Creating independent film is a thankless job. It’s truly a labor of love, it often takes years of hard work, an unreasonable amount of money for very little return on investment. Enter Manny Marquez. For the past 5+ years he’s left the comforts of the northwest every autumn to travel to rural Oklahoma, capturing a touching story near and dear to his heart. It’s a story about the American Dream about doing what you love even when no one else believes in you.
“Victor Marquez is a garbage man in rural Oklahoma. His entire life he’s wanted to be involved with special FX make-up, and work in movies. His plan was halted when he met Suezette. She was a beautiful blonde, with a fire red Trans Am and an 8-Track cassette player always blasting Heart. The only catch was, Suezette was his high school gym teacher. They eventually got married and raised a family, and Victor put his Hollywood dreams on hold.
25 years later, we find Victor is running a successful garbage route in the Tulsa, Oklahoma area. He plans on taking the money he’s saved from the garbage route, and wants to build a haunted house theme park attraction in the woods called PSYCHOPATH. He believes he’ll be able to do special effects, build animatronics, and live his lifelong dream of scaring people with his art. This all seems quite harmless, except the people that live around the proposed theme park are not happy. Some threaten to kill him, others threaten to burn the park down, and when the threats don’t work they take him to zoning court. Victor is granted 5 years to prove to the community that the park will follow all the rules, and not cause any disruptions.”
The parallels between Manny’s story and Victor’s are probably more similar than even Manny realizes. Both are doing what they love up against tremendous adversity. For Manny it’s this film, for Victor it’s a “haunted attraction”. Their perseverance, sacrifice and persistence is inspiring.
From the time of this publication Manny is just over $2,000 short with only 9 days remaining till he makes his annual pilgrimage to the woods of Oklahoma. You can be a part of this project with as little as a $1 donation, every penny helps. So far there’s been 50 people who have pledged to the project. With 50 more grass roots donations we can make this film and Manny’s dream a reality. You can contribute here.
Last weekend one of our directors here at AboutFace — Manny Marquez — proposed to his long time girlfriend Leigh Wilson by making a short documentary called HWY 9: A Story About Love.
He then convinced his local theater in Hood River, OR to show it right before a screening on The A-Team.
This is the story behind it, as told by Manny to our CEO Barry Poltermann in an i-Chat last evening.
HWY 9: A Story About Love can also be watched below…
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AIM IM with Manny Marquez <gastlycrumb>6/17/10 11:22 PM
Manny Marquez:
barry, you there
Barry Poltermann:
yeah man
glad you liked my blog post!
Manny Marquez:
Loved it man
Love Trek
Star Trek that is
Barry Poltermann:
me 2
Manny Marquez:
did you see that engagement film I made?
Barry Poltermann:
that was so fucking awesome man
i loved it
i saw it on sunday
Manny Marquez:
well, I thank you for that man
Barry Poltermann:
i nearly cried
seriously
Manny Marquez:
I took your advice
Barry Poltermann:
i teared up
Manny Marquez:
a couple a days later Leigh was like “you are so fucking about face”
I was cracking up
Barry Poltermann:
HAH!
Manny Marquez:
She loved it
Barry Poltermann:
i bet
Manny Marquez:
played to an audience in the theater man, she had ZERO idea it was coming
Barry Poltermann:
i loved that you told the story about wanting to make a western with robert duvall
Manny Marquez:
well, if you can’t shoot it, get someone saying it!
Barry Poltermann:
Good call
Manny Marquez:
funniest part is when it was about to start
the blu ray player fired up
and it said “tray open”
Leigh said “Oh man, they are playing the movie on Blu ray? How Lame!”
and I was like “yeah, that is so lame. I was expecting a print”
then it said “play”
and the film started
and from the first frame she looked at me and said “what is this!!!”
Barry Poltermann:
when did she figure out is was you?
Manny Marquez:
and I said “Oh, I forgot to tell you. i made you something.”
from the first shot she knew
she know my work
she knew immediatly
she knows how I frame
the things I choose to shoot
she knows me man
Barry Poltermann:
Yeah, it had Manny written all over it from the first frame
I was only surprised your dog didn’t show up.
Manny Marquez:
well, I was going to take him
but I had no idea where I was going
so at the last minute left him home
Barry Poltermann:
Poor Bandit…
Manny Marquez:
the thought of making him wait in the car while i ended up in a helicopter, a cave or some kind of bullet train made me sad
Barry Poltermann:
Good call.
what was the audience reactioin?
did they stop the movie?
