JUNE 11TH @ STARZ FILMCENTER IN DENVER, CO

Convention, the opening-night feature at the fifth annual Camden International Film Festival, is a logistical triumph that chronicles a logistical triumph. AJ Schnack, the director of the Kurt Cobain documentary About a Son and lone writer at the leading documentary-industry blog All These Wonderful Things, organized a group of nine filmmakers to capture the breadth of the August 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver, Colorado. Collectively, they shot 90 hours of footage in the days before and during the event, which Schnack (who directed, produced, and edited the film, along with filming some of it) whittled down to a breathless, thrilling 95 minutes.

The film comes to Maine (the October 1 screening at the Camden Opera House is a New England premiere) at an awkward moment. Culminating in Barack Obama’s stirring acceptance speech at Invesco Field and concerned with the organizational chaos of the convention at the ground level, Convention summons up feelings of optimism and patriotism that are in short supply at the moment, as scaremongering and partisanship have reclaimed the national stage.

Schnack’s film, though, transcends worries about the timeliness of its subject matter. Focusing on a disparate band of Denver citizens with varying roles — figures from the mayor’s office, a green reporter at the Denver Post, a life-long political activist — Schnack twists the chaos of an unpredictable four days in Denver into a brilliantly edited, eloquent feat of choreography. Schnack and his co-producer/editor Nathan Truesdell will be in Camden on October 1 to speak after the 7 pm show.

From Mark Olsen’s article on June 22:

Once the team was in place in Denver with cameras in hand, Schnack simply had to turn it loose. Maintaining communications was sometimes tricky, as phone service around the convention center could be spotty due to the volume of calls being made in the area. Often the camera crews had to make their own decisions about where to go and who to follow.

“It was something in theory I liked,” said Schnack of allowing each camera person to use his or her own sensibility to inform what they were shooting. “In practice I liked it even more. . . . You needed people who were actually filmmakers, who could make decisions.”

A title card near the beginning of “Convention” credits 11 people with making the film, and that nod to the optimistic idealism of collective action — what a group of people working together can achieve — is the theme both in front of and behind the camera.

Although the film ends with Barack Obama’s speech accepting his party’s nomination, the emotional climax of the movie comes during a speech given by city workers Chantal Unfug and Katherine Archuletta to a group of departing interns. It’s a seemingly small moment that takes on greater significance, as Schnack explained.

“It’s the spirit of the film, both the characters in the film and behind the scenes, the notion of ‘We can do this. Let’s all get together, and together we can make something awesome.”

Variety, Eddie Cockrell:

“By placing Denver’s administrative process of organizing and running the 2008 Democratic confab ahead of the event’s political content, AJ Schnack’s “Convention” becomes a bipartisan, upbeat celebration of democracy’s delicate membrane and can-do spirit…

Helmer’s central strategy — and it is an inspired one — is to emulate in tone and flow of the groundbreaking work of early nonfiction pioneers Robert Drew (a personal hero), Albert and David Maysles, DA Pennebaker and Ricky Leacock. Thus, with the exception of sparingly used talking heads, “Convention” flows seamlessly among the various hotbeds of activity during the convention’s tumultuous four days…

Crews indeed prove they’re down for whatever, as intimate, seemingly effortless footage abounds of the unfolding dramas and Democratic nominee Barack Obama’s climactic acceptance at Denver’s football stadium. Rooting interest in the participants is sustained by Schnack’s smart decision to reidentify participants throughout the film.”

LA Weekly, Aaron Hillis:

“CRITIC’S PICK.  Convention is an unintentionally ironic title, considering both this film and AJ Schnack’s last — the poetic, quasi-installation KURT COBAIN ABOUT A SON  — illustrate the director’s proclivity for challenging the standards of nonfiction filmmaking. Not that this witty, sharp-eyed and effortlessly entertaining portrait of the city of Denver during the 2008 Democratic National Convention is so far removed from the vérité purism of Robert Drew or D.A. Pennebaker (if Frederick Wiseman had made the film, it would still be called Convention). But Schnack’s curious instinct is to remove the presidential and backstage politics entirely, instead focusing on the frenzied microcosm of cogs who often remain invisible if they’re doing their jobs well. From the tireless deputy city liaison whose mobility depends on learning from Mayor Hickenlooper how to drive his scooter and the poor Denver Post staffer who suffers a breakdown while facing impossible deadlines to the disorganized organizers who march their overreaching entitlement up and down the streets before hilariously getting trapped in a dead end, the film sees the logistics behind democracy in action. The eclectic Americana soundtrack is aces, as is Schnack’s formal rigor (the seamless multicamera shoot was helmed by a handful of notable documentarians, including My Country, My Country’s Laura Poitras and They Killed Sister Dorothy’s Daniel Junge . “I wonder if he’s nervous,” someone mumbles as Obama’s motorcade arrives, a delightfully appropriate query in a film about every person’s vital role in shaping society.”

