Film

At the closing of the trailer that I first made for this project, posted to a spare Vimeo account, and shared to whoever was friends with me on Facebook, were the words 'Why I Write.' This was the going title for my fledgling idea about filming the two musicians, also friends, who had moved me the most on an instinctual level in all my years covering music for blogs and weeklies. 'Why I Write' was a phrase used by George Orwell in a pamphlet that I carried with me closely through college. George Orwell was talking about how to write well and concisely. When I looked at these two artists I thought, they are writers. In this sense: at some point blessedly early on each one of these two decided that they were going to make music that had something to say. To write. Luckily something more lyrical came to me at night or in a dream. Skywriters. So now not only do they look and see what's going on, but they are dreamers, and etching something into the sky that was not there before. 

John Fullbright and Jabee Williams are the two musicians I covered in this project. One is a singer-songwriter of extraordinary musical abilities (voice, writing, piano, guitar, drums, accordion)...John, and the other Jabee is a rapper, a cultural maven, and a gifted community leader, a kind of folk personality I'd been looking for, who moved through different groups, always with his heart anchored in his own community, with a poise and grace that spoke to a sense of purpose. 

I had helped John out early in his career, once getting us lost outside of Eureka Springs for one of his early gigs, and I'd covered Jabee for The Oklahoma Gazette. Yet when it came time to ask them if I could film them, I became hugely nervous. I remember this project staying stuck in my mind like an obsession for maybe a year before it ever got running. Then I started sketching possible scenes during breaks at my data entry job for an oil company. I asked Jabee first, and he said he would be honored. Then our schedules wouldn't connect, as I was looking for times when he was working with kids. My first chance getting footage was a trendy hotdog restaurant on 23rd Street. I was able to get great footage of him interacting with the kids, but there was no professional audio, just a little camera audio; I had enough for B-roll. I watched the kids confide in him. He told one of them that he was going to go find the bully this kid was worried about himself. I don't think Jabee was going to do it, but it made the kid feel like he had his back. I went to a show at the farmer's market after this with just my mom's Canon camcorder. I got in the front and filmed his entry and songs as best as I could. I got a shot of his hand being held high and then dropping. I shot a few interviews on the fly with kids who knew him and kids who were inspired by him. Inspired by things like Jabee's sense of hope. This was the footage I would use to cut the trailer, and let people know I was more serious about making something. To convince myself too. 

I asked John one evening on the phone at my then girlfriend's house. I remember I just let the idea go, not believing I was asking him, because I knew he was destined for greatness, and so actually thinking about the responsibility of filming him couldn't enter my head, or the possibility of setting up an arrangement that might cloud our friendship. I just knew that all the years watching him fine tune his voice, write the songs that would endure, deal with fickle crowds, meet with me at Junior's basement bar to get away from our own generation, navigating at times rowdy crowds, disappointing but intimate ones (in Ft. Worth), navigating the world of music politics when OKC and then Nashville would enter the picture (he is an Okemah native), him always having to wrestle with the fickle ghosts of art, listening to Townes and Randy Newman all night, singing and playing all night... all this naturally made me want to create something. And since he was a miraculous force of musical ability, why not make the thing a story and replaying of his own art. He tentatively said yes, and I went to find my crew, my college best friend James Nghiem could edit, and two film fans I admired could make it happen, Royce Sharp  (. 'Tiger King,' 'Reservation Dogs) on sound and Joe Cappa (Bento Box,  the Sundance entry Ghost Dogs) as director of photography. 

,When I think back there were about 6 full days of shooting. The documentary would become about 38 minutes. Arranging a day to shoot was always difficult. I had family duties and my crew was basically volunteering their skills and resources. Match this to when an artist was available to arrive, and at a particular setting. We staged a set of interviews and a brief performance at one venue, Urban Roots, and I knew its owner Arif from an editor of mine at a publication, so here was another contingency that had to be factored into that day's shoot. The first interview with Jabee was our first real shoot, and so I'll always vividly remember meeting Joe Cappa at the McDonald's on NW Expressway below the almost Penn Square Bank tower. He said it was a real treat, that he didn't normally go to McDonald's in the morning, and for some reason this would become a  joke between us for the rest of us lives--how awesome McDonald's is. Jabee showed up at the apartment complex in the Northside in which he grew up. He laughed at the fact that there was a car across the street blasting music at 10 in the morning. Royce arrived and we got everything going. We shot an interview where Jabee told us about playing football at the apartment and about the troubling fights that might erupt on the street outside, and how his mom was always the wise eye who knew when to lead him home ("she just knew"). In between interviewing moments that chilly morning Joe would slow mo the camera through the interior of the apartments and this "B-Roll" would be hugely helpful later in securing a tone to accompany Jabee's music (that he generously let us use en masse). 

