is a documentary filmmaker, educator, journalist and a co-founder of Meridian Hill Pictures. At MHP, Lance produces the studio’s documentary films and media education projects, spearheads development, social media, outreach and engagement strategy, and curates the PictureHouse pop-up public film screening series. Lance has participated in a variety of successful projects with emerging digital technologies, including the Mozilla/ITVS/BAVC LivingDocs ‘Hackathon’ project at Silverdocs 2012. In 2009, Lance helped lead a digital and grassroots outreach effort to screen the environmental documentary Hope in a Changing Climate in over 20 countries. As a journalist, Lance has written on news, music, film, arts and culture, for a variety of publications. Lance holds a Bachelors Degree in History from Dartmouth College. He is the author of Great Ancient China Projects You Can Build Yourself, a children’s book selected to the American Bookseller’s Association Fall 2008 Indie Next List. Lance serves as Board Chair of Docs In Progress, a 501(c)3 organization dedicated to building community through the power of documentary film. Lance has also served as a Humanities Council of Washington DC humanities scholar.
Jan: Congratulations, Lance. This summer you and your brother, Brandon, celebrated two-years of film-making with your new film company, Meridian Hill Pictures (MHP). I appreciate your taking time to answer some questions.
What do you truly love about having your own film
company?
Lance: We grew up surrounded by entrepreneurs in our
family. My dad is an architect and a sculptor and for many years, he had an
office and studio in our house. I remember as a kid, going down into his
workspace in the basement — playing on the computer, sitting with my legs
dangling at his drafting table, borrowing his pens and pencils (and more often
than not, forgetting to return them), flipping through his architectural
drawings, and playing with his blocks of clay.
Since starting MHP, I’ve never had a morning where I’ve woken up and not wanted
to go to work. No two days have been similar, and each day is challenging, but
I find myself constantly motivated to face each challenge, learn and grow from
the experience. Though I wish I could say otherwise, I think that’s rare to
find in a day job.
Jan: Your family has deep roots in the Washington, DC area. How has this also inspired you?
Lance: My grandfather Sam also had his
own business, a meat and produce shop in Northeast DC called Kramer & Sons, which was actually
started in the early 1900s by my great-grandfather Isadore. As a teenager, I
loved going to the market to visit, wandering through the aisles of pig’s feet,
wheels of cheese and stacks of paper products. The market was also where I
first experimented with taking black and white photographs. It’s age and
history and weathered-nature, to a certain extent, made it feel like such a
visually dynamic setting full of countless stories. Though I always appreciated
and admired what my father, grandfather and great-grandfather did, it wasn’t
until I got a little older that I realized a big part of what I respected was
the fact that they had each figured out how to translate something that they
loved into an actual job and sustainable enterprise.
For my dad, he found a way
to create a living out of being an artist. For my grandfather, he took his own
father’s business, made it his own and created a lifelong sense of community
with his customers. For Brandon and I, the real gift is being able to work with
my brother on something we care deeply about, finding those ways of turning the
art form we love into a sustainable career that has positive (and hopefully
lasting) impact. Even more important than creating something that we care
about, it has been inspiring to create a sense of community around MHP,
watching how other people have gotten just as excited about MHP. I feel like we
bring a lot of the qualities and lessons we observed and absorbed from our
family into the way we have tried to build MHP, and we are certainly trying to
do our best to carry those legacies and traditions onwards.
Jan: What is the mission for MHP?
Lance: This is an important question for us. I suppose
some businesses simply have ‘making money’ as their sole mission. For us, it
was essential that we established an entity where the mission and desired
social impact was deeply embedded into Meridian Hill Pictures’ DNA. From the
moment we started MHP, we had faith that it was possible to create a sustainable
mission-driven business (though we didn’t necessarily know how from Day One). We
were intrigued by the idea that there could be many different pathways to
addressing a social issue or problem — and that a non-profit structure is one
method, but that a business could also achieve meaningful impact.
Unlike a
non-profit, it’s not formally required that a business identify a greater
mission, so we took it upon ourselves to self-impose and communicate that
aspect of MHP. In a lot of ways, though we’re technically a business, we’ve
adopted many aspects of how a non-profit operates (for example: we don’t make a
lot of money, and we re-invest almost everything back into the company to help
the studio grow and sustain itself). In short, we’ve tried to create a hybrid
structure that incorporates and leverages the best parts of a company and a
non-profit. So far, while not perfect, it’s worked well for MHP.