Washington Times, Sonny Bunch:

“The centerpiece screening at Silverdocs 2009 was tonight’s world premiere of “Convention,” a collaborative effort from eight different documentarians to cover every aspect of the 2008 Democratic convention. A massive undertaking, the crew shot 90 hours of footage during their time in Denver, from a week beforehand all the way through President Obama’s acceptance speech at Mile High Stadium.

The documentary is a riveting piece of work, especially for anyone with an interest in national politics, protest culture, and the state of local newspapers. The filmmakers, assembled by A.J. Schnack, endeavored to capture the story from every angle — as Mr. Schnack said before the screening, the movie reminds him of “Back to the Future Part II” because in that film you get to see what happened in the first movie from a different perspective. “Convention” is like rewatching the Democratic convention from the street level, the command level, and the convention-floor level…

As a member of the press, I was most drawn to the press level view and the tribulations of cub reporter Allison Sherry, who was thrown from the schools beat to the Hillary Clinton beat with only a few weeks warning. Asking her to compete with the national press corps was like asking a kid from the Single A to pitch for the New York Yankees in the World Series. It’s poignant and sad and a reminder that this thing we call journalism isn’t all that easy.

The rest of the documentary is no less gripping. The moves and countermoves by the protesters and city planners are intriguing, and the protesters offer some comic relief with their multitude of causes and miniscule numbers. And, of course, the sense of history is almost palpable as Barack Obama takes to the stage and accepts the nomination for presidency. All in all “Convention’s” a wonderful film.”

Less than five days until its World Premiere at the AFI/Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Film Festival, the Politico has an article previewing CONVENTION.  An excerpt:

“It’s been nine months since the Democratic National Convention in Denver, but (Silverdocs) is set to bring back all the memories with the world premiere of “Convention,” a new documentary on the four-day bonanza…

Director AJ Schnack weaves together footage from more than a half dozen film-makers to offer a ground-level view of local-government and protest organization planning meetings, and of the security-operations center with television monitors focused in on every block around the Pepsi Center to keep tabs on those protests.”

We’re pleased to announce that CONVENTION will have its World Premiere as the Centerpiece Screening at the AFI/Discovery Channel Silverdocs Documentary Film Festival on June 17 in Silver Spring, MD, just outside of Washington DC.  Most of the creative team and many of the subjects of the film will be in attendance for the World Premiere.

indieWIRE’s Brian Brooks has more.

“Convention”
by Brian Brooks (March 2, 2009)

Director AJ Schnack (right) previewed about 25 minutes of the latest project he’s spearheading, “Convention,” over the weekend at the True/False Film Festival in Columbia, MO. The doc, which was filmed by a group of directors, takes a look at the ins and outs of the Democratic Convention which took place last summer in Denver, CO. The ambitious film is an ode to some of the earlier work of the Maysles brothers and Pennebaker, capturing a large swath of the tremendous undertaking of the convention in the city. Following the screening, Schnack, along with producer Britta Erickson (executive director of the Denver Film Festival), producer and editor Nate Truesdell (left) along with T/F co-head and filmmaker David Wilson (not pictured) answered questions and solicited comments from a large audience about the film, which is still in post-production.

On Sunday at True/False, filmmaker/blogger AJ Schnack screened the first thirty minutes of Convention, his verite-style film documenting the 2008 Democratic National Convention with an eye on the Denver locals (politicians, city administrators, journalists, protesters) who were in the mix. Shot by Schnack in collaboration with nearly a dozen documentarians (including the Oscar-nominated directors Laura Poitrasand Julia Reichert, and Daniel Junge, who directed the Oscar-shortlisted They Killed Sister Dorothy), the film’s making-of process was almost as much of a serendipity-dependent feat of execution as the event captured on screen.

