A memorable first date at the Oscars
By Robert Goldrich
For director Lucy Walker, the highlight of her first career Oscar nomination–for best documentary feature on the strength of Waste Land–was the 30 something date she brought with her to last month’s gala Academy Awards ceremony: Sebastião Carlos dos Santos, a recyclable materials collector, also known as a catadore.
“Since the age of 11, Tião [short for Sebastião] has been a garbage worker in a landfill,” noted Walker. “He went from the world’s largest trash dump in Rio de Janeiro to the largest Red Carpet on Hollywood’s biggest night.”
Tião’s journey–which includes what at press time was a scheduled visit with President Obama–underscores the transformative power of a documentary. Waste Land chronicles the journey that made Tião’s odyssey possible, telling the story of Brazilian artist Vik Muniz and the catadores, who make their way from a massive landfill to a renowned auction house in London by transforming refuse into contemporary art. This helped realize Tião’s dream of improving the quality of life in his community. Tião now serves as president of the Association of Pickers of Jardim Gramacho, the name of the landfill near Rio.
Meanwhile the dream of an Oscar nomination was also realized for Walker. “The Documentary Branch of the Motion Picture Academy determines what work is nominated,” said Walker. “These filmmakers in that Academy Branch are my heroes. To have my documentary picked by them as worthy of a nomination is the most important recognition for me personally.
Waste Land is only the fourth film directed by Walker. And it continued what’s become a tradition of honors for her exploits as a documentarian. Waste Land premiered at last year’s Sundance Film Festival and went on to win Audience Awards from both Sundance and the Berlin fests. Walker also gained acclaim for Countdown to Zero (best documentary nomination in the 2010 International Press Academy Satellite Film Awards), Blindsight (Audience Awards winner at both the 2007 Berlin International Film Festival and the 2006 AFI Film Festival) and Devil’s Playground (Audience Award winner at the 2002 Best Film Sarasota International Film Festival).
Walker left “a comfortable gig”–as director of Nickelodeon’s lauded Blue’s Clues–to move into documentary filmmaking. Blue’s Clues earned her two Daytime Emmy nominations for directing of a children’s TV series. But she yearned to explore new challenges, which led her to Devil’s Playground for which she worked diligently to gain access to the Amish community. The documentary shed light on what Amish youths face as they are thrust virtually overnight into independent decision making as teenagers, navigating through a crash course on dating, sex, drugs, coping, and finding one’s identity and aspirations.
Spot diversification Devil’s Playground marked an auspicious documentary debut which helped Walker gain momentum in the discipline. Now, on the heels of her Oscar nomination, she’s diversifying into another discipline, commercials, via bicoastal production house Supply & Demand. In some respects, it’s not so much a diversification as it is a return to the ad arena after a lengthy absence. Walker’s late father, Norman Walker, was an account director at JWT London and then went to Spottiswoode which became U.K. agency Davidson Pearce Berry & Spottiswoode. Later he became a VP at toymaker Hasbro, a position which had him collaborating with New York agency Griffin Bacal as he shuttled back and forth between the U.K. and U.S.
So Lucy Walker grew up in the ad business. As a child, she was fascinated by advertisements. Inspired by her dad, she imagined ways to make the advertisements better. As a young adult, her first real-world job was serving as an English-language copywriter for BMP DDB Needham in Bangkok.
Walker then pursued filmmaking, first through a formal education as she went to graduate film school at NYU where she won a competition to direct a music video for the band Cowboy Junkies. Among her other short-format credits around that time were another music clip for an experimental band, branded content for Panasonic, and short narrative pieces promoting a Japanese television show.
But rather than continue in the music clips/promos/spot marketplace, Walker sought to make headway and hone her craft in longer form projects–her first big break coming with Blue’s Clues.
“It was,” she recalled, “an ideal show to work on, a great first break for me, mixing live action and animation, learning about blue screen and other effects, working on a tight television schedule–and most importantly being involved in a show that was a positive learning experience for children.”
Her learning curve there and in subsequent documentaries has translated into filmmaking sensibilities that Walker believes will help inform her future commercial and branded content endeavors. “My documentary work has helped me to recognize and capture heartfelt reality, a feel of authenticity, finding that sweet spot that connects human beings with one another. You have to engage and connect with an audience, and that is key to successful commercialmaking.”
Still, the challenge is different. “In long-form work, you’re building over a very big story arc, you need to sustain the story,” said Walker. “By contrast in thirty seconds you have to be more focused and can just go for it. The commercial in a sense is like a perfect pop song–you want to watch it over and over again like you want to listen to a great song over and over again. There’s a real art to properly honing a message–using your craft, the tools and resources that are emerging to communicate that message in the best way possible.”
Walker gravitated to Supply & Demand based on its body of work, and the affinity she felt for the company’s managing partner/executive producer Tim Case and managing director/executive producer Kira Carstensen. “It seemed like a natural fit for me,” observed Walker. “I aspire to do the quality of work and concepts they’re consistently producing. And they provide the production support that artists need to do their best work. I’m looking forward to collaborating with them and agency creatives.”
Review: Malcolm Washington Makes His Feature Directing Debut With “The Piano Lesson”
An heirloom piano takes on immense significance for one family in 1936 Pittsburgh in August Wilson's "The Piano Lesson." Generational ties also permeate the film adaptation, in which Malcolm Washington follows in his father Denzel Washington's footsteps in helping to bring the entirety of The Pittsburgh Cycle — a series of 10 plays — to the screen.
Malcolm Washington did not start from scratch in his accomplished feature filmmaking debut. He enlisted much of the cast from the recent Broadway revival with Samuel L. Jackson (Doaker Charles), his brother, John David Washington (Boy Willie), Ray Fisher (Lymon) and Michael Potts (Whining Boy). Berniece, played by Danielle Brooks in the play, is now beautifully portrayed by Danielle Deadwyler. With such rich material and a cast for whom it's second nature, it would be hard, one imagines, to go wrong. Jackson's own history with the play goes back to its original run in 1987 when he was Boy Willie.
It's not the simplest thing to make a play feel cinematic, but Malcolm Washington was up to the task. His film opens up the world of the Charles family beyond the living room. In fact, this adaptation, which Washington co-wrote with "Mudbound" screenwriter Virgil Williams, goes beyond Wilson's text and shows us the past and the origins of the intricately engraved piano that's central to all the fuss. It even opens on a big, action-filled set piece in 1911, during which the piano is stolen from a white family's home. Another fleshes out Doaker's monologue in which he explains to the uninitiated, Fisher's Lymon, and the audience, the tortured history of the thing. While it might have been nice to keep the camera on Jackson, such a great, grounding presence throughout, the good news is that he really makes... Read More