The D-Word's life is one of glamour and riches, as only a documentary filmmaker can live it

---

Always on the lookout for gross income opportunities, The D-Word's a gun-for-hire this week. Originally thought it was to shoot video for the Grammy website-- you know... backstage stuff, parties, rock stars going blah blah blah, and all that. Turns out to be more a promo for a sponsoring company, but the clients are far more interesting than the usual suits.

They’re starting up a multi-million dollar, multimedia playground called Cyberlab and yesterday I got to speak at length to the new Multimedia Guy, John M.H.. He was a little wide-eyed: it was his first day on the job.

We mainly talked convergence. Convergence is largely about video on the Web these days, he says, and the fast-converging future is not just video-on-demand but one where everyone’s digital video camera is wirelessly hooked to the Web and everyone and their mom becomes a media maker.

Oy.

It’s bad enough that the digital future has converged at the D-Word’s household. We switched cable tv systems from Time Warner to RCN recently, mainly to save $10/month. But the bastards at RCN have thrown in all sorts of exciting new movie channels -- Sundance, Independent Film Channel, Fox Movies, Turner Classics -- to tempt me from my late night work. It’s hard enough staying focused with games like Free Cell on the computer.

Meanwhile, the cable guys installed a cable modem in the front closet (we’re still brushing off the plaster from our coats, thank you), and now we’re promised isdn and Web tv capability within the next few months.

Double oy. (And pretty smart, too-- get people signed up by offering more for less, then make your real money down the line. Get in your door thru the tv set, get in your wallet thru the computer.)

Luckily, I decided two weeks ago to, once again, pass on the next round of upcoming festivals. But I guess you saw that coming, right? Everyone’s vastly relieved and I suppose it’s nice to have a semblance of a life again. I’m just worried about having a letdown and losing momentum. We’re sooo close to being finished with the fine cut.

The biggest disappointment was thinking we wouldn’t be able to screen the film for all the people in the film who live in San Francisco. But then, a few days later, I get an e-mail from Abbe. She’s moderating a panel there on personal storytelling on the World Wide Web at the Web Design & Development 98 conference panel on June 23rd. On the panel, along with Derek Powazek (of Fray), are these two other guys named Justin and Howard. Am I interested in being flown out to join them?

Interested? Yeah, I think so.

My mind immediately leaps to the idea of setting up a screening while I’m out there. I mention this to Abbe, who relays it to Misty West, the program organizer and, before I know it, Misty’s arranging to make it the focus of the opening night festivities.

Geez, things happen fast on the Web.

I push Misty to make it a more low-key, invitation-only screening, but it’s still likely to be in the 270-seat theater at the SF Museum of Modern Art.

I’m vastly relieved -- I have a deadline again.

It’s hard to keep my thoughts from drifting to the reaction I think the film will get there. It’s always a tricky dynamic when a documentary filmmaker screens his film for the people who are in the film. Debbie and I have worked hard to present the interlinked stories truthfully and non-judgementally (mine included, which is a whole discussion for another day). Still, people have their own idea of “the truth” when it comes to their representation. Especially when it’s painful.

In The Heck With Hollywood!, I most ly winced for Ted Lichtenheld, the really nice guy from Rockford, Illinois, who clung to the belief that his low-budget indie film was successful when all evidence continually pointed to the contrary.

This time it’s Jim Petersen I’m wincing for.

A whole section of the film recounts his wife Julie’s affair with Web designer Patrick Farley, well-documented at the time by both Julie and Patrick on their websites. I read both accounts shortly after discovering the Web in January, 1996, and it’s still the most interesting thing I’ve yet encountered on the Web.

Julie has since reconciled with Jim and returned to HotWired, where they both worked. But, quite understandably, Jim wasn’t anxious to be interviewed on camera. In fact, it was the challenge of my brilliant career to get him to trust me enough to agree. When Jim finally told me he was ready, we walked in silence to a small video storage room-- one of the few rooms at HotWired with a door-- and the moment it closed I turned on the camera in fear that he would change his mind. I got right to the point. “How bizzare was it,” I asked, “to read about your wife’s adventures with her lover on the Web every day?”

Three months later I met Jim and Julie in their apartment for an updated interview. They were building a loft bed and Jim kept his back to me and continued drilling the whole time I talked with Julie. I didn’t ask him to stop -- it conveyed the palpable tension I felt in the air. At one point Julie went to the kitchen to make tea, leaving me alone with Jim. I knew better than to ask any personal questions so I blurted out the most innocuous one I could muster: "So, how has the Web changed since I’ve last seen you?"

“I’d rather not talk about it,” he replied, icely, drilling a screw into a connecting joint.

It’s all complicated and messy and human, and I think Jim emerges as a sympathetic and even moving figure (Julie and Patrick, too, I might add). But it’s also funny, in a peculiar sort of way. And if the audience laughs with Jim there in person, well... he may not want to converge with me later.

Nevertheless, I think we’ve done his story justice. If anything, it’s my own representation in the film I should be worried about.

Previous:
Next:
Newest:
Archives