Manny Marquez:
I was just going to go with it man
and that band played that dylan song, the actual song that is her ringtone and one of her favorites..without me asking them to play it
it was amazing
And I sing that Townes Van Zandt song
Barry Poltermann:
i liked that
Manny Marquez:
Dan Didier was telling me how much he loved that song
and i had it stuck in my head for weeks
so thanks to Dan, thats the song i used
Barry Poltermann:
did you get down on your knees?
did she say “yes” right there?
Manny Marquez:
I did, at the part that it says “the Proposal”
everyone in the theater turned around and was looking for us
Barry Poltermann:
awesome
she must have been floored
Manny Marquez:
leigh was crying and she said yes
Barry Poltermann:
of course, I WAS FREAKING CRYING!
i can’t imagine
Manny Marquez:
i put the ring on her and everyone was clapping and crying
magic man.
one guy said “I can leave now. after that, A-team will suck
Barry Poltermann:
so cool.
Manny Marquez:
the theater owner had told people in the other screen next door to come over
Barry Poltermann:
love it… i love that it was a-team!
Manny Marquez:
so the theater was packed
Barry Poltermann:
oh wow
Manny Marquez:
and all the employees came in too
it was magic man
i can’t believe i did it
and my crazy trip
i had zero plan
just got on the road and stopped and shot people
it really worked
that bar is a bar i lived behind for 4 months when i was a camera assisitent
I really do thank you man
you make me a better filmmaker
i know I say that all the time
Barry Poltermann:
dude, that was a nice movie
Manny Marquez:
but I mean
it
Barry Poltermann:
it was really pretty
and told a great little story
very warm.
very aboutface! Leigh is right!
Manny Marquez:
people really liked it
that felt good as a filmmaker
like no one questioned why A Team was not on
i found that odd
when it was all down I stood up and said “I know this isn’t what you all came to see, so I’d like to thank you for sitting through our film!”
Barry Poltermann:
ha!
well, it had them interested/curious… unexpected.
genuine
Manny Marquez:
ha
well, I just wanted to make sure you saw the film
since you were the inspiration for it!
Barry Poltermann:
thanks man… i don’t know about inspiration.
it wasn’t a very hard idea to come up with…. “hmmm… maybe manny should make a documentary!”
Here’s a nice video from AboutFace director Manny Marquez… a cover of The Buggles song “Video Killed the Radio Star” by French songstress, Anaïs Croze:
Anaïs Croze is also a member of the excellent band Nouvelle Vague. Shot in Echo Park, CA on my Arri BL 16mm camera, and an Angenieux 12-120 zoom.
Directed by Manny Marquez
Cinematography by Rod Hassler
Edited by Alfredo Ritta
When I was a kid growing up in Oklahoma, almost every rural town still had its own cinema. These theaters had seen better days in the 50′s and 60′s, but were barely holding on in the cable TV wasteland that was the 80′s, my time. Usually, it was just one screen, but the white dimming lights of the marque would still shine for one showing a night of whatever the most family friendly, mainstream film was of the time. The seats were all hard wood auditorium style, some of them broken, and the registration of the projector was so horrible it made your eyes hurt to watch it stutter. I didn’t mind, it made me feel like I was my own Antoine Doinel of The 400 Blows, I was in on the secret magic of the cinema! To everyone else this was just the movies, but to me it was a portal to the world outside my Oklahoma town. Sadly, many of these places are now abandoned, torn down, or have become churches, and the people have all moved to the multiplex! What happened to cinema for the sake of cinema!
The passing of Eric Rohmer several weeks ago brought a flood of memories back to me about my teenage years, and how I came about getting into filmmaking. There was a time when I thought films like “Armageddon” were what filmmaking was about. If you can’t show your movie on 4 screens, all day long, then what good is the thing you made? Eric Rohmer taught me otherwise, and he did it in a little town in Oklahoma that I can’t even remember the name of. I’ll get to that, but let me touch on Rohmer for a minute.
He was born Jean-Marie Maurice Scherer, Eric Rohmer was just one alias he used, and its the one that stuck in his filmmaking career. Mr. Rohmer was a teacher and novelist, that soon was writing film critique at the same magazine as Truffaut and Godard. He watched his contemporaries go into directing, and he was quick to follow. Before he knew it, Eric found himself at the forefront of the New Wave movement. Godard and Truffaut were more famous, and getting more attention with their love and re-invention of the American genre film, where as Rohmer was more reserved, observational, and literary. His most remembered films were made as part of a six part series called Six Moral Tales. While his friends were making more plot driven films, running down the streets of Paris with Aaton’s in hand, he was watching his characters in real time. He’d present them with an issue that they’d have to work their way out of…or not! As much as I love the freedom of the New Wave, I love the quiet he brought to the genre. If Godard taught me to run, Truffaut taught me to love, Rohmer taught me to listen.