With that in mind, we feel that MHP’s mission is to help provide access for diverse individuals and communities to tell and experience real stories of importance and relevance to their lives.
Jan: So how do you make those connections between diversity and community?
Lance: Our programs and services encompass
several different areas. Our independent documentary films focus on stories
that examine critical issues and moving personal narratives, connecting the
power of documentary film with efforts that advance dialogue, impact and engage
broad audiences. We also facilitate media arts education residencies in schools
and community groups, working with youth and adults to build their visual
storytelling and literacy capacity. We also regularly facilitate ‘pop-up’
public screenings, to bring documentary films to spaces and communities where
access and infrastructure may not be in place.
Jan: So how do you make media that matters, that stays relevant in the face of rapid technological changes?
Lance: We are surrounded by more visual media nowadays than
at any time before. Technology has done amazing things to reduce barriers,
democratize media and improve access, through much more affordable equipment
and methods for self-distribution that were unimaginable just a decade
ago. Even still, we are in a real
mixed-bag media landscape.
It’s still harder than it should be to find media
that matters, particularly through mainstream venues beyond social media and public
broadcasting (thank goodness for PBS and NPR). It’s certainly much easier to
find plenty of puff, and in some cases, even destructive or degrading media. Through
our own filmmaking, teaching and public screenings, we hope that we are playing
at least a small role in the emerging movement to create more outlets for the
public to access and engage with meaningful media from under-represented
perspectives. We are committed to helping provide the tools for diverse people
of all backgrounds to become more active participants in creating media and
authoring their own representation in the media.
Jan: What is the most difficult part of getting
started with a film project?
Lance: Though the funding landscape feels like it is
becoming a bit easier, it definitely remains a challenge to secure the
resources to make a project happen.
That said, the real challenges are more rooted in the
creative process. For us, the thing that almost always takes the most time and
energy is the process of building relationships and trust with individuals and
the communities participating in a project. It’s an essential element, because
without this, a project can never be successful, and may not even be possible
in the first place.
Jan: How do you go about selecting film projects?
Lance: Sometimes we joke that the projects find us.
Happenstance, curiosity, accidents, relationships and wrong turns have all been
responsible for leading to new projects. For example, after moving into our studio
in the Josephine Butler Parks Center in 2010, we learned that Washington Parks
& People (the organization which manages the building) was helping to build
a community garden in a formerly abandoned, vacant alley nearby in the Columbia
Heights neighborhood. We decided to spend an afternoon at the garden one day
with our cameras to film some of the effort. We found the whole project to be
totally fascinating and wound up returning several times to document more of
the process. From that footage, we created a short film called Community Harvest, which actually went
on to get some recognition in local film festivals. After completing Community Harvest, we realized we were
more interested in the story of the people who built the space, even more so
than the space itself. That question led us on a two-year path to tell the
story of the Green Corps, which has
become a major initiative of the studio and our first feature-length
documentary.
Around the same time in 2010, when walking to grab lunch
in Adams Morgan one day, we decided to pop into the Sitar Arts Center and have
a look around. We had passed by countless times, but for whatever reason, we decided
that day that we should learn more about the Center. We got a tour by one of
the wonderful Sitar staff and were blown away by all that the Center was doing
for youth in the neighborhood to provide access to arts education. We decided
to teach a documentary production class at the Center ourselves, which
ultimately led to the film Life as a Collage.
The experience of teaching at Sitar and making the film with the Center’s young
people was a life-changing experience for us. The film itself was screened all
across the country, including at the San Francisco International Film Festival.
We also now have a formal partnership with Sitar and are expanding the
documentary filmmaking class into a robust long-term program.
In all cases, it’s been about remaining open to
anything, while at the same time having a good idea, at least in abstract terms,
about what we want to do, how we want to do it, and what kind of impact we are
looking to achieve. Thinking about these things has helped to provide a kind of
rubric that’s allowed us to think strategically about whether a project will be
a good fit. Often these projects can take anywhere from six months to several
years to complete, so we want to make sure that we care deeply about the work
and that the care can be sustained day-by-day, month-by-month.