As his, uh, primary inspiration, Schnack cites Robert Drew’s Primary, a Direct Cinema landmark documenting the Wisconsin primary race between John F. Kennedy and Hubert Humphrey. The first American nonfiction picture filmed with sync sound, its IMDb profile reads today as a who’s-who of 60s documentary film: Drew as audio recordist,Albert Maysles and Ricky Leacock behind the camera and D.A. Pennebaker in the editing room. Time will tell if Convention’s slate of collaborators seems as starry 50 years on, but in the present it stands out as a film built out of and on top of connections made on the film festival circuit. If, in the context of the incestuous world of indie film, that hardly seems all that noteworthy, it is relevant that the production seems to have harnessed the scrappy, obsessive energy of that rather insular community and put it to the service of documenting an event that could potentially have meaning to a much larger segment of the population.

After the screening, Schnack acknowledged that his choice to document the Democratic convention rather than the Republican one had a lot to do with access. “Had the Republicans been in Denver and the Democrats had been in Minneapolis, we would have still been in Denver, because I don’t really have friends in Minneapolis.” One of those friends in Denver is Britta Erickson, executive director of the Denver Film Festival (where Schnack’s last feature, Kurt Cobain: About a Son, won the jury prize) and Convention’s producer. Erickson greased the wheels to help the filmmakers gain access to local institutions like the Denver Post. In some sense, Erickson noted at Sunday’s event, the film’s rocky, cash-strapped and lightning-fast pre-production schedule (shooterNathan Truesdell said he made the two hour drive from his home in Columbia to the St. Louis airport without knowing for sure if there’d be a ticket to Denver waiting there for him) actually led to a serendipitous accident of timing: she was tasked with opening doors for the production in July, shortly after the Convention’s fund raising committee hit their projected dollar goal. “In July, there was a lot of elation in town,” Erickson said. “So I didn’t have to do a whole lot of persuasion.”

Once the assorted filmmakers got into town, it was necessary that they jump straight into the pre-vetted fire without much guidance. Says Truesdell, who is editing the film with Schnack, “Once people landed, we basically just gave them a camera and a phone number, and they chased after [a subject] we had already talked to.” Schnack says, “The reason I wanted to have filmmakers, as opposed to just shooters, do this is because I knew they’d have to make decisions.” He employed a three-part process for choosing collaborators. “First, it was people I had been around and liked and thought it would fun to work with. Second, it was people who had shot their own films. I wanted people who were both directors as well as cinematographers. Third, it was who was available and wanted to jump on the plane.”

Early indications suggest the unconventional production process was, well, productive. “This is something I would like to do on a regular basis,” Schnack says, stressing the value of the trust and comradere he shared with the collaborating filmmakers. “We are lucky as filmmakers that we get to go to film festivals and drink and enjoy each other’s films and hang out, but the chance to work together is exceedingly rare. And omnibus films, you tend to go off on your own path. On this…on the final day at Invesco, Nate has the camera, I can’t get out on the field, I yell at him to shoot his heart out and he gets the most amazing shots of Obama on stage that I’ve ever seen. That’s why I wanted to make this film, to have that experience.”

There was one aspect of the experience that the film festival veterans weren’t prepared for. “Going to film festivals, you get these very secure badges,” Schnack pointed out. The badge that allowed admittance into the super-secure perimeter around the Convention “doesn’t have your name on it, doesn’t have your picture. It’s the most insecure thing I’ve ever seen in my life.”

Convention is still in post-production; the team plans to premiere on the festival circuit later this year.

Originally Posted at: IndieWire

Alongside the thousands of journalists reporting on the Democratic National Convention here in Denver, teams of filmmakers have been fanning out across the city to tell stories that might otherwise be overlooked. AJ Schnack(”Kurt Cobain About a Son”) has tapped a cadre of acclaimed indie filmmakers to shoot a feature doc about the convention. Meanwhile, George Hickenlooper (”The Mayor of Sunset Strip,” “Hearts of Darkness”) is tracking his cousin, Denver mayor John Hickenlooper, while directors Amy Rice and Alicia Sams continue making their insider documentary about Democratic nominee Barack Obama. Today, indieWIRE visited Schnack and other indie filmmakers “on set” at the convention, while also catching up with other DNC-related docs.