French Poster for the last of the "Six Moral Tales"
Chloe in the Afternoon was the first Rohmer film I came in contact with, and the way that I was introduced is something I’ll remember for the rest of my life. There was a Secret Film Society that met in a nearby farm town, as I said I can’t remember the name of, and its only secret because nobody knew it existed. This was before Netflix, and people would trade prints or VHS copies for underground screenings of films. I was invited by the high school art teacher in my home town. No big deal, except I wasn’t even in her class. She found out from other teachers how much I loved cinema and asked me if I’d be interested in coming to the screening. What added that extra bit of intrigue was that she told me I’d have to keep it secret, because if the school found out we were hanging after hours, she could get fired. Sounds like the perfect set up for one of Eric Rohmer’s Moral Tales, doesn’t it?
We drove into the town. It was the typical kind of place where farmers and cattlemen hung out. There was a diner, small bar, and most importantly there was an old cinema on the main street. I’m not even sure it was still technically “open.” So here I was with a bunch of people I didn’t know, and a teacher I’d only met in passing. Everything was yellow, and faded maroon. The carpet smelled of mildew and stale popcorn. I took my seat in the theater among maybe twenty other people in total. The lights dimmed, and the guy in the booth rolled the print.To the young naive Catholic boy I was at the time, Chloe in the Afternoon sounded pretty darn exciting. The print was battered and bruised, the audio was trashed, but it was cinema! It wasn’t anything like my mind had expected, it was everything else I hadn’t imagined. In comparison to what was playing at the AMC 20 in the big town of Tulsa, this was a life changing experience for me. The print kept breaking, I mean literally broke about twelve times. They’d splice it and try again. Eventually, we had to stop the screening because the projector was eating the print. I went home that night never again looking at cinema as something that you pay $8.50 to see, drink a soda in a room with 200 people, and forget. The movies are for entertainment, but Cinema was meant to get in your bloodstream, to tell you a story!
I’d like to think that I carry Mr. Rohmer’s observational qualities into my work at AboutFace. Let the people tell their story, let their actions and emotions guide your camera. Listen more than you question. Use the natural light. Thank you Mr. Rohmer for being a part of who I am today. After all, if you know me, you know I secretly want every piece I do to be its own little New Wave film.
Filmmaking is a lot like working out. If you don’t go to the gym regularly, you’ll lose all that muscle mass and toning that it took you so long to get. Now, this doesn’t mean I wake up every morning and run five miles with my camera in hand. No, what it means is that even when I don’t have a job in, or something paying to work on, I’m constantly shooting. This could be a short film, or a study of a larger idea, but more often than not, I’m testing.
Frame from my short film "Pine Grove." Shot on HVX with DV Tape.
Testing and research is an integral part of what I do because I’m the kind of filmmaker that is usually directing, camera operating, location producing, and lighting. Independent filmmaking to me is to know the best equipment for your particular job, and have tested and used it enough to tell your story with the utmost craft you can. The key to this is not letting the technology murder your ability to tell the story, which I often times see happening.
Most recently, we began a discussion at AboutFace on this topic. Although we are all pretty tech savvy, story is king in our company, and you can see that from our background in documentary. Documentary in itself has never been about the quality of the images, but more about the quality of the moments captured and how they pertain to the story.
For years we’ve been fans of the Panasonic cameras. Personally, when the DVX 100 came out, I really thought to myself “this is Super 16 that I can afford.” The colors and basic feel of that camera screamed “Kodak” to me, and that is the film stock I loved to shoot over the Sony and “Fuji” looks that were so popular at the time. In layman’s terms, super warm and orange vs. blue and cold. As soon as I fell in love with the DVX 100, the HVX 200 rolled around. Now we didn’t even have to shoot tapes! This camera could capture full resolution, broadcast quality HD to a card. This saved money and time in production and post, not to mention the stunning, crystal clear images.
Mikey, 10 year old documentarian in training, using an HVX with Letus35.
Well, we’ve come to a point now where we know we can tell a story on this equipment. We have used it so long, we know that it isn’t dictating our content. What does that mean? It means it’s time to shake it up! Which camera do we look at now? What piece of equipment can help us still be nimble and in the game, but make our work look better?
All the recent buzz of course has been about the new capabilities of the DSLR cameras, like the Canon 5D Mark 2, or the 7D, or the 1D…see where this is going? All of these camera are great, and I have actually used the 5D before for a music video, but it’s not right for what we are doing at AboutFace. We need the more robust, “film” style feel that comes with shooting a full size HD camera. If you are interested in learning more about the DSLR scene, and some of the amazing work being done, take a look at this UK DP’s site, Philip Bloom. His site is loaded with unique tests of these new technologies, and I am a HUGE fan of his blog.
