2024 12 27
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 pitch 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 artist 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.
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.
2024 09 20
Nathan Pearce’s show with Clint Woodside of Deadbeat Club starts in a few hours at my See You Soon studio space! He took the train up yesterday from his home in southern Illinois and we spent some time talking while he hung his work, which is beautiful and looks great printed large. His visit motivated me to get back into my own work, of which I had a big folder full of images from my work-in-progress Illinois series which I hadn’t yet touched. I’ve just been too busy this year to keep up on everything I’ve started or want to start doing. While this in itself is stressful, it made me excited for the winter months ahead as I will have no shortage of things to keep me busy.
Hope you can make it to the show today!
-Clayton
Stop sign, reflection. Chicago, Illinos. May, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Nathan Pearce’s show with Clint Woodside of Deadbeat Club starts in a few hours at my See You Soon studio space! He took the train up yesterday from his home in southern Illinois and we spent some time talking while he hung his work, which is beautiful and looks great printed large. His visit motivated me to get back into my own work, of which I had a big folder full of images from my work-in-progress Illinois series which I hadn’t yet touched. I’ve just been too busy this year to keep up on everything I’ve started or want to start doing. While this in itself is stressful, it made me excited for the winter months ahead as I will have no shortage of things to keep me busy.
Hope you can make it to the show today!
-Clayton
2024 08 15
Hello. I’ve been quite busy lately and it’s largely due to my studio and photography projects taking up all of my time. Can’t complain, just a little note to myself to make me feel less bad about neglecting my side projects, like this here blog. Anyway, here’s a dinosaur I spotted recently while working in my studio. Sometimes I don’t even need to leave the room and I can still make beautiful award-winning images (joke).
-Clayton
PS - I’ve got some really fun events coming up at the studio… the place that is taking all of my time from me. Come out and hang, why don’t you?!
Dinosaurs walk amongst us, on The 606 Trail. Chicago, Illinois. July, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Hello. I’ve been quite busy lately and it’s largely due to my studio and photography projects taking up all of my time. Can’t complain, just a little note to myself to make me feel less bad about neglecting my side projects, like this here blog. Anyway, here’s a dinosaur I spotted recently while working in my studio. Sometimes I don’t even need to leave the room and I can still make beautiful award-winning images (joke).
-Clayton
PS - I’ve got some really fun events coming up at the studio… the place that is taking all of my time from me. Come out and hang, why don’t you?!
2024 08 13
A day (today) in the life of a working photographer:
7am wake up and get ready to tackle the day!
8:30am breakfast sandwich to go
9:30am arrive at location for editorial portrait shoot, unload, set up
10am photograph subject for editorial portrait shoot
11am break down, load car, drive to grocery store to edit photos and grab lunch
12pm check emails and make phone calls
2pm arrive at second location for second editorial portrait shoot, unload, set up
2:30pm photograph subject for editorial portrait shoot
3:30pm jump into rush-hour traffic and drive home to grab studio key
4:30pm arrive at studio to open up for a wardrobe fitting
5pm download and back-up photos, help production load in, etc
5:30pm warm up slice of leftover pizza to eat
6pm post to self-imposed daily blog before the day ends (late again!)
6:30pm write my morning pages which I neglected to do in the morning
7pm work on treatment which is due the following day
9pm help production load out and lock up studio
9:30pm stop into bar for a cold one and maybe another bite
10:30pm get back home, remove pants, clean up mess, discuss wedding stuff with partner
11:30pm more work on treatment
12am set alarm for 7am and repeat
-Clayton
A photo of pretty flowers to provide me a moment of calm. Chicago, Illinois. May, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
A day (today) in the life of a working photographer:
7am wake up and get ready to tackle the day!
8am arrive at studio to load up the car with equipment
8:30am breakfast sandwich to go
9:30am arrive at location for editorial portrait shoot, unload, set up
10am photograph subject for editorial portrait shoot
11am break down, load car, drive to grocery store to edit photos and grab lunch
12pm check emails and make phone calls
2pm arrive at second location for second editorial portrait shoot, unload, set up
2:30pm photograph subject for editorial portrait shoot
3:30pm jump into rush-hour traffic and drive home to grab studio key
4:30pm arrive back at studio to open up for a wardrobe fitting, unload car
5pm download and back-up photos, help production load in, etc
5:30pm warm up slice of leftover pizza to eat
6pm post to self-imposed daily blog before the day ends (late again!)