I remember being super excited to be filming, still sort of unbelieving that Jabee was letting us into his life like that, even though I was aware that he was covered a lot in the local press (and since has been central to an important non fiction book about OKC by Sam Anderson). Through the filming process with John and Jabee I was learning how to step into people's lives and be there, and by as silent and listening a presence I could be, with the cumbersome weight and perception altering encumberances of a camera crew. Bringing camera, pulling out a camera, always changes everything.. And I was learning how to face that, but still try to make it feel natural somehow. The Westwood apartments Jabee was showing us that morning were not new to us. Me and Joe shot B-roll there of a church BBQ Jabee and a local cool ministry put on for the residents there. There was a Moon Walk and Jabee give a performance and a talk, in which young black boys were really listening to the older young man (who happened to be a musician). Joe instantly shot things that day that had a poetry to them in the editing room. I also saw how remarkable a person Jabee was because something happened. A group of men were upset that he was preaching there. It may have been the first time I saw someone almost get in a fight for doing something good. But that's what almost happened. I was too fresh in filmmaking to really film it, go back to it, make it a part of the narrative, but it would've added conflict, and shed light on the bravery of Jabee's character. But these guys, I think, had a you think you are better than us attitude, and didn't like that he was preaching around there. And he went right up to them and didn't back down. Then he came back and went back to the event. That's about the time that I went home and thought I was lucky to be covering such a remarkable person. This almost fight was the kind of thing you didn't plan for (but indeed, we didn't have our sound guy anyway). We would lay over almost all of this footage with music, and the images of strong women of the civil rights movement that Jabee references in his songs. 

If you found the right crew, the job of making a film could be easier. I was director in that I was coordinating events, but I didn't have to do a lot of the things I thought I'd have to because I had a good crew. One time when we were driving I did ask Joe if I could hold the camera and shoot some driving by schools and houses and Jabee driving his car scenes, and Joe let me do it. This was a powerful sensation, akin hiring people to paint a house, but then asking them if I could work with them so as to make a portion of the paint job mine. As I was filming he remarked that he never felt like he was living unless he was filming something. He or I said that first, and he or I agreed. When we finally got Jabee to bring his friends, family and himself to urban roots they were game for an idea I had for a kind of stylized performance. Him performing in a loft space, but not to the big crowd, so we could really hear his voice and listen to the words. We had them all grouped together with Jabee at the center and I told Joe to go in close on all their faces, he and his mom and his friends, something I've always wanted to do, get those close ups in movement. Probably a Spike Lee move. Joe got excited and said OK. These performances would be the centerpiece, where interviews and Jabee showing us around the city he loves made up the rest of it. Again, this was the sort of planned piece that went off without a hitch because of the talent and the crew. I had to plan it, and get out of the way. 

The arrangement for John's filming day in his home and hometown of Okemah was planned even more to a T. I had called a friend of his who had given John an article by one of his relatives (Uncle I believe) and the poetry published in a reader's digest anthology, moved John so much that he wrote the anti war song 'Fat Man' to pay tribute (something about intertextuality I was learning you could do in art). Rick Reilley showed up and we found a place they could talk, a cemetary. The weather was perfect and the setting struck a somber tone that a lot of John's good songs do. John or I had the idea to go into town and interact with someone we knew would be good, or just sort of appreciate what we needed for the moment, Lou, proprieter of Lou's Rocky Road Tavern. Indeed she struck up a conversation with John naturally and we got to film in a very evocative local setting (where much of the magic of Woody Guthrie fest happens). During the premier of the film a fellow filmmaker remarked to me that he felt like he knew Fullbright after seeing it (meaning he had been sufficiently captured..which wouldn't happen if all our attempts rung too artificial. Space was given to let him be himself--smart comments, reflective comments, funny asides, etc.). 

Royce captured everything, had the audio synced, and even yes, called me director once, one of those affirming life moments. John made us dinner then we went to the piano for some songs. I thought it would be good to just film a whole piano song, solid shot on a tripod, and let the whole song run. No cuts. For the second song, Fat Man, Joe felt like getting up and swooping the camera a bit with John and in tempo with the music. The result turned out perfect. Two different moods, two different songs, two different camera approaches. 

Sort of incredibly, as planned as that day was at the Fullbright ranch in Okemah, the result looks natural. Like this was just him and Rick hanging out, or him and Lou hanging out. Or him playing piano alone. You won't meet a person more alert to inauthenticity than Fullbright, and so the entering of this world and trying to make it natural was probably a product of a few years of friendship. But the part of me that is an artist, or perceiver, apart from people, I had to marvel at how satisfying and interesting it was to enter and record two different worlds. 

