Graffiti Filmmaking

It's become a popular code word for an underground zero-budget celluloid or video creation - guerilla filmmaking. But what does it mean to be a "graffiti" filmmaker? Benjamin Morgan, director of the feature film Quality of Life, winner of a Special Mention Jury Award at the Berlinale and the Best Youth Film Award at the Stockholm Int'l Film Festival Jr, has a philosophy. "You don't need a bunch of money to create graffiti. Originally, you steal the spray paint, that's part of the culture. We adopted that graffiti model in place of a larger budget. We said, 'We will make this movie however we can.' The same goes for distribution. We just need to get it done. Everything we've done is in that ethic, using the graffiti model, creating something powerful and compelling without having a lot of resources. That model infected us, as I think it's infected youth, and that's why I think graffiti in general touches youth so much. It's not about having resources or being rich and powerful, it's about speaking your voice. It's about finding a way to be an individual in a very anonymous culture."

Quality of Life was shot entirely on location in San Francisco, mostly in the Mission District, and concerns two graffiti artists, Michael "Heir" Rosario and Curtis "Vain" Smith, best friends who are living on the verge of dire trouble and dealing very differently with the inevitable confrontation of growing up. Director Morgan has spent the last thirteen years working with "at risk" youth and has incorporated their stories into this and his last three no-budget video features. Quality of Life was written with costar Brian Burnam (Vain). "Brian has lived the life. He has been an active graffiti artist in San Francisco for quite some time (he's currently retired). He was really basing it on personal experiences. The way we would talk about it is that Heir and Vain are actually one person hitting a point of 'Which way do I go?' Do I want to keep on getting arrested and partying with my friends, having a great time and living the lifestyle or do I want to grow up and live a regular life? That's kind of where Brian was when we were writing the script."

For Quality of Life, which Morgan considers his first "big" film, he took the leap of shooting in Super-16mm. "We started having discussions to figure out whether film was really feasible and we ultimately found out, especially with Kev Robertson, our DP, that if we approached it with the graffiti model in mind we wouldn't spend that much more money than if we shot on video. Kodak really helped us out. They had just come out with this new night stock that Kev was really excited about so we knew we wouldn't need a lot of lights. We knew that we would have to blow up to film at some point anyway, and we realized that if we took our DV rough cut around to raise money to blow up to film we would have a hard time convincing people to trust us that it would look good." That the usually colorful Mission District comes off as bleached out and drab was all part of the mise-en-scene. "Graffiti writers come alive at night. That's when their world comes to life, because they go out and they go painting with their friends, they party. I educated our DP on graffiti. I gave him books, magazines, videos, I had graffiti writers take him on tours. He came back and said, 'The nightlife is alive for these guys.' They wake up at two, three in the afternoon, or they go to some dead-end job that's as boring as hell, all tired. We really wanted to depict that."

Morgan drew heavily on the local art scene and in a lot of ways Quality of Life is a community effort. A pivotal party scene was shot in Co-Executive Producer and local gallery owner John Doffing's loft. "The DJ was D-Sharp, he's a hot underground Quannum DJ. The label Quannum - Blackalicious, DJ Shadow. Our music supervisor Count knows him really well. Top.R. is an underground legend rapper. With the party scene we wanted to capture the scene as it is now. Brian Burnam was basically just on his cellphone all day calling his friends. It was all Sam Flores's artwork. This was the world. Sam came up to me and he said, 'You know, you've captured an amazing moment tonight. This is a slice in time.' In this movement - these are the people that are a part of that movement."

Executive Producers Brant Smith and John Doffing are making the vertiginous decision to self-distribute a 35mm theatrical run. Beginning at the Galaxy Cinema in San Francisco, they are hoping to generate numbers impressive enough to encourage other theaters around the country to join in. There will also be a limited run book, stylishly designed by local firm Chen Design Associates about the making of the film which includes a foreword by artist Jim Prigoff and a history of San Francisco graffiti by the guys behind popular doc Piece by Piece.

Posted by dwhudson at October 11, 2005 6:45 AM