One of the technologies he uses is called a Letus, or as they are generically known in the business, Depth of Field Adapters (DoF). Basically, this is a device that can be attached on the end of almost any HD camera. It contains a lens mount on one end that uses photographic still lenses, and on the inside contains a ground glass and a spinning shutter/vibrating shutter. So basically you are shooting through the Letus to get more control of your image and to make it more film like. In a way, its like reverse engineering your HD camera to give you a more traditional motion picture feel. This is the route I thought would be good for my work at AboutFace. Why? Because we wouldn’t need to buy a new camera, or change our workflow…all I needed was the Letus and some photo lenses, which were easy to come by.
One weekend in November, I rented the Letus from the company directly (located in Portland!) and went out and tested it. I did two series of tests. The first test I shot the same scenario twice, once without the adapter, once with it. It’s all shot with available and ambient light, and very documentary.
Since I had the gear for the weekend, the next day I just drove around the beautiful Columbia Gorge where I live with my dog, and shot random images with the Letus. We went to the train tracks, down to the river, crossed over into Washington state, and finally came back home and had some beers at the pub. Later that night, I shot my girlfriend’s nephew playing on the sidewalk with the newly placed city Christmas lights. This was my favorite test, because it covered so many random locations in one day, and many different lighting conditions. Some I even got to shoot twice, in cloudy and sunny conditions in a matter of minutes! Check it out below.
As you can see, there is a lot you can do with this equipment, and you don’t lose any of the vibe or story because of the technology. It’s not too clean, or HD feeling, which is why I like it. I know that people will argue that there are better ways, or better looking ways, but for me right now, this is how I am enjoying shooting. I personally can’t wait to apply this look to a project at AboutFace, and I look forward to clients embracing the “film” look.
Political consultant and blogger Bridget Dooley praises QUINN STORIES — AboutFace‘s video campaign for Pat Quinn’s Illinois gubernatorial bid.
Check out her kind (and astute) words and watch a video to see what all the buzz is about.
“I’m seriously impressed! Humanizing stories and testimonials that illustrate the character, personality, and positions of a politician make a huge difference to voters who otherwise don’t give politics more than 5 minutes a week of their time.
It’s a monumental struggle to capture the electorate’s attention span beyond that 5 minute mark! It requires expert targeting, ingenuity, and a lot of innovative thinking (if your campaign doesn’t plan to spend trillions of dollars on pricey media buys, anyway).
No matter where you stand on the race for Governor of Illinois, it’s hard to deny that David Rosen over at the Quinn Campaign has done a great job on these web videos. Keep up the great work!”
In December we launched “Quinn Stories” with this ‘teaser’ video:
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Ep. 1: AGRICULTURAL DAY. In this first video installment of Quinn Stories Governor Pat Quinn attends the 2009 Illinois State Fair. Follow the Governor as he meets farmers, attends an auction, and talks about the importance of agriculture in his state.
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Ep. 2: THE PRIMARY. In this second episode of “Quinn Stories” Governor Pat Quinn begins his primary campaign with a rousing speech to fellow Democrats, ending with a standing ovation.
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Ep. 3: TORNADO WARNING. In this third video installment of Quinn Stories Governor Pat Quinn attends the 2009 Illinois State Fairs Governors Day. Follow the Governor as he chats with people from all over the state, only to have his visit cut short due to a tornado warning
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Ep. 4: THE GOOD DOCTOR. In this fourth video installment of Quinn Stories celebrated Illinois doctor and social activist Quentin Young welcomes the filmmakers into his home to discuss Governor Pat Quinns integrity and friendship.
A 20 year proponent for healthcare reform, Dr. Young was a founder and served as National Chairman of the Medical Committee for Human Rights, which was formed in June of 1964 to provide medical care for civil rights workers, community activists, and summer volunteers working in Mississippi during Freedom Summer.
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Ep. 5: THE QUINN BOYS. In this, perhaps our most intimate, episode of Quinn Stories, Governor Pat Quinns sons, Patrick and David, share memories of growing up in Chicago. Follow the Quinn boys around town as they talk about a Weezer concert, “Hoop Dreams” and Gov. Quinn as a parent.
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Ep. 6: PIZZA MAN. In this weeks episode of Quinn Stories, we meet John Clark, owner of Reggio’s Pizza in Chicago. In 1982, Pat Quinn helped Clark complete a financing package that helped Reggios become the only African-American owned frozen pizza manufacturing operation in the U.S.
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Ep. 7: GOLD STAR. In this seventh video installment of Quinn Stories the families of fallen heroes discuss Governor Quinn’s dedication to those in the armed services.
Highlighted in this episode are touching and personal conversations with “Gold Star” parents and the signing of the “Line of Duty Benefit” into law by Gov. Quinn.
