Fly on the wall: Getting real with documentarian Heather Ross

We now live in a culture full of self-absorption, if not self-reflection, as we survive through what are (one can only hope) the salad days of the documentary's bastard child, the reality show. No longer do we see on the screen who we might dream to be, but rather, see ourselves, or even worse, our next door neighbor. (Let's not even get into the doc's stepchild, the social network service, where you literally do know what your neighbor is up to. Every few minutes in some cases. 15 minutes anyone.)

But one of the most fascinating things about the documentary film as a medium that has gone missing in the "reality" of television shows isn't just learning about the specific subject being documented, but more importantly, learning about the person behind the camera through the documenting of a subject. Due to the inherent anonymity in reality TV's "filmmaking" process, this byproduct becomes completely lost when watching it. Fortunately, we learn quite a bit about the person behind the documentary Girls on the Wall, which, as best put (by way of an exchange through a, um, social network) by its director, Heather Ross, follows a group of incarcerated teenage girls who get a shot at redemption in a most unlikely form: a musical based on their lives. 

During a "hot sweaty bus ride in Cambodia," Ross gets through some homework in the form of a few questions regarding the realities of making a documentary.

Marvin Miranda: With all the recent talk of women making features, it seems that the documentary is one of the few places in filmmaking where there isn't so much of a glass ceiling. I admit, I don't have any statistics at my fingertips, so I could be wrong. But it does seem as though the documentary format does lend itself to be more of a "unisex genre" (for lack of a better term) than the narrative. Did you find it to be an issue at all, being a woman and wanting to make a documentary about a young ladies' correction facility? What if you had decided to make a doc about a men's correction facility? Do you think the reception to that idea would have been generally the same?

Heather Ross: I agree, I don't think there was any gender barrier to get this film made, and it just makes more sense for a girl to be making this movie. Maybe it would have been different if it'd been a more masculine subject, but probably not-- in docs it's your energy, your patience, your ability to convince people to open their doors and to work for free that gets things done. Having spent a little time on the fringe of the feature film world, I think it's very different there, more about bravado and stuff. I hate to say it but it's probably also because there's so little money in docs-- no one's going to balk at giving a female director a modest doc budget, but sadly, they might think differently if it was a 50 or 100 million dollar movie.

MM: Out of an infinite number of subjects, what made you want to document this specific situation?

HR: I was always interested in subcultures, and personal stories, and I knew my first film would be about outsiders. When I heard a This American Life segment about the musical-in-a-girls'-jail program, it hit a lot of different chords for me. This was a story with teenage girls as heroes. They're in prison, so they're absolutely carrying a story with them, a dramatic story. And then they're putting on a musical, which is totally nuts--it turns the whole idea of a tough prison movie on its head in a way that's funny, moving, and totally surprising. Not only are these girls outsiders, but they're people whose stories rarely reach the mainstream.

MM: It seems obvious that rather than just put on a show to entertain, the whole process up until and especially the show has become a sort of big, on-going, therapeutic session for the young ladies much more than a "let's show the outside world what we can do" or "all you need are The Arts to turn people around" message. At the end, there are still young ladies who slip back, while, fortunately, others prevail; But I guess what I'm trying to say is that that isn't really the point. The point is that it's been emotionally and psychologically beneficial for these young ladies to put on this show, regardless of what happens to them afterwards. It's more about the journey than the ultimate destination. I don't remember there being any acknowledgment or perception by the young ladies that this was "good for them" emotionally. Was there any talk along those lines that came directly from them and not their supervisors?

HR: Yeah, if you ask Whitney or Rosa now if it helped them, they'll say yes. I think one of the cool things about the way Ms. P. and the staff put on the show is that it's never forced on kids as therapy. At the times the girls need it to be meaningful personally it can be. But it can also be like dance-offs and freestyling with your friends. Less pressure emotionally.

MM:  How challenging was it to convince the young ladies and their families, not to mention Warrenville prison, to participate in what I--at the risk of sounding presumptuous and patronizing--assume was something completely foreign to them: the filming of a documentary?  

HR: The prison--which is actually not a prison anymore, it's run by the Department of Juvenile Justice instead of Department of Corrections--was receptive from the start, because they knew the musical program was working. And the girls were receptive too. They've all seen a million movies and docs, not to mention reality shows, so they knew what was up. Many were eager to tell their stories, almost to purge them. Some were probably just looking for something to do--prison is pretty boring. But of course it took a while for us all to get to know each other and open up.

MM: How did the young ladies react to you once you began filming their everyday lives?

HR: It was pretty rare for someone to tell me to stop shooting. But it happened, if they were in a bad mood or deep in a gossipy conversation. They'd just tell me to get lost, usually laughing, and I would. (Usually.)

MM: There's the whole notion that subjects are going to behave differently when you've got a camera pointed at them. You're there in the room with a camera, a sound person, etc. However small your crew might be, there's no way of really becoming completely invisible, especially in such confined spaces. Is that something that you were conscious of during this shoot?

HR: Usually it was just me and a sound woman, and when I did interviews it was usually just me. I don't think it felt like a film crew after a while. Everyone got used to me as a person, not just a filmmaker. Sure, it changes people's behavior sometimes when you're shooting-- if you have a girl who acts out, she might act out more, another person might clam up-- but I was there for 9 months kind of constantly, so I think they just let it in as another element of life there.

MM:  You have a bit of a history dealing with documentary-styled productions and reality shows. So was making a feature doc something that just seemed "natural" to you, sort of a no-brainer?

HR: It's apples and oranges. I thought doing an hour of TV was pretty similar to doing a 60 or 90 minute documentary. I thought wrong. It was much harder to tell a longer story and to do it in a cinematic way than what I was used to in TV. And with younger people it's hard because they're really changeable--there's a lot of back and forth in their opinions, their outlook, their personality from day to day--so it's even harder to present what seems like a cohesive story/character.

MM:  I'm sure by now they've seen the documentary. How did it affect them, and just as important, how did their reaction to it affect you?

HR: Rosa saw it and her first comments were about Christina's story, and how much she felt for her. She said she liked the film, but was reluctant to show it to her mother because she was afraid it would hurt her. Whitney saw cuts of the film all the way through the process, and liked it but was uncomfortable about having her charge out in public. When the film aired on TV in her city, there was blowback from that in her life and she was pretty upset. Since then she's also come to a festival with me and seen how strangers love and respond to her character, that most reactions to her are good. But honestly, having it affect her life in a bad or inconvenient way is upsetting. You make a film like this with the idea that bringing these stories to light will benefit many people, more people than they hurt--but it still sits uncomfortably with me.

MM:  What was it like going back to Warrenville and showing the documentary?

HR: We showed it at Warrenville last fall, to a whole new group of girls. It WAS weird going back and seeing all these new, young faces-- like damn, here's a whole new group of even younger kids with big problems and impossible pasts. Also, they didn't know me so it wasn't like "Hey, welcome back!" It was like, "Who are you?" But they loved it and were pretty emotional, and especially wanted to know what Whitney was up to.

Girls on the Wall is playing 4/30 - 5/2 at the Downtown Independent Theater. 

For more info:  Visit the Facebook Event page: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=109840979052855&ref=mf

Advance copies of the Girls on the Wall DVD are also now available via the website (www.girlsonthewallmovie.com) or at http://www.filmbaby.com/films/3943