"The Elect" was one of the more polarizing films at Visions 2012. One member of the duo that directed the documentary sheds light on the filmmaking experience and his career after graduation.
Who would want
to spend a week with a group that holds protests at funerals, makes slogans out
of derogatory phrases, and exploits the legal system in order to fund picket
sign tours? One could wager documentary
filmmakers. During their enrollment in
the University of Notre Dame’s Department of Film, Television, and Theatre, Dan
Moore and Erin Zacek reached out to Shirley Phelps-Rogers with the intent to
make a documentary on the widely publicized and reviled Westboro Baptist
Church. Their short documentary “The
Elect,” a crowd favorite at Visions 2012, is at times riotously funny, more
times aggravating, and constantly fascinating. “The Elect” gives viewers a look inside the
operations of the Westboro Baptist Church as they pray, protest, and, oddly
enough, rehearse and record parodies of mainstream pop songs.
The documentary
boasts an effective cinema verite style, an
observational approach to filmmaking which was popularized in the 1960s. Following this method, “The Elect” dismisses
interviews, voice-over narration, and music.
It was an approach that Moore and Zacek had in mind from the very
beginning, and, according to Moore, it’s what persuaded the agreement of church
leader Shirley Phelps-Rogers in the first place. Says Moore:
"I pitched her the idea of us shooting a verite-style
film about daily life inside her church, which would require no interviews or
anything that would require them to change their schedule to accommodate us. In
this way, we presented ourselves as low maintenance and no hindrance to what
they would be doing anyways. After a few emails back and forth, Shirley agreed
to let us come film them."
The filmmakers
acknowledged Shirley’s history of interviews and her tendency to use them as an
outlet to further preach her beliefs to the world. The only way for Moore and Zacek to mesh into
the reality of their subjects was to “…avoid reminding them that we were there
at all.”
The directing
duo drove from Indiana to Topeka, Kansas with clothes, a camera, and sound
equipment. On the morning they arrived,
they knew that they were in for an extraordinary experience. Says Moore: “The sound of their strange pop
song parodies echoing down the quiet suburban street towards us as we walked
from our car to meet them for the first time still gives me goose bumps.”
They spent an
entire week with the church, and at times shot for up to twelve hours. The experience offered numerous surprises
for Moore, who states that he was quickly “desensitized to their hatred,”
and that after the initial bombardment of their extreme philosophies, an observer
“can almost begin to understand the internal twisted logic of their ideology.”
“The Elect” has screened at numerous
festivals, sent Moore and Zacek across the country, and become a staple in
Visions’ very own Screening Tour. The
reception has been significantly positive wherever the film has traveled, though
preconceived notions about its makers have tended to arise with some viewers. Says Moore:
"It is funny… how, after immediately seeing the film,
some people will tiptoe around criticizing the church to us, in case we might
be actually sympathetic to them or something… But most people seem to get that
we’re going for a subtle critique of the church as opposite to the simplistic
lambasting you get on cable news shows."
Nevertheless, the film garnered the Audience Choice Award at Visions 2012.
Dan Moore got
his hands dirty in the world of post-production after graduating, obtaining a
variety of positions. While in Chicago
he worked as an assistant editor at Foundation Content, a development associate
at Towers Productions, and worked for a short period at The WhitehousePost. At each company, Moore claims to
have been able to work with great people, stating, “You really can’t go wrong
in Chicago when it comes to the people.”
Then came the
move to Los Angeles, where Moore had nothing but “two suitcases, a cary-on, and
no job.” After freelancing as a camera
production assistant on various productions and as an assistant editor at
Foundation Content’s Los Angeles office, he earned a full-time position as an
assistant editor in the promotional department of one of the largest
entertainment marketing agencies in the country, Trailer Park. Eight months later, he’s still enjoying the
experience of working in the marking side of the entertainment industry.
While Moore
loves editing, he says his main passion is in screenwriting: “I would love to be a writer for a television
comedy series like Parks and Rec and then make documentaries during the
off-season. If that’s where I find myself in 10 years, that would be amazing.” It’s easy to imagine that someone who has spent
the early stage of his career helping to edit and market stories would be
naturally adept at writing them as well.
The advice of
past Visions filmmakers and scholars to undergraduate students is usually heartfelt
and inspiring, but Dan Moore adds a twinge of blatant honesty that is both
reflexive and refreshing when encouraging young filmmakers:
"I would say
just keep on working on the things you want to work on and don’t lose your
passion for the stories you want to tell. Honestly, you’re probably going to
end up working gigs that aren’t your dream job, even if you’re lucky enough to
land a job in the industry. However, if you view that job as a means to the end
of helping you achieve your goals and you keep on working on your own projects
in your free time, things are going to start happening eventually. Or so we all
hope."
And if hope is the thing that drives us in an uncertain industry, then Dan Moore and co-director Erin Zacek make a case for having guts as a companionate trait.
No comments:
Post a Comment