Directors Bruce Sinofsky and Joe Berlinger got their start in advertising, and quickly moved to the forefront of independent and documentary filmmaking. The duo’s first documentary, Brother’s Keeper (’92), was the story of the efforts of a small town in upstate New York to defend one of its residents who’d been falsley accused in the mercy-killing of his brother. The directors’ second, Paradise Lost: The Child Murders at Robin Hood Hills (’96), opened with a horrific image taken from a police videotape: the corpses of three children being pulled out of a shallow creek.
The shocking footage served to explain what happened next: three local teenagers, all of whom wore black clothes and listened to heavy metal, were arrested and convicted in an atmosphere that was likened to the Salem witch trials. Though Paradise Lost, which was produced for HBO, won Emmy and Peabody awards, the directors were also accused of manipulating their subjects, particularly the unstable stepfather of one of the murdered children. Sinofsky and Berlinger, who have directed real-people spots for Sony, Kodak, Oxford Health Plans, Bristol-Meyers Squibb, and non-profit organizations via New York-based Sandbank Films, said their movies are both storytelling and a search for truth, however unpleasant it may be.
"Paradise Lost is the flip side of Brother’s Keeper," said Sinofsky. "Brother’s Keeper is like a fairy tale, and the other film is like a nightmare. The emotions were completely different. Brother’s Keeper was a sweet film about farm life and people taking care of each other. You didn’t sense that in West Memphis. There was so much hostility, anger and outrage. Here’s a community that protected one of their own, and [another] that leapt to a guilty verdict before the handcuffs were even fastened."
This month, HBO began airing Paradise Lost 2: Revelations, which revisits West Memphis and questions whether the right people were convicted for the crime. The sequel focuses on the defendants’ effort to appeal their convictions, and on John Mark Byers, the towering, erratic stepfather of one of the victims, who gives contradictory accounts of his own culpability in the triple murder and in the subsequent death of his
wife. The three teenagers remain in jail, and one, Damien Echols, sits on death row in Arkansas. Berlinger and Sinofsky hope their film will help gain new trials for the young men.
Sinofsky, a graduate of New York University’s undergraduate film program, started his career in ’77 as an editor for famed documentary filmmakers Albert and David Maysles. (David Maysles died in ’87, while Albert continues to make documentaries via New York-based Maysles Films, which also maintains Maysles Shorts for commercials). Berlinger, who studied languages, landed his first post-collegiate job at McCann-Erickson, New York, where he was an assistant account executive. In ’83, he began working as a producer in Ogilvy & Mather’s Frankfurt office, coordinating pan-European television campaigns for American Express, Mattel, and British-American Tobacco. After two years he returned to New York, where he began producing spots for the Maysles, first as a freelancer and then as the company’s executive producer.
Berlinger and Sinofsky decided to collaborate on Brother’s Keeper, which they jointly directed, edited, and produced through their own company, Creative Thinking International, New York. Through Creative Thinking and PBS, they also made a documentary about New York City panhandlers called The Begging Game. Under the banner Gray Matter Productions, the commercial division of Creative Thinking International, the pair produced and directed spots for Kodak, Nuprin, and the Parternship for a Drug-Free America. In ’97, they collaborated with the Peace on Earth Foundation, The Shooting Gallery, New York, and Industrial Artists, New York, on a PSA called "Peace Talk," which featured young children discussing their ideas of world peace.
As to how the directors build a rapport with subjects who are unused to being on camera, Sinofsky explained, "We do it by showing them respect. Even when we make commercials, we try to have dinner with the people the night before a shoot, if they’re not actors. We hang out with them, get to know them without cameras around. There’s always an element of trust. If we’ve done our homework and made a human connection with the people we are filming, we end up getting something remarkable."
That approach was necessary in West Memphis, where Sinofsky and Berlinger gradually gained the trust of the families and lawyers involved. Byers, though, was hardly camera shy, staging bizarre scenes for the filmmakers and presenting them with a bloodied knife as a gift. (The filmmakers turned the knife over to police, but forensic tests could not determine if it was a murder weapon.)
Sinofsky and Berlinger scoff at those who say they must have staged such volatile scenes. "That’s total bullshit," said Berlinger. "We never tell people what to do or instigate situations. If somebody tells us they want to do something, we are ready to roll."
Sinofksy said that Byers frequently sought out the camera crew. "There was never a time we filmed him when we didn’t think we came away with something good," Sinofksy said. "He was a regular fountain of that stuff. He never ran dry. Yes, the camera changes everything. But if a guy acts and performs and pontificates like he does, it’s very much a window into his soul. That he could be so cavalier and so performance-oriented on the subject—especially when it involved the castration and murder of his own son—makes you wonder about him."
Though their documentary success has helped their commercial careers, both Sinofsky and Berlinger hope to expand on the real-people style spots they’ve done for Sony ("Who Will Connect Us?" out of Kirshenbaum Bond & Partners, New York), and for Kodak ("Wedding" out of J. Walter Thompson, New York). "I would like to do more comedy and more action, and work with actors more," said Sinofsky, who is currently solo-directing a documentary about Nashville-based Sun Records, Elvis Presley’s first record label. "People think our films are so dark and depressing, but I love to laugh. I understand why people aren’t putting two and two together: ‘Here’s a guy who deals with murder and mayhem—he must be really funny!’"
Berlinger, who has directed episodes of Homicide and D.C. a forthcoming WB series, is now helming the sequel to The Blair Witch Project, which will be released on Halloween. Though he is forbidden by the producers to say anything about the horror sequel, he promised, "This movie’s going to be good."