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Ep. 8: THE CAMPAIGN. It’s crunch time at Governor Pat Quinn’s campaign headquarters and we bring you a front row seat to all the action. In this episode of Quinn Stories we go behind the scenes at the bustling Quinn For Illinois headquarters where volunteers and staff work frantically, side by side, to make sure the Governor wins the primary on Feb. 2nd.
Buck Smith is an old guitar picker, who was a session man back in Nashville in the 50′s and 60′s. He’s written some amazing songs, and played on a lot of the hits from the time.
He invited me into his home along with local singer/songwriter Bob Connolly. They played me one of Buck’s original tune’s “Harley Hog.”
So I made it into a spec idea for Harley Davidson. Imagine if companies would embrace this on the fly, completely documentary approach to advertising their brands!
This song was written by Buck Smith, and he own’s all the rights to it. Shot on the HVX 200.
“Director Manny Marquez captures the propulsive qualities of the track with this b&w ode mash-up of French New Wave and A Hard Days Night, letting Little Fish singer Juju break the fourth wall and kick some bloody ass all over town.”
The band is Little Fish. The song is “Darling Dear”.
From Manny:
“Music video for Oxford based Little Fish. The video was shot on a Canon 5D as a series of one shot takes. The takes were then cut together in order to utilize the forward motion of the one shot, but take advantage of the displacement of being in a slightly different spot in each take at that point of the song we cut to. Shot in London, England UK”
Directed by Manny Marquez.
DP’s: Paul Street & Lester Dunton
Produced by: Streetlight Films (www.streetlightfilms.co.uk)
Label: Custard / Universal Motown
It was still a bit rainy and sad in France, and we headed for the Swiss Alps.
Manny grabbed the camera as I checked into our hotel… he went to the finish in Bescanon. It was quite a hike, but he eventually got there ran across a truck driver from Poland.
Manny spent several hours with the truck driver — Jerzi — hoping for a happy ending to his story to brighten up the mood.
When it was over, he came back to the hotel, gave me the footage and said… “I don’t think we have anything, man”.
He was wrong:
We cut the episode and sent it to Lance. Within a day, a jersey was on it’s way to Izabel. I hope she liked it.
The next day we woke up to sunshine, Swiss mountains… and a feeling that things were turning. Manny decided to make the trek to the mountain finish. This was going to be a challenge… there was no way to get to the finish easily. I didn’t think he’d make it, as most people had gone up there the day before.
But he came back a day later and handed me the footage saying “Canadian newlyweds man. The husband was a Mountie!”.
That was the day that it became clear that Contador, not Lance, was probably going to win the Tour. There was very little “who is going to win” drama left as we headed into the home stretch.
But the French are amazing hosts, and the fans kept things interesting as we headed to Les Carroz
This is where we met “Bernard the Racer”:
We heard back from Pat that he’d gotten approval for us to go with Trek Travel up to the top of the legendary Mt. Ventoux a couple of days later as the Tour came to an end>>>
The Tour was winding down and we were figuring out how to wrap it up, given that it was pretty clear now that Alberto was likely to win.
It was a “down day” on the tour and we didn’t have anything to film. So Manny decided to go to the team’s hotel and interview the Chef of the Astana team, ‘Chef Duffy’.
Chef Duffy is beloved by both the team and fans… he has a huge Twitter following of his own.
Little did we know that this episode would be “tweeted” by Levi Leipheimer and it would be the most popular video of the trip, garnering tens of thousands of views.
There is a saying that audiences always love films about sex and food. Well, Trek is a family company, so food it is:
Next up was the penultimate leg of the Tour… the awesome and ghostly Mt. Ventoux. We drove up to the top of the mountain (after Manny sweet talked a guard to let us in) and I dropped Manny off. He was on his own, with a backpack and a camera. I left to return the rental car, and Manny capture this ghostly episode:
Trek flew Manny off Mt. Ventoux in the Trek Travel helicopter so he could catch the train back to Paris for the finale. I returned the rental car and flew back to meet him.
We had no idea how to end the series… it was clear that Contador was going to win. The ending was pretty much a coronation. What was the story? Then we remembered a story that Graham Watson had told us a dozen days earlier… and we knew how to wrap up the Tour de France section of “Document”:
Manny was planning to meet up with Santi the next day in the tiny republic of Andorre (nestled in Spain near the French border) and follow him and his friends as they rode the tour route.
While waiting for Santi to show up, Manny shot this episode:
Santi finally showed up at the Andorre cafe, and Manny followed him in his rental car toward the bike route.
It was several hours before the race. But the police pulled everyone over to block off the route for the race. Manny was stranded and without a subject.