"Dumping" the footage, as me and editor James Nghiem learned in J-School, and then reviewing it proved to be one of the  more immersive, long-ranging, and satisfying aspects of the project. True there were some discussions and light disagreements between he and I over how to edit, but once he got rolling he could cut together artfully sequences that I wrote down on notebook paper with timecodes denoting which clips were running at a given time. And a few of his sessions I was there too and they lasted all night. One time at the Nghiems, with his brother Andy making tea after a nap, I was texting Jabee to make sure I had all the facts right about his brother's death, an event which permanently informed his music and his path, which would be told in text during a musical interlude. 

Other times I might have the footage on my computer and I would just review a cut to see how I liked it and what to plan next. I would have a laptop open in my friend Coach Mason's anatomy class in Mustang, and I'd be watching the footage and a student would come up and make their comment. I think this one said it was kind of weird. But hey, she didn't have the whole context...This was one of many instances in my life where I found substitute teaching, ,while not lucrative, could allow you space for art making.  

I've been attempting to describe the hands-on process of making a first movie. I didn't know where it would lead. By the time it was done I showed it to Jabee at an apartment I was living in on Northwest Expressway. He expressed definite approval (and when he came to the premier he was social media posting that he couldn't believe he was seeing himself on the big screen). I had trouble, or a hiccup in getting it seen. While I was very happy with the product, a transcendence I would even say, to see all these images I'd imagined brought to life and even more vivid, the idea of making a movie originally, like Mike Mills says, like "going to the moon," I was having trouble getting it into film festivals (more on why later). I had enough money through a grant from The Oklahoma Visual Arts Coalition (an honor) to apply to about 9 festivals. I tried to hit up a relative for more submission money and I was given a polite no. There's not much precedence for arts or journalism on either side of my family--which on the pro side can make all your experiences completely brand new.. On the con, you have to be pretty vigilant about finding your believers. However there was a theater that was still new on Film Row (Sheridan) in a very cool feeling part of downtown. It was small and operated by two wonderful women. The owner Melodie Garneau agreed enthusiastically to show it. So I signed up with her to have a double showing at The Paramount. She believed that the film was going to have "historical" significance. It didn't cost me anything to rent it out for the night. I decided to just offer donations, not to charge, and two women ran the donation jar entry, enthusiastically, which again made me reassured in that I'd made something of worth. 

The evening before the night of the premiere I remember taking a bath in my apartment with a cold Heineken, sitting there utterly terrified. Maybe never more scared in my life. This must be what a lot of actors and directors feel like the first time they show their movie to a mass audience. I asked myself, what have I gotten into? What have I done? Do I have to go? It was a strange and new sensation, strange because this was a movie about other people's art, other people's lives. Why did I feel like I was about to show something nakedly personal? And if it were to be rebuked, it would be a rebuke to my very soul? I don't know why but that's how I felt, and probably why I'll remember fondly every face that showed up. 

I would say the risk is worth it. To go bigger and try to show art. To make something that comes from a personal place, and then project it to others. The satisfaction of making it and showing it is greater than anything else, job, promotion, party, graduations, etc. If the idea is strong enough in you, how bad an idea can it be? If you pass certain stages in the process, you're probably on the right track. For me it was like some burden was lifted. This was something I could do, and it successfully conveyed emotion. A fellow filmmaker was in the crowd, enjoying a night where he didn't have to be nervous, and he remarked from the stands during the Q and A , "Why didn't you tell me how beautiful this was?" I shrugged, but comments like this went a long way in relieving the unprecedented stress of the day and  evening before screening 'Skywriters.' 

There was a guy there who agreed with me, as I said in the program pamphlet, that 'Skywriters' was a meditation. I would meet him for coffee later and he offered me a job teaching film to kids in southside Oklahoma City. I did that job for about a year, and learned a lot about film and communities just doing that on an i-Phone. So even if I was festival bereft, Skywriters led to a job in the arts. Jabee now had a hook up too, a theater he could use for some of his events, and he did.

