2024 12 27

Caught in the act of art. Chicago, Illinois. October, 2024. © Clayton Hauck

Becoming a Documentary Filmmaker in 2025

My slow and reluctant pivot back to video is underway, though admittedly much slower-paced than it should be. The move back to shooting video is both personally and professionally-driven. Before I became a photographer, I was a videographer. It’s my first artistic passion and one that I want to further explore before it gets too late in life. Beyond that, my industry of commercial photography is now demanding that all photographers are also motion directors, so it’s basically required if I wish to continue making money in that field.

In the new year, I will obsess over video and dedicate a huge amount of my time to manning a video camera again. Part of why my video pivot has stalled is my instinct is to operate. I must be operating the camera to be fully engaged in the production process. And that requires a time-consuming re-learning process, familiarizing myself with new camera systems and methods that didn’t exist when I was running MiniDV cams in the early 2000’s.

Fortunately, a friend reached out to me a few months back with the idea of partnering on a doc project featuring a mutual artist friend of ours (I’m keeping all the specific details out of it for now as we’re in the super early stages of this and I don’t want to jinx anything). We have already begun production and are now seeking additional financing so that we can move full-steam ahead in the new year (hit me up and I’ll send you the pitch deck!). I’m excited because I think this project has a lot of potential to be something great, though I also know it’s going to be a beast of a process and take up a huge amount of my time.

With so much content being made and shared these days, I’m very sensitive to making sure this project stands out and is elevated from the pack. I don’t want to make just another “feature-length documentary” that gets tossed onto YouTube for a few thousand people to passively watch and forget. There are themes I hope to explore that, I think, will resonate with lots of people; if we handle the project right, it has a chance to really become something that goes beyond Chicago and touches people worldwide. But again, I don’t want to jinx it, so let’s keep it casual!

Semi-relatedly, Kartemquin Films is moving their office directly below my studio inside the Kimball Arts Center. I’ve very much been “listening to the universe” lately, and this feels like a clear sign that I should pay attention to. I also aim to make a monthly screening night happen in our studio space, which we’ve dubbed Cinema 606. While this won’t be strictly doc-focused, I do want to make sure documentaries are a large part of the night.

With Ai blowing up and affecting lots of industries, including my own world of commercial photography, I love the idea of adding documentary filmmaking to my core competency of offerings. On top of that, I have no shortage of ideas for various subjects and people that I would love to explore in moving-visual form. Of course, time and money are always the main deterrents, so it will be very revealing to know just how much this project takes out of me before I make grand plans to become the next Werner Herzog.

Some themes we’re likely to explore in this project include: the business end of art; what it means to be an artist; the unwavering dedication to a city that doesn’t always love you back; substance abuse in relation to artistic endeavor. 

I’d consider it a huge win to complete the project, be proud of it, and have other people choose to watch it on their own accord. Perhaps, if things go well, a modest run of screenings around the country would be an amazing end cap. It will be interesting to look back at this post a year from now, as I realize there’s a lot of actual work to be done and this here talk is cheap. It’s time to get moving and make a damn movie!

-Clayton

This is one entry in a multi-part series of self-exploration and contemplation-out-loud in advance of the new calendar year. Some of this may happen; none of this may happen.
For the complete list of posts, please see 2024 12 25.