He took a nap in the car, and when he woke up he found himself parked next to Liam and his dad, who had brought their Trek bikes from America to ride the route of the Tour:
It took eleven year old Liam to finally say on camera what everyone was talking about: Lance and Contador were at odds and a drama was emerging.
Barry editing in a cafe in Barcelona.
We decide to take a couple of day in Barcelona to catch up on edits. Manny hung out in town, took pictures and shot b-roll.
I was editing wherever I could could… hotel rooms, cafes, even the car.
We caught up with the team back in France in Limoges on their first ‘down day’ and got a coup — an interview with Academy Award winning director Alex Gibney.
Gibney is making a film about Lance and we were able to get his take on the growing rift between the two superstars — Lance and Alberto:
It was raining when we got to Gueret, where the race was coming through the next day. It’s kind of interesting how the race zips through these small towns along the way and we wanted to capture this. Manny shot this on Bastille Day:
In a wild stroke of luck we ran into Graham Watson the next night in a restaurant near our hotel. If you don’t know who Graham is, he is the premiere cycling photographer of all time.
After sharing a bottle of wine with us, he said “this is your lucky day” and agreed to let us follow him the next day in Tonnerre as he went about his work. It’s hard for me to pick, but this is one of my favorite episodes:
That’s when things turned ugly. There were hopes that Lance, Alberto and Levi Leipheimer (also on Astana, and a hell of a nice guy) would take one-two-three on the podium. But Levi had a bad spill and was out for the rest of the tour. And then it started raining again.
It took a sweet couple in the French Alps to lift our spirits as the Tour rolled on… they weren’t really Astana fans, but they were gracious hosts and didn’t let on when the cameras were rolling:
We arrived in France over the July 4th weekend to begin shooting the next phase of the “Document” series for Trek Bikes. Pat Buckley is producing the Tour de France section of the series and Manny Marquez is directing.
We began in Monacco. Manny hadn’t arrived yet, so Pat directed AND produced the first episode. Pat recently directed a festival favorite flick — “William Shatner’s Gonzo Ballet”, so he was a great stand in while we waited for Manny to show up.
The folks at Trek had been working with us for a while and were cool with letting us upload the episodes directly to YouTube without review. This way we were able to get the videos up within a day or two of the actual shoot.
I uploaded the first episode on the Trek website and YouTube page on July 5th:
The strategy was simple:
Tell stories along the route of the Tour that seldom get covered.
Avoid standard race coverage.
Follow the human stories.
Look for the unexpected.
The next episode, shot in Montpellier in the south of France, provided a rare opportunity to see what it’s like to ride in the team “follow car” with coach Dirk Demol.
Joining Dirk is actress Christine Taylor. How Manny wrangled his way into the car with Ben Stiller’s wife is still beyond all of us at AboutFace:
Ben Coates is the Trek Team Liaison to the Astana team. Manny rode with him to Le Cap D’Agde to the start of the fifth stage of the Tour de France and shot this episode:
Director Manny Marquez
As we continued on along the south of France, it was definitely getting tougher and tougher to get any time or attention from the Astana team. After all, it is the Tour de France.
We always intended to mix up episodes between the team and the fans. Manny I decided it was time to focus on fans.
But how can we still get to the Trek Bikes story without following the team? And how hard would it be to find good stories ‘on the fly’? Nothing was planned. The series was called DOCUMENT UNSCRIPTED after all… we are about to give some serious testing to the “unscripted” part.
In this episode Manny meets Santi from Girona, France, and uncovers an amazing story about Lance:
We just began a series of docs for Trek Bikes called “Document Unscripted”. The series will follow Lance Armstrong, Alberto Contador, Levi Leipheimer and the Astana racing team as they traverse the world in the 2009 cycling season. Eventually we plan to follow them at the 2009 Tour de France.
Trek will weave their bikes and message throughout the pieces, thus creating marketing content that is entertaining and interesting to their audience of cycling enthusiasts.
CONTADOR AND THE WIND TUNNEL. The journey to the Tour De France begins for Astana Team members Alberto Contador, Levi Leipheimer, and Lance Armstrong in the speed wind tunnel. Testing bikes and riders to lower drag and make them “faster, better, lighter, and stronger.”
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THREE STARS. Levi Leipheimer, two-time Amgen Tour Of California winner, goes for his third victory aboard his custom Trek bike. This is the biggest race in America and “it’s about psyching yourself up,” Levi says.
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THIS IS AXEL. Lance Armstrong and Trek Bikes team up to create the new Trek LiveStrong U23 team for riders under 23 years of age – to be coached by the legendary Olympic medalist Axel Merckx. These are the cycling stars of the future. Also featuring Lance Armstrong.