One thing I learned is that you could become by doing--this is why I like the films of Joe Swanberg, he is completely self-made. One time at Teen Reach one of the girls said "I don't know, you're the director," and the phrase felt crazy to hear. One of the girls, Kierston White, who worked the door at the Paramount contacted me later and we met at Sauced. She wanted me to direct her Kickstarter video. After we made it she won her campaign goal of $5,000. She was ready to pay me on first meeting, which was impressive. Even more than a year later when I started my first year of teaching, for more consistent income, a guy named Joel Melton called me out of the blue. He had relocated himself to South Padre Island where I'm sure he was a beach rabble rousing staple, and he decided to run for mayor there. He wanted me to film this run for mayor. I had to explain to him that I was currently teaching and not making movies. But a big part of me wished that I was available to make it, even though I was mostly unfamiliar with his music and unsure about his odds for mayoral success..So, after making one movie, through certain people's eyes, this is how I was known. 

John released his album shortly after I had taken the film. One of the people who had awarded me the arts grant said that was pretty nice you got in right before the nomination. He indeed got a Grammy nomination for Best Americana album. His life completely changed, and I saw less of him as a result of the tours he needed to take to follow the success of the record. If you listen to what the songs on 'From the Ground Up' do, then it kind of makes all the me-centric stuff in this essay mute (but hey, it's my Web site)...It's an incredible album and I remember at one moment when things calmed down we went to a movie, 'August, Osage County,' to hear where his song came in on the soundtrack. You can hear it during a country driving scene, and lightly in the Warren theater, John nudged me. I laughed and was super excited. For me, maybe not so much for him, this was an exciting moment because we were two people who were trying to be artists watching a film authored by someone who was from Oklahoma and had made it (Tracy Letts). My own small attempt led to some memorable names even outside of art. The woman who gave me the grant and was talking about John's Grammy nod in her office was Julia Kirt, who is now serving in the Oklahoma senate, district 30. 

The easy and strong way in which I saw Jabee move through music, church, and neighborhood communities continued and he became even more of a presence and leader in the city. In 2014 then mayor Mick Cornett interviewed him and around this time you would see lyrics to Jabee's songs in city upgrade campaigns ('Cool (Streets of my City)'). His records would be decorated with phrases by schoolteachers ("Black Future," from Najah Amatullah Hylton). He became a political figure and was covered for a justice march he and collaborators took in late 2020. Marching 131 miles from Oklahoma City to the Oklahoma State Penitentiary in McAlester, through snow and cold at times. This silent protest was taken for Julius Jones, who was convicted of murder in 2002 and later granted clemency by the governor. When it came to the northeast side of Oklahoma City that Jabee knew well, he was also involved with the development of new restaurants and businesses that could lead to more ownership within his community. He was on panels and meetings with important developers to advocate that loans be given equitably, to ensure that black business owners could benefit by owning the establishment property themselves. They could benefit in time if there was equity money to be made in any additional development, as had happened to rising value in the hip Plaza district. 

In this story it's noted that Jabee has the ear of mayor David Holt. 

Tangentially, this was a subject I briefly covered as a journalist, when a proposed grocery store project was stalled in the NE side. 

This is all to sort of remember a growing city to which these two people were integral, at the time and now (2022). I see it in terms of making things more progressive, and always advancing with the art. But whatever the case, getting to document the voices was in hindsight a lucky privilege. 

A final thought on aesthetics, for what has turned out to be a reflection of DIY filmmaking, notes on an experience...My ultimate goal was not realized. I didn't make something that could make the festival rounds. I chalk this up to not being able to tie the two narratives together. An ultra subtle eye could see it was about two young writers finding their way...maybe seeing as I did, that strong women in the family had given them the nudge to create..

But, It's incumbent on the filmmaker to make sure the project "hangs together." If the viewer does not understand the why of the juxtaposition, then that "lostness" may result in dissatisfaction. So perhaps it's true that I took my instinctual reaction, that these were two very powerful voices, too far. To combine the power, the flow into two worlds, and to not explain. Any sort of manufactured meeting of the two felt a bit false because of the disparate settings. (And what did this say about my life....sometimes I drove down to the Woody Guthrie Fest in Okemah...and sometimes I might be substitute teaching with Jabee at John Marshall High..). From the first shot of downtown OKC, and then the Northwest apartments Jabee grew up in to the beat of his music, a bandcamp single, I seized the tone I had in my mind, and that same authentic and meditative tone was present on John's final song 'Daydreamer' shot in the countryside in Okemah. Or, the project was exactly as I wanted it. Cut from any artificial or television type transitions, it flowed in a naturalistic or realistic way, an aesthetic I liked from Steven Soderbergh's 'Traffic' as a kid, a verite look documentary will naturally produce. So I don't have any regrets about filming the thing I wanted (with limited available days and next to no budget). But if I were to make a movie again, which is a hope, I'll be more conscious of not leaving anything hanging, thread-wise. Unless I'm really positive that I have a magic trick to pull...