“Convention”

At about 3:30 this afternoon, inside the Denver Post‘s Pepsi Center HQ at the Democratic National Convention, with cameras in hand filmmakers AJ Schnack and Julia Reichert & Steven Bognar (“A Lion In the House”) huddled around the paper’s political team. The unit was buzzing because Barack Obama had just arrived in the city, while across town Rage Against The Machine was performing live and inside the hall the presidential candidate’s name was placed into nomination with the roll call about to begin. Later, inside the convention hall, Schnack and filmmaker Paul Taylor (”We Are Together”) worked the floor and followed other Post reporters.

Julia Reichert and Steven Bognar shooting at the Denver Post’s DNC HQ this afternoon in Denver. Photo by Eugene Hernandez

Filmmakers Schnack, Bognar, Reichert, Taylor, Laura Poitras(“My Country, My Country”), and Daniel Junge (”They Killed Sister Dorothy”) are among those trailing Post editor Curtis Hubbard and reporter Allison Sherry, Denver host committee president Elbra Wedgeworth, and Mayor Hickenlooper’s staff to capture the stories behind the scenes at this year’s event. The film is simply titled, “Convention.”

Sitting with indieWIRE over lunch at the Starz Green Room this afternoon, AJ Schnack said he is excited about the coverage they are getting, noting that his subjects have been open and accessible, knowing that the footage won’t be seen until well after the convention is over.

Schnack, who recently re-visited classic docs such as Robert Drew’s “Primary” and “Crisis,” said he found Drew’s collaborations with Richard Leacock, Albert Maysles, and D.A. Pennebaker inspiring. “It’s a small homage to the old Drew and Associates,” Schnack told indieWIRE today.

Currently on a break from the documentary that he and the True/False Film Festival‘s David Wilson have been making in Missouri this summer, Schnack enlisted Wilson and “Branson” collaborator Nate Truesdell to help him here in Denver. He is producing the film with partner Shirley Moyers, the Denver Film Society‘sBritta Erickson, Jenny Chikes, and Truesdell.

Left to right last night: Nate Truesdell, Julia Reichert, AJ Schnack, Jennifer Poitras, Laura Poitras, Steven Bognar, Paul Taylor and David Wilson. Photo by Eugene Hernandez/indieWIRE

“It’s not really a film about politicians,” Schnack explained, before walking around the convention site and checking up on his collaborators just as Obama’s name was placed into nomination and ratified by acclamation, “It really is a film about how a city works.” Explaining that for some time he has wanted to follow “how a city deals with a major event,” Schnack will edit the film himself and hopes to have it completed early next year. While not going into financing details, he said that he secured some funding from traditional and local sources and will soon be seeking finishing funds from many funders who initially questioned whether he’d get the access he promised.

“It’s sort of a leap of faith on everyone’s part,” Schnack added, “So much of it is on the fly.” But, he reitered that he got that access he hope for. And tomorrow (Thursday), Schnack and his collaborators will be at Invesco Field when all of their characters’ storylines converge as Obama delivers his acceptance speech.

“We really do have these great storylines, in all these different areas of the city,” Schnack continued, “There are so many different characters, people really are being open in a way that I didn’t expect they would be.”

“Mayor”

While Schnack and company are following Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper’s staff, George Hickenlooper is tracking the man himself for what will end up a series and/or feaeture film. Produced by RJ Cutler (“The War Room”), the film is tracking the dynamic Mayor, considered one of the more progressive in the country and recently named to a Top 5 list of city heads by Time Magazine.

“It’s basically going to be a doc about the day to day operations [and] how a Mayor runs a city and how he holds onto his potlical integrity and his humanity while trying to balance the thin wire of perception from both the media and the public,” George Hickenlooper told indieWIRE this week.

Obama?

Also shooting in Denver is Amy Rice & Alicia Sams’ apparently untitled doc about Barack Obama, reportedly backed by Ed Norton. The film, being produced with Ben Goldhirsh‘s Reason Pictures, is understood to have begun production at least two years ago. Insiders are being tight-lipped about the project of late, particularly in the wake of a recent Sharon Waxman blog piece about the documentary and declined repeated inquiries from indieWIRE about the movie.

Norton’s Class 5 Films is involved, with Endeavor partner Ari Emanuel and Andrew Hurwitz also on board, with Green Film Co. and Citi Prods., according to a March report from Variety.

“Whether he wins or not, this will be one of the most intimate records of a presidential campaign,” Norton told Waxman. “I’d say with confidence there’s never been as thorough a documentation of a presidential campaign from the inside.”

Waxman reported yesterday that HBO is pursuing the project, but the company did not respond today to an inquiry about their intentions.