Beach people – Lights! Camera! Change!
Jon Fitzgerald. Photo
Movies can simply amuse us or they can jolt up awake and leave us considering things from a new, unexplored perspective. Speaking with Jon Fitzgerald, it’s clear from the start which sort of motion picture he prefers, and why.
“In the last decade or so I’ve gravitated to what I would call social impact films. Films that have something to say.” The title of his book, recently published in a second edition, doesn’t mince words: “Filmmaking for Change: Make Films that Transform the World.”
But who is Jon Fitzgerald, what’s his background or experience, and why should be care?
So let’s go back to the mid-’90s, shall we?
Film student to festival director
Jon Fitzgerald was born and raised in Redondo Beach (his parents attended Redondo Union High School), but then went to UC Santa Barbara and earned a degree in Film Studies.
“After making an independent film that didn’t get into the Sundance Film Festival,” he says, “me and a couple of other guys started the Slamdance Film Festival, more as an opportunity for us to promote our films. And, for whatever combination of reasons, it really struck a chord with the community, with the industry, and with journalists. It became a bit of a Cinderella story.
“That was 1995, over 20 years ago now, and it’s still going strong. I was the festival director for the next two years, and then AFI (the American Film Institute) brought me in to be their festival director.”
He ran that much-heralded film festival from 1997 to 1999.
“So I’ve had an opportunity to see literally thousands of films over the years.”
This is where Fitzgerald’s resume begins branching into several directions at once.
Periodically he’s been called in to direct film festivals, regional and national, as well as international. Abu Dhabi is an example of the latter. And, along the way, he’s also helped launch new film festivals in places like Orlando and the Bahamas. “When I started Slamdance,” he says, “there were less than 500 film festivals. Now there’s over 5,000.”
To attend them all, we’d need to take in several each day, but cab fare would be prohibitive.
While serving as the executive director of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival in 2003 something big crossed his mind. “It dawned on me that I was talking to a lot of independent filmmakers and advising them about how to play the festival circuit. And then there were festival directors launching in random places all over the country.” They’d heard about Slamdance and how it got started, and so they said to their buddies: “If these guys can start this thing out of their garage, then why can’t we? We’ve got a theater, let’s start a festival.”
Well, yes and no. How many Cinderella stories can we have, after all? But Fitzgerald had been to the ball and danced with the prince, and instead of merely being on the ropes he’d climbed them to the top.
“So I started a business called Right Angle Studios,” he says. It was a consulting firm that assisted filmmakers, helping them with marketing and distribution strategies and getting their work to film festivals. Because, if you aren’t being seen, who’s going to know if you’re the next Jim Jarmusch or Guillermo del Toro?
Of course, nudging others into the public eye isn’t quite the same as making and financing your own pictures. And Fitzgerald wanted to transition back to that.
“In 2010, my first documentary came out. It’s called ‘The Back Nine,’ and it was about seeing if it’s possible to become a professional athlete after turning 40. And it’s about golf.”
He then went on to direct and/or produce a few other documentaries, including “The Highest Pass” (mountains and motorcycles, not football), “The Milky Way” (breastfeeding, not stargazing), “Woman One,” and “Dance of Liberation.” For some budding filmmakers he became advisor, mentor, guru, because everyone just starting out needs a little help.
A guide for the journey
“It was around that time that I had a panel discussion with book publisher Michael Wiese. His company has always been the leader in film-related books for film schools.” So Fitzgerald said to Wiese, “Have you ever done a book about the development of social impact movies, filmmaking for change?” “No,” said Wiese, “but that’s a good idea. Why don’t you write a table of contents and a first chapter, and let’s see what it could be about.”
“Within a few weeks I had a book deal,” Fitzgerald says. To a certain extent, his concept for the book drew from Joseph Campbell’s seminal “The Hero with a Thousand Faces,” a book that examines the mythic-heroic archetype down through the ages, and describes, in a dozen stages or so, just what it is the hero has to encounter as he, or she, combats obstacles before finally reaching the goal, be it the Golden Fleece or a Golden Globe award. I think it’s common knowledge that George Lucas honed in on Campbell’s book as well for his initial vision of “Star Wars,” although the recent “Star Wars” films are only slightly more appealing than the Black Plague.