We’ve also tried to create and pursue projects that
are demonstrative of the kind of work we hope to do in the future. It’s funny
how you can actually create these kinds of self-fulfilling prophecies. When
people understand what you want to do, then it becomes easier for those things
to actually happen. Now that we have built a portfolio of our work, I think
people are better understanding of our identity and what constitutes a Meridian Hill Pictures film. Now some
projects have started to come our way, where people or organizations are
seeking us out based on some knowledge of our interests or strengths. It has
been very encouraging and I hope it leads to more great stories and
collaborations in the future.
Jan: And how do you finance them?
Lance: As I mentioned, financing the projects is
always a challenge, but I think we have found ways, through a combination of
hard work and lots of luck. In some cases, non-profit organizations have helped
to underwrite the costs of a production, particularly when the film speaks to
an issue area, subject, person or community related to their work. We have also
started receiving some grants from foundations and public arts agencies for our
independent films. Given that the documentary field is changing so rapidly,
this is something we think about a lot. Currently, we’re spending a lot of time
thinking about different models and new ideas for funding that can help make
producing a documentary easier. If you have any ideas, send them our way.
Jan: How do you go about obtaining rights? Do you purchase options for projects or
what?
Lance: Because we are not creating films from books,
in some ways this isn’t an issue for us. We’re typically looking for a story to
tell that already exists out in the world, but hasn’t been told yet. Rather
than obtain rights for a literary entity like a book, a bigger challenge is
securing the willing participation from each individual person and community in
a film. The personal release form, and the trust it represents, is crucial in
our field. Though there are many aspects of informally building trust, the
release form is where a person formally offers and indicates their support and
buy-in for a project. We take these very seriously and do our best to
thoughtfully explain with each person what is involved when they participate in
a project. If a person refuses to sign a release form, in most cases they have
effectively blocked access to their story being included in a film. Being in
front of a camera requires a tremendous amount of trust and openness to being
vulnerable. We do everything we can to respect that people have shared this
trust with us. As a result, we try to do everything possible to ensure they get
a lot out of the experience.
Jan: You both have sturdy journalism backgrounds. How
does that experience inform and support your documentary film-making decisions?
Lance: I am so thankful for my early experiences with
journalism, especially at the Black &
White at Whitman. There is no doubt that your class and inspiration had a
substantial impact on my growth, development and career.
I learned as early as
high school that I loved listening to, researching and investigating stories,
and the act of creatively bringing those stories to an audience. At the time, I
thought print journalism was the only way to do that. In college, I continued
writing for my school’s paper. After college, I moved to Portland, Oregon,
where I worked as a print journalist for several years, mostly at a wonderful
alternative newsweekly called Willamette
Week. All of these experiences as a journalist, especially my time in
Oregon, taught me how to find good stories, become a better storyteller, how to
ask critical questions, connect the dots, build trust, and my own confidence in
sharing my work with audiences.
Jan: So how did you make this transition to film?
I also always loved film from a young age, but for
whatever reason, I never really thought that film and journalism were
inter-connected. It wasn’t until several years after college that it occurred
to me that documentary was the perfect blend of film and journalism. Around the
same time, there were some aspects of print journalism that were becoming more
difficult — in particular, the constant, short deadlines, and the fledgling
nature of the field overall as everything rapidly shifted focus to the web. A
move to documentary filmmaking felt natural and allowed me to continue honing
the non-fiction storytelling muscle. At the same time, I appreciated how
documentary as a medium afforded more time to thoroughly explore a story and
also embraced a range of new-media approaches that only continue to become more
prolific. So it feels like a medium that is growing and developing, which is
exciting to be a part of.
Jan: Are you still writing?
Lance: Oddly enough, though I work in documentary film now
rather than print journalism, I write just as much, if not more, than when I
worked as a journalist.
Jan: What particular skills do you and Brandon each bring, as individuals, to film
production projects?
Lance: First and foremost, I like to think that both
of us bring a strong sense of story to each project. Because we think about
story from different perspectives and use different techniques, usually, our
collaboration leads to something stronger than either one of us might have
created on our own. Brandon is such a gifted director, he has such a beautiful
knack for asking insightful questions, building trust, understanding how to
visually tell a story and how to lead and inspire a creative team. I’ve seen my
role as a producer to help put the footwork in-place to support a director’s
vision for a film, whether the director is Brandon, our collaborator Ellie
Walton, or anyone else. If I can take the lead thinking about fundraising and
development, outreach, engagement and distribution of the film, then the
director can focus on the art of storytelling and the creative minutiae that go
into making a great film.