6:30pm write my morning pages which I neglected to do in the morning
7pm emails, dms, work on confirming details of an event happening in a few weeks
7:30pm work on treatment which is due the following day
9pm help production load out and lock up studio
9:30pm stop into bar for a cold one and maybe another bite
10:30pm get back home, remove pants, clean up mess, discuss wedding stuff with partner
11:30pm more work on treatment
12am set alarm for 7am and repeat
-Clayton
2024 03 22
Having spent a good deal of time in small rural Illinois towns recently, in towns that feel largely forgotten to time, hollowed out and missing a majority of their people, towns with cemetery populations larger than that of their living, it was quite eye opening when I stumbled across a statistic recently. Of America’s wealthiest large cities by median household income, in the year 1949, you would never guess which names topped the list when driving their streets today. Sure, if you’re a student of US history, you can probably guess some of the names, but even still they were quite shocking to me. Before the Rust Belt was a place, the Steel Belt was a place and it was home to prosperous and growing cities which built much of the world’s most valuable products. Before these factories were outsourced and moved overseas, Detroit was the wealthiest city in America, in the top spot on this list. Subsequently, Detroit’s population (once 1.8 million) declined by well more than half (to a just over 600,000 today) leaving much of the city empty and abandoned. My parents both grew up in Milwaukee, which was at the time the third wealthiest city in the country by these metrics, and out of ten combined siblings only one remains there today.
Everything dies, even cities. But unexpected upsides occur as a result of hard times. There’s such a large supply of cheap houses in many of these towns, it’s not hard to imagine an influx of young people from across the country desperate to get a taste of the Remains of the American Dream. We’ve already seen Detroit rebound rather remarkably from its recent rock bottom. Last weekend I had fancy cocktails in both Ottawa and Rochelle, Illinois, both in beautifully-restored buildings on their charming old Main Streets.
These trends played out over decades and were caused by a wide range of reasons, however, when viewed in such stark contrast of then vs. now, it seems hard to believe Cleveland was once the second wealthiest city in America in my dad’s lifetime! While this is super fascinating in it’s own right and a subject that can be examined with endless depth, what gets me even more interested is exploring how these trends might play out in the future. Demography is destiny, they say, and a large number of developed countries around the world are now losing population. If we correlate what happened to America’s Midwest to the rest of the world, will Japan become the next Ohio? Will Seoul soon look Pittsburgh-esque? Or will the Rust Belt rise again and overtake China as the next global mega power?
I’m off to buy some property in Peoria…
-Clayton
The 606 Trail during sunset. It was formerly an industrial freight line and today largely serves a purpose of leisure. Chicago, Illinois. February, 2024. © Clayton Hauck
Having spent a good deal of time in small rural Illinois towns recently, in towns that feel largely forgotten to time, hollowed out and missing a majority of their people, towns with cemetery populations larger than that of their living, it was quite eye opening when I stumbled across a statistic recently. Of America’s wealthiest large cities by median household income, in the year 1949, you would never guess which names topped the list when driving their streets today. Sure, if you’re a student of US history, you can probably guess some of the names, but even still they were quite shocking to me. Before the Rust Belt was a place, the Steel Belt was a place and it was home to prosperous and growing cities which built much of the world’s most valuable products. Before these factories were outsourced and moved overseas, Detroit was the wealthiest city in America, in the top spot on this list. Subsequently, Detroit’s population (once 1.8 million) declined by about two-thirds (to a just over 600,000 today) leaving much of the city empty and abandoned. My parents both grew up in Milwaukee, which was at the time they kids the third wealthiest city in the country by these metrics, but out of ten combined siblings only one remains there today.
Everything dies, even cities. But unexpected upsides occur as a result of hard times and cities are capable of surviving far longer than individual humans. There’s such a large supply of cheap houses in many of these towns, it’s not hard to imagine an influx of young people from across the country desperate to get a taste of the Remains of the American Dream. We’ve already seen Detroit rebound rather remarkably from its recent rock bottom. Last weekend I had fancy cocktails in both Ottawa and Rochelle, Illinois, both in beautifully-restored buildings on their charming old Main Streets.
These trends played out over decades and were caused by a wide variety of reasons, however, when viewed in such stark contrast of then vs. now, it seems hard to believe Cleveland was once the second wealthiest city in America in my parents’ lifetime! While this is super fascinating in it’s own right and a subject that can be examined with endless depth, what gets me even more interested is exploring how these trends might play out in the future. Demography is destiny, they say, and a large number of developed countries around the world are now losing population, just as America’s Rust Belt has in recent history. If we correlate what happened to the Rust Belt to the rest of the world, will Japan become the next Ohio? Will Seoul soon look Pittsburgh-esque? Or will the Rust Belt rise again and overtake China as the next global mega power?
I’m off to buy some property in Peoria…
-Clayton