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WHAT ARE THE NUMBERS? Lance Armstrong is racing again, this time with a custom painted 1274 Madone – and the numbers on the bike have a very special meaning. “When you see the bike and you see the message… it gives you goosebumps.” But what happens when somebody steals the 1274? ”We’re not going to let anyone steal our hopes and dreams.”
A bunch of us at AboutFace have been hard at work over the last couple of months doing a series of videos for the Sears HEROES AT HOME program.
Sears has been a sponsor of Rebuilding Together, an organization that helps veterans and their families fix up their homes when they are facing hardship.
Here are a few of our favorites of the more than twenty webisodes that we did.
They are equal parts heartbreaking and moving. Thanks to Sears for the opportunity for all of us to meet these amazing people.
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83-year old Kenneth ‘Hoppy’ Hopkins takes American flags down every Friday to place in the center square in Lynchburg VA, to honor of the eight area soldiers who died in Afghanistan and Iraq.
Hoppy is a veteran of WWII. In fact he was at D-Day on Omaha beach with the US Navy. The Sears’ Heroes at Home program helped Hoppy renovate, restore, and update the home he and his wife have lived in since 1948. “This is a great thing that they’ve done for me.”
Note that we did a brief profile of the shooting of the ‘Hoppy Hopkins’ piece in a previous post>>
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“God sent these people.” Howard Burke fought in WWII with Company A. He now lives with his wife in a small home in Lacey’s Spring AL. “We were in a predicament” his wife explains. Howard has trouble walking… he is paralyzed on one side. So Heroes at Home remodeled portions of his their home to make it handicap accessible. As Mrs. Burkes says… “These are our heroes.”
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“I don’t know how I got that name ‘hero’.” Wayne Johnson lives with his wife of Houston Texas in the house they had built in October of ’52. A half of a decade later the house was falling apart. They still didn’t even have a shower… just a tub. But then Sears and Heroes at Home helped by renovating, restoring, and repairing his home.
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Harold Hatton, a Navy veteran who lives in Tampa Bay Florida, plays cards with his fellow veterans at his local VFW Post. He comes from a military family — he is the oldest member of his local Post and his grandson is the youngest. But as we meet his wife Isabella we find out that she is partially handicapped. She has rheumatoid arthritis. Heroes at Home helps them both by making their house handicap accessible.
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Ruth Perry is a Gold Star mother for Chapter Four of “Rolling Thunder” in Lynchburg, VA. Her son Stanley was killed in Vietnam in 1969… she got word on Christmas Eve. The Sears’ Heroes at Home program helped with remolding her Lynchburg home.
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“They gave me a very good Christmas present that I will never forget” says Veora Collins. Sears and Heroes at Home traveled to the south side of Chicago to help renovate and make handicap accessible Veora’s home. She lives there with her son… US Army veteran Roosevelt Collins, who is partially paralyzed from a stroke. “When this came along it was god sent”.
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Blake Vanderwert lives in New Prague Minnesota. Her husband, Jonathan, has spent fifteen years in the service, but they never thought he’d be called into active duty. The Sears Heroes at Home / Rebuilding Together program helped the Vanderwerts renovate their home while Blake’s husband was deployed. There was a lot to do… nothing had been done to the house since 1950. “They wanted the do it because they actually cared.”
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Army veteran Christopher Joseph and is wife Barbara are having a neighborhood cook out at their home in Central Islip NY. Christopher walks with a cane and still doesn’t talk much about what happened in Iraq. His wife tells us about the critical renovations to their home they got from Heroes at Home. She is grateful for the help that her husband has well earned. After all… he paid a heavy price in the military… “protecting home away from home.”
This is a cool video by AboutFace director Manny Marquez that he just posted on Vimeo. From the description:
“This film was made from footage I had shot in 1999 for a student short film while at the Art Center College of Design. I was inspired by the Belle & Sebastian song “I Fought in a War,” and decided to recut my film to the song. Shot on Super 8, the rest of the original film was actually 16mm.
I actually prefer this cut down version over the original!
The soldier is played by my friend Boyd.
This is dedicated to the fallen Soldiers of the world, throughout time and history. Especially the US Marines we’ve lost.”
“Filmmaker Manny Marquez shoots video of participants for the Sears Holdings program called ‘Heros at Home’ at the support the troops rally at Monument Terrace in Lynchburg on Friday.
Sears Holdings gave the Lynchburg Rebuilding Together grants to fix veteran’s homes.”
I first met Manny Marquez in 2004. My friend Donita Sparks introduced me to Manny. Donita is a musician (you may remember her as the lead singer of punk/grunge band L7) and Manny was part of the music video scene in Los Angeles.
