knows, John. But there were 20 other people that I interviewed for that film, who are inspiring in their own ways. So absolutely, that the opportunity to meet people and go places is extraordinary. The opportunity to then sort of create shape a story in a way that ultimately resonates with people is really, really gratifying for sure. And then you've created something that lasts, it's out there forever. You've left films that people can watch in two years, five years, 50 years, you're creating a legacy of work. That's really cool.
Unknown Speaker 39:08
I used to think that
Unknown Speaker 39:10
now I'm just like, Oh, my God, there's so there's like, what is it like 100 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube every second?
Unknown Speaker 39:19
I mean, there's just so much out there. I mean, clearly, absolutely. We're talking about quality work. There you go. Exactly. For sure.
Unknown Speaker 39:27
I did want to ask about scoring documentaries, because I really noticed how influential the music in your films made me feel like in Hollywood complex. It was very sort of Disney esque, you know, very upbeat and quirky and quite moody, of course, in the more serious ones. And so can you talk about how you choose your composers and the importance of music? Well, the importance of music just cannot be overstated. I think the interesting thing about nonfiction film, you know when you read a book a novel
Unknown Speaker 40:00
book, it's a very intellectual experience. When you watch a nonfiction film, it's an emotional experience. I think that ultimately, the great thing about film that a book oftentimes can't do is it makes you feel something. And music is one of the fundamental tools that film uses to help people feel something. The people who write music for films, it's completely beyond me, it's one of the more enjoyable aspects for me of working on a film is sort of working with a musician, because you're really calibrating the emotional tone of what you're creating. And so what you'll find when you're talking to a composer, is that when you're talking about a scene, you're talking about the emotions of that scene. To me, it's like what we're looking for something really apprehensive. But there's like a tinge of sadness. It's kind of bittersweet, or whatever. But that's kind of the way that you talk with composers, and they understand that and if somehow able to take those words and turn them into a motion through whatever it is that they write, I wouldn't know the first thing about how you can pose it, but I feel like I know it when I hear it, as do so many of us. And the first step, or a first step oftentimes, and a lot of films that I'm making is that you're using what you call temp score is not anything that you're going to ultimately be able to use, but it creates a sense of the emotion that you're hoping to utilize. You know, there definitely are certain, like extraordinary composers who really, really admire what they create. And whenever I watch a movie, fiction or nonfiction, and I liked the score, I always make a note of who wrote it. Because number one, it might be somebody who I ultimately could potentially approach and potentially work with in the future. Or barring that, at least I can use their temp music, in the rough cut that I'm creating. And that will be an inspiration. It's definitely one of the more fun and rewarding aspects of making a film. I mean, there's another point worth making, which is that basically, the actual final score is something that you don't put in until the very end, it's one of the unique realities of what it must be to be a composer is like, you're handed a film that's mostly completed. And then you're given like two weeks to like, put together the score. And ultimately, you can't complete the score until you know that the film was law, because the timing of what you're writing needs to be timed to whatever the lock picture is. So if you start adding scenes, or extending moments or things like that, it'll screw up the music. But the interesting thing about music is that it can really make or break a film. And so you could spend years cutting a film. And then if you don't have the right composer, you will literally ruin your film, if you incorporate the music doesn't work. And conversely, you can completely elevate something into something extraordinary. It's so, so gratifying when you have a composer who creates something that elevates what you've done, and realize its full potential. There's a guy named Phil Marshall, who I've worked with at various points, and he did the score for Nan king, and he did score for Twin Towers, and both of them and when I listened to some of the things that he's created, you know, the end credit rolls in particular, there's something so powerful, that speaks to the content in a way that you couldn't articulate in words. Yeah, I think that's right. And as an audience member, sometimes you don't even realize how moved you are being by the music. It's so subtle, and then it kind of just sneaks up on you. And you realize, like, what a part of a whole this it's almost like this wave that's overtaking you. I noticed it really particularly in both of those films. Yeah. And by the way, anybody who doubts the power of sound, watch a horror film, with the sound off. There's nothing scary about it at all. It's amazing. And then when you turn the sound up, and suddenly, like the sound effects in the music are just primed to like, play with your emotions. But absolutely the thing about it's exactly what you're saying where it's the best music, the best sound effects, sound design, it works on a level where you're not even noticing it. It just sweeps you away. Yeah, that was really powerful. I, I look for the composer's name at the end of your films because I was impressed. Thank you so much. It has been a pleasure to speak with you. It's been a pleasure to speak with you. I appreciate all your information and all your time. I encourage everyone to see your films because they're really worth watching. I really appreciate it.
Unknown Speaker 44:18
All of Dan’s films are incredibly well done and thought provoking. Here are my takeaways from our conversation that I think can apply to all of us. Number one, sometimes you go down a path or many paths and they just don't work out. It's okay to start, stop and then start something else to if you can be choosy about the people in your orbit, it makes a difference if you're on the same wavelength or not. Three, a choice that seemed right 20 years ago may look different. Now with hindsight. That doesn't mean it was a bad choice then, but it's worthwhile to be reflective. For we might all be well served to be aware of the bubbles we're in and how they may be affecting our fear.
Unknown Speaker 45:00
As viewpoints and finally, number five, filmmaking like life is a collaborative process. Ideally, we're all making each other better along the way.
Unknown Speaker 45:11
Huge thanks to the very talented Dan Sturman for sharing his experiences with me. We'll put links to his films in our show notes, which you can find on our website, the experience podcast.net You can also listen to all of our past episodes there, find out how to follow us on social media and sign up for our newsletter. And if you're enjoying this podcast, please rate and review it and subscribe and also tell a friend. I'm Elizabeth Pearson gar thanks for joining in the experience