How the Beastie Boys changed my filmmaking style
Creativity is sometimes just about permission
I was in Traverse City, Michigan doing laundry when my whole style of documentary filmmaking was changed by the Beastie Boys. I was in this laundromat when I heard this raw, amazing music coming from across the street. It seemed to be coming from a truck and it sounded like the Beastie Boys. I knew their sound from the 80s growing up but didn’t know their songs that well. I went over to investigate and a guy was coming out of the store. We started chatting and he confirmed that, yes, it was the Beastie Boys. We laughed about how old we were. The song was nearly 40 years old. He told me it was off “Paul’s Boutique.”
I looked up the album and started listening to it. “To All the Girls” was shattering. It had a 30 second fade in! It changed me. There was an energy to it. A pure, defiant, artistic spirit that gave me a kind of permission. A permission to do what I wanted. To be myself. I was self-funding my film and I had a realization: No one is telling me what to do, and I can do this any way that I want.
My girlfriend Jessica and I had just been in Detroit shooting and interview for my climate change documentary feature “Denying the Monster.” I had been stuck trying to figure out how to put it all together. After I heard that music I realized I had something to say in a way that was not like other documentaries. I could express the feeling I got from that song.
We went on to the Upper Peninsula and ended up at a fresh water spring that I had visited as a child, “Kitch-Iti-Kipi.” It was so fresh and picturesque. There was this great raft that went across the spring on a rope. I got footage of the spring on my iPhone.
When I got back home and started editing, I used the track “To All The Girls.” I cut in images from up north, of the spring, the forest. I put in footage of abandoned factories from Detroit, with an interview I had gotten in Northern California from Michael Robinson, a victim of the 2018 Camp Fire. It didn’t all make logical sense, but it was a style of my own. It had a rhythm to it, based on the vibe of the song. It felt right. It felt like my own.
Ultimately, I realized that there were a number of reasons not to include it. Firstly, even though it is widely considered a sample masterpiece, today it could easily be interpreted to be sexist. Most notably, it was almost impossible to get the rights to a Beastie Boys song. On Jessica’s advice, I just wrote the soundtrack myself.
It was hard to let go of that track but the spirit of that music had changed me and opened a door to my authentic expression.
(You can see some footage of the spring, and the song I replaced the BB track with here: www.DenyingtheMonster.com)