Manny stopped by the office and showed us some footage of a documentary he’d been shooting on a horror themed amusement part that was called PSYCHOPATH.
That alone was enough to get my attention.
I watched a few hour of selects. I was impressed enough that I agreed to cut together a trailer for “Psychopath”. I remember that my friend Frank Anderson said it was like “American Movie with guns”.
I like that description.
Manny just wrapped on “Psychopath”. It took Chris four years to finish “American Movie”, so Manny has him beat by a year.
It wasn’t long ago I was doing some work with my writing partner, Kelly McCune, when we stopped for a coffee break. She started to tell me about her involvement with the San Gabriel Valley Habitat for Humanity as a volunteer. I listened to her as she explained all the different kinds of people, of all walks of life that became volunteers at Habitat. From doctors to film animators, there was a job for everyone, and they were greatly in need of volunteers.
This sparked my interest, so I asked Kelly about what kind of outreach Habitat in the area did to recruit new volunteers? There were several big corporations that sent people their way, Disney for example, but mostly it was word of mouth or people seeking to volunteer.
Something I discovered, and this is going to sound weird, but there is often times a stigma with volunteerism. Some people in today’s world tie it too closely to religious charity efforts, or to trying to bring attention to one self as a “good Samaritan.” Habitat does accept faith-based initiatives, or church groups joining, but they aren’t connected to any one religion.
Of course, another issue is people thinking that just by writing a check, you’ve done your part. Habitat appreciates that person, and needs that person to operate, but they also physically need people to go to the build site and pick up a hammer!
Kelly later showed me a video that Habitat had been using. It was very well produced, and was even narrated by Harrison Ford! It was wonderful in a lot of ways, but it didn’t work for me. All the video really did was explain in the most textbook fashion what Habitat does, and what they need, and of course asked for money.
We know there are people in need, and we know people volunteer, but what we don’t know is what kind of people volunteer? I kept seeing this being the gap that needed to be filled, for me. That’s where I came up for the idea for the web series for the San Gabriel Valley Habitat for Humanity.
Habitat for Humanity Media Site
I went to see Sonja Yates, the executive director of the San Gabriel Valley Habitat for Humanity. I told her that what I wanted to do was profile 5 to 10 people that were volunteers, and I wanted them to be as different as possible.
At first she didn’t understand why she needed a new video, she had that great Harrison Ford piece? So, I proceeded to throw her for another loop. I didn’t want to just talk about Habitat. I wanted to know who each one of these people were, personally, at home when they weren’t hammering a nail in the wall.
I asked, “Sonja, what is your favorite hobby?” She looked at me, smiled and said, “How much do you know about square dancing?” Bingo! She got it! So the first episode is built on her love of square dancing. She’s a real person, a retired professional, executive director at Habitat, and she square dances!
Another aspect of what I wanted to do was novel to her as well. In the volunteerism scene, people are used to watching long stuffy explanation videos. Basically, what we need and why? I wanted these profiles to be 2 minutes or less, so people could repost on youtube, or facebook, play them on their smart phones. Now, San Gabriel Habitat would have a social media “product” they could hand out in emails, or start to work virally.
Sonja agreed, and she set me up with 10 people to interview. I’ll admit that not all of them got the concept, but that’s okay, they had never done anything like this. Others totally got it, like the story of Howard Woo. He’s a young banker, works downtown, and he chose to do his interview in his favorite bar! That’s what I’m talking about!
If I saw this, I could say, “Oh, I’m not like that real estate agent really, but this cool young guy is into it as well…maybe I’ll give volunteering at Habitat a try.” Some of the best stuff is when I just showed up at a build site one morning and walked around. Out of that I got an entire episode, and met so many great people. For example, an 85 year-old man that worked in construction for 50 years is now working 6 days a week on the build site.
These are the stories that are discovered with documentary. No script just hanging out, to see what the people are about. The pieces ended up being a great cross section of all the folks involved at Habitat. From the young banker, to a Hollywood actor, there is a place for everyone there.
The biggest lesson I took away from this is that these types of organizations still need traditional outreach for fundraising and for a large portion of their donors to latch onto, but if they want to stay current with people that will actually volunteer, they need to embrace Social Media and distinct new ways of online storytelling.
On a side note, my friend Kelly who turned me onto the idea also did all the music with her bluegrass/Americana band Border Radio. Check them out!
“Victor Marquez is a garbage man in rural Oklahoma. His entire life he’s wanted to be involved with special FX make-up, and work in movies. His plan was halted when he met Suezette. She was a beautiful blonde, with a fire red Trans Am and an 8-Track cassette player always blasting Heart. The only catch was, Suezette was his high school gym teacher. They eventually got married and raised a family, and Victor put his Hollywood dreams on hold.