Jan: Do you think your strong business sense is innate or learned?
Lance: Though neither one of us realized it, I think we’ve
also both inherited a decent sense of business and knack for building and running
a real organization. Being able to step away from the films themselves, and
creatively and strategically think about the operational end of things, has
helped us to build a sustainable platform for doing the work.
With all that said, I am reminded each day of my own
weaknesses and areas where I would like to grow. It is something that’s always
on my mind and I find myself constantly thirsty for learning more. Brandon and
I both often talk about how one of the things we love about this work is that
we can see how it can be a lifelong process, that there is potentially an
infinite space for improvement and mastery. There is still so much separating
us, as young peons, from the masters of the craft. It gives us a lot of
motivation to keep at it.
Jan: What are the pros and cons to working together as
brothers?
Lance: The pro is that alongside my parents, I love my
brother more than anyone else in the world. Being able to see and work with him
every day to create work that I care about is the greatest gift I could ever
imagine.
Of course, it can also be very difficult. Because we
are so close to each other and know each other so well, we can take a lot of
things for granted. Often times we get into trouble when we get too comfortable
with each other. For us over the past few years, working together has been a
constant process of learning how to build a new chapter in our relationship as
brothers. We have tried to create new ways to listen and understand each other
and handle conflict.
More than anything, the most important thing for us is
always to preserve our relationship as brothers. As much as I passionately care
about Meridian Hill Pictures, if anything ever came down to the company or my
brother, it would always be my brother first.
Jan: What is the most useful advice you ever
received?
Lance: Find a mentor. Don’t spend money until your
reach a breaking point and absolutely need to. Business, and documentary
filmmaking, are largely about relationship-building. Be confident and
vulnerable at the same time. Don’t be afraid to be yourself.
Jan: What advice have you chosen to ignore?
Lance: “Don’t start a business in a recession.”
Coming Soon - see a follow-up interview with Brandon Kramer - co-founder MHP
Coming Soon - see a follow-up interview with Brandon Kramer - co-founder MHP
Founded
|
2010 Meridian Hill Pictures (MHP)
|
Awards
|
2012 Our City Film Festival
"Best Short Documentary" (Porchfest)
2012 Our City Film Festival "Best Student Documentary" (Life as a Collage) 2011 Our City Film Festival "Best Short Documentary" (Community Harvest) Official Selection, 2011 Columbia Gorge International Film Festival (Community Harvest) Official Selection, 2011 Southern Appalachian Film Festival (Community Harvest) |
About
Meridian Hill Pictures is an innovative documentary
production company dedicated to producing, teaching, and sharing films that
inspire meaningful community participation and engagement.
General Information
Meridian Hill Pictures was founded in 2010 by a dedicated
crew of filmmakers and educators interested in leveraging the power of
documentary film to create social change.
Meridian Hill Pictures is a fully licensed and insured limited liability company proudly doing business in the District of Columbia.
Meridian Hill Pictures is a fully licensed and insured limited liability company proudly doing business in the District of Columbia.
=====================================
Bio Notes
Jan Bowman’s work has
appeared in Roanoke Review, Big Muddy,
Broadkill Review, Trajectory, Third Wednesday, Minimus, Buffalo Spree (97), Folio, The Potomac Review, Musings, Potato
Eyes, and others. She won the 2011
Roanoke Review Prize for Fiction. Glimmer Train nominated a story as an
Honorable Mention in the November 2012 Short Story Award for New Writers. Her stories have been nominated for two
Pushcart Prizes, two O’Henry Awards and Best American Short Stories. A story
was a finalist in the “So To Speak”
Fiction Contest. She is working on two collections of
short stories and currently shopping for a publisher for a completed story
collection. Her nonfiction work appears in Pen-in-Hand
and Trajectory. She writes a weekly
blog of “Reflections” on the writing
life and posts regular interviews with writers, editors and publishers. Learn more at:
Website – www.janbowmanwriter.com
Blogsite – http://janbowmanwriter.blogspot.com
No comments:
Post a Comment