Filmmaker Evan Vetter during the production of Daylight Come
John Gelardi’s article, “Documentary Filmmaking: From Concept to Distribution,” was published in the spring 2014 issue of Film Matters. The article focused on Evan Vetter’s documentary Daylight Come: Life After Rape in Congo as it pertains to the conceptual creation, rigorous funding, spontaneous filming, and assorted distribution of documentary productions. Gelardi studied film and business at University of North Carolina Wilmington. The following interview with Gelardi brings attention to his personal views on documentary film as a genre and an art form.
Karsu Nalbantoglu: What made you interested in publishing your article in Film Matters magazine?
John Gelardi: To validate my writing ability was the main goal in getting published in Film Matters. I always enjoyed writing and the idea of becoming published was an appealing prospect. So it was pretty much that I was put into a position to be published by being in that class and I wanted to make it happen.
KN: What do you feel like you have gained as an author after being published in Film Matters?
JG: Confidence primarily. It also was the first journalistic piece I had ever written. Journalism was never something I wanted to do, but to wear that hat in this process was fun and a neat challenge. It wasn’t a newfound love or anything I’d want to pursue, but it was fun to do that one time.
KN: How did you hear about Evan Vetter’s documentary Daylight Come? And how did you go about contacting the filmmaker for an interview; was it a difficult process?
JG: I was interning at a marketing firm and one of the employees there was a producer on Daylight Come. I had known he was a part of this project and I asked to interview him for Film Matters. He figured an interview with the director/creator would be better suited and helped me arrange a meeting with Evan. It was a lucky situation where things fell into place. The whole process in this journal piece was pretty smooth and probably why I look back to it fondly.
KN: What was your inspiration behind this article and why did you choose Daylight Come as your focus?
JG: It was more the filmmaker that led me in my choice of subject. It intrigued me that by looking at/knowing this guy on a surface level, you’d never have any idea that he has a feature-length doc brewing up on the side. I wanted to know how he got there and what steps he’d taken to get to creating the doc.
KN: You discuss in your article that “funding everything stands as the biggest obstacle in any film”; why do you think funding and mainly distribution have become so difficult for documentary filmmakers over the years?
JG: I think funding has always been a challenge. Unless you have connections or get a big name attached to your project somehow, you’re going to have problems with funding. Kickstarter and IndieGoGo have made things more attainable for those with no connections but it’s not always sure-fire. Distribution is probably easier now than ever–there are countless festivals and plenty of distribution sites/outlets relative to ten years ago. Not to say funding and distribution are easy nowadays, but it’s definitely become more attainable.
KN: In regards to documentary films as a fast-growing genre, what level of importance and power do you believe it holds in mainstream media today?
JG: I think documentary films are extremely potent. They are more accessible these days too. Instead of viewing docs primarily at film festivals like ten years ago, people can now hop on Netflix or the doc’s website and see the film. This ease of access, coupled with the impressionable nature of most viewers today, allows a situation where change can be struck quite easily. An example is Kony 2012: I did not watch or get caught up in it, but from afar I remember that being huge and everyone on Facebook seemed to be advocates against Kony all of a sudden. In short, I think it does (hold up in mainstream)–it’s easy to access and can only grow in popularity because of that.
KN: In your article you mention the dynamic of a filmmaker having to change one’s piece in order for it to be seen by a larger audience or distributed by certain networks such as BBC and NatGeo. How much of a limit do you think the business or politics behind filmmaking pose to the artistic freedom of documentarians?
JG: In the end a documentary is being made to be seen–so your message gets across and the audience you want to see it, will. So you’re going to want to create something that you feel already meets those standards so it’s viewed by many. Documentary has the reign of being creative, but it is much more goal-oriented so a filmmaker should already be thinking about that going in and it should not restrict creativity in hindsight. If they know this going in, they can create their doc in a creative way around the standards they feel match the topic materials. I don’t see this becoming a major roadblock for filmmakers. If you’re making a piece about, say gun control, then you probably would never have any intention of pursuing distribution rights with a second amendment advocate/right-wing channel. I feel what you’re making will fit the outlet you want already and any changes made would purely be time related or censoring for cable television (History Channel, Discovery, etc.) if at all. That’s not to say it’s no challenge, but I do not think it’s an overbearing and artistically restricting issue.
KN: Is there anything you learned during your research for this article or any experiences during your interview with the filmmaker that you didn’t mention in your piece but would like to?
JG: Record the interview and transcribe EVERYTHING. It made organizing my piece crazy simple when I had all of what Evan said written down. Evan took me through his whole story and that’s how I crafted the piece with a similar arc.
Author Biography
Karsu Nalbantoglu is a film and communication studies student at the University of North Carolina Wilmington. She is originally from Turkey but grew up in Charlotte, NC. Her areas of interest are in cinematography and documentary filmmaking. She wants to travel the world filming documentaries and telling the untold stories of people from all around the world.
