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Sue
Chan at Creativity
Explored
Todd
Herman shooting
at Creativity Explored
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Filmmakers
give new perspective to life itself
By Dina Gachman
Filmmakers Todd Herman and Francis Kohler were
drawn to the visual arts early on in life. Kohler
started making super-8 monster movies when his age
still hovered in the single digits. And Herman's
artistic odyssey started with TV Guide. Once he
discovered the magic that could be worked on the
actors who graced the weekly covers that was it. "I
would go at a cover with an eraser and erase the
white out of the eyes of Carl Malden-he looked
demonic," he said. "Every week I waited for the new
cover; that was my first try (at visual art).
Those early efforts lead to years of making art,
and eventually both were drawn to the San Francisco
Art Institute, where Herman graduated in 1984 and
Kohler in 1989. The two didn't cross paths there
but met through a mutual SFAI friend. They've been
collaborating since the early 1990's, and their
latest project, a raw, heartbreaking documentary
called Life Itself, started screening around the
Bay Area in October of 2001 at the California
College of Arts and Crafts. Life Itself is about
three disabled adults who express their emotions
through art at San Francisco's Creativity Explored,
an art studio for adults with disabilities.
Between the two of them, Herman and Kohler studied
sculpture, animation, visual art, and eventually
film. Kohler switched his major from sculpture to
film, because at the time, in the late 1980's, the
film department "seemed really vital". He found
himself in school on the cusp of digital video,
when the reality of making films started to seem
more accessible than ever before.
Herman gravitated to the school when he learned
that James Broughton-who's been described as a
"poet, avant-garde film artist, and Dionysian gay
sage" in the Bright Lights Film Journal-was on
faculty. "I just ran there to study with him,"
Herman said at a noisy café in the Western
Addition in December.
A few years after graduating, while teaching film
in Singapore, Herman got a video in the mail from
Kohler, who'd started volunteering and teaching at
Creativity Explored in the Mission. The tape
included footage Kohler had shot there, and it
didn't take long before new cinematic ideas started
to evolve. When Herman returned to the Bay Area, he
started hanging out at Creativity Explored's 16th
street studio, getting to know the people and
growing to love the artwork and the openness he
witnessed there. But Life Itself started out as a
completely different project than the one the
filmmakers ended up making.
Herman and Kohler's collaboration started as a
movie about the meaning of love, with the team
roaming around San Francisco armed with a video
camera and little cards asking, "What does love
mean to you?" They wanted reactions from a cross
section of the city's population about a simple,
specific question. They spent four months working
on the project and found themselves getting treated
like "therapists with video cameras" by some of the
more ebullient subjects. One day while shooting at
Creativity Explored the gears shifted.
Herman and Kohler asked Allura Fong, a 27-year-old
painter at the studio, what love meant to her, and
she asked if she could sing a song. Allura belted
out "You Are My Sunshine" as the camera rolled-a
poignant scene that made its way into Life Itself.
That moment struck a chord with the filmmakers, but
it wasn't until holding a benefit to raise funds
for the "What does Love Mean" project that they
realized that their film was really in the artists
at Creativity Explored.
Switching Gears
Life Itself focuses on three disabled adults that
attend classes at the studio-adults from different
backgrounds with varying levels of disabilities.
Allura lives at home with her parents, who give her
the best care money can buy. Sue Chan, 41, lives in
a long-term care facility, which is shown in one of
the film's more somber sequences. The camera's
movements seem to slow down, forcing the viewer to
absorb every detail of the sterile, depressing
institution where Sue spends her nights in a
hospital-like bed. It's difficult to watch, and
it's one of the film's many melancholy scenes in
which the camera reveals harsh moments without
judgement; there's no attempt to sugarcoat what we
see with stylistic pomp. The third artist is
Michael Bernard Loggins, 40, who narrates and
serves as the key personality in the film. Michael,
like Allura, lives at home but lacks the resources
that her family provides. He's like a child trapped
in a grown man's body, and his lyricism and
unabashed revelations hold the film together.
For Herman and Kohler, Michael became the obvious
focus of the film. Aside from his talent and unique
perception of life, he loves the camera, and he
loves talking.
"Sometimes I think he just wants to stand on top of
a mountain and scream [out] how messed up
the world is," says Kohler, who calls Michael an
"amazing comrade". Michael's ruminations comprise
the film's most inspiring-and harrowing-moments.
He's incredibly open about his fears, his pain and
his frustrations, but even during the most
wrenching confessions, the camera never feels
intrusive or voyeuristic. The reason, explained
Herman and Kohler, is that they had trusting
relationships with Michael, Allura and Sue before
they ever decided to make the film.
"It wasn't like we were some documentary film crew
that just walked in one day and said 'Hey we're
gonna make a movie in here' " said Kohler.
Making Life Itself \ran Herman and Kohler around
$20,000, much of which was raised through the
grueling process of applying for grants and holding
benefits. Like most filmmakers, Herman and Kohler
found the fundraising ordeal frustrating. But they
kept going, because as Herman put it, "We really
believed in this film."
Herman and Kohler's art school influence seeps
through in Life Itself's experimental camera
work-they attached cameras to wheelchairs-and in
the animation sequences. They also spent the
beginning of the project "tag-teaming" with a Sony
8mm Camcorder before using a Hi8 camcorder donated
by Kohler's sister, and eventually a digital video
camera. Some super-8 footage made its way into the
film too, during a sequence called, "Michael's
Dream."
Herman and Kohler often shot spontaneously, letting
the moment dictate the shot, with the same freedom
of movement and form that they experienced with the
artists at Creativity Explored. And, like the array
of cameras used, they edited the film on everything
from Media 100 to Final Cut Pro to Avid, using
local facilities at the Film Arts Foundation (which
also awarded a grant to help produce Life Itself )
among others.
The film was shot in low-resolution black and
white, and the gritty, grainy feel fits the
moodiness of the piece. Befitting the film's tone,
they shot everything in existing light. Kohler
jokes about this, sharing the team's oft-repeated
mantra, "It's not the light you shoot in; it's the
light you shoot into," which couldn't be closer to
the truth.
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