So Fitzgerald condensed the heart and soul of Campbell’s book (for the hero’s quest it’s largely faith and guts) “and applied it to the social impact space and into documentaries. In the last ten years documentaries have evolved. There’s a more interesting flavor and different styles and personalities now, whereas before it was a lot of talking heads, a lot of static camera.”
Among the films he cites that meet this criteria, Fitzgerald mentions “An Inconvenient Truth,” “The Cove,” “Super Size Me,” and “The Fog of War.”
“Filmmaking for Change” is in some ways a how-to book, although the author states early on that while “Social impact films are made with a goal in mind,” he later adds that “One of the best things about the film business is this: There are no rules.”
It sounds like we’re in Zen country now, but not really. The last part of Fitzgerald’s book is weighted with case studies or resources, and during our conversation he singles out “Warrior One,” which is about underprivileged girls living in Florida trailer parks later finding themselves trekking up the Andes to Machu Picchu. It’s a film about building leadership and confidence, in this case for youngsters who certainly weren’t born with silver spoons in their mouths.
“I don’t want the book to just be for people in film school,” Fitzgerald says. “It should be for the average Joe who wants to pick up a camera and tell a story that could make a difference. You don’t need to have worked on ten movies.” Apart from a sound idea or vision, perhaps all that’s necessary is some software and a used camera. “For less than five grand you can have all the tools you need to go make a movie.”
Of course, for a more polished look one might hire or consult with a director of photography or try and coax Daniel Day-Lewis out of retirement. Maybe also you’ll want to see James Franco’s “The Disaster Artist,” which is an original and curious look at how amateur entrepreneur Tommy Wiseau created “The Room,” which critics and fans like to dub the worst movie ever made. Well, worst or not, everybody now knows about it, right?
“The point is,” Fitzgerald says, “there are people turning to film as a tool of mass communication to create change in the world. With politics and education and the environment and social issues and gender issue there are so many issues now, and people are looking to film to get some answers.”
A couple of points I would interject, one being that a filmmaker doesn’t necessarily have to show all sides of an issue, but people might shy away from out-and-out propaganda, and of course no one likes to be preached to, except perhaps the choir.
Regarding point of view, is any film ever wholly objective? Some filmmakers don’t try, “This is my spin,” they’ll say. “Take it or leave it.” And that’s fine. “But there are filmmakers,” Fitzgerald notes, “that do want to show both stories,” so that we, the audience, can draw our own conclusions. “But I also think it depends on the goal: What is the goal for that particular movie?”
It should also be pointed out that “cause cinema” or “social impact films” do not need to be documentaries but can be fictional or narrative films. Fitzgerald mentions “Moonlight” and “Mudbound,” “Schindler’s List” and “El Norte,” which no one would call documentaries even if they are rubbing shoulders with socially relevant topics. And then there’s someone like Werner Herzog who espouses the ecstatic or poetic truth as opposed to the accountant’s truth, the result being that his documentaries have a fictive element. But then, he’s Werner Herzog, and you’re… Who are you again?
A bigger concern for the unenlightened public is this: What do I watch? It’s a celluloid jungle out there.
“At the same time I was writing the book,” Fitzgerald says, “I started a company called Cause Cinema, and my intention is to bring more awareness to a lot of these social impact movies that the big studios don’t release. You’re on Netflix and Amazon and HBO, and you’re looking through all these carousels, through hundreds of movies. (There are) between 100 and 200 at any given time in the documentary carousels, so how do you know which ones to watch?
“With Cause Cinema, I want to guide people to the best of these movies. So, I started a podcast and I’m going to do a blog, all of that with ‘Filmmaking for Change.’”
Start early, stay late
All of which leads us to VistaMar, the private high school in El Segundo with less than 300 students, which has put up new buildings and created an exploratory arts program, part of what is being called the Creative Commons. Now they have state-of-the-art film, music, and theater rooms, plus the latest equipment and gear.
“I taught ‘Filmmaking for Change’ in the fall,” Fitzgerald says, and as part of the initial exploratory arts program had 15 students in his class.
They’re about to move from the theoretical to the practical.
“I’m doing a filmmaking course, where kids are actually going to be able to put their hands on a camera and make a short film by the end of the semester.”
Hollywood, watch out, you may soon have competition.
Jon Fitzgerald will be talking about “Filmmaking for Change” on Saturday, Jan. 27, from 11 a.m. to noon, at the Redondo Beach Main Library. For more information about Fitzgerald, his efforts and accomplishments, go to CausePictures.com or filmmakingforchange.com.