The Power of Film: A Conversation with Producers Laura Gabbert and Doug Pray
The Power of Film is a new six-part docuseries currently airing on TCM. It follows the decades-long work of UCLA film professor Howard Stuber as he talks about why certain American films have continued to stick with us. At Hear Us Scream, we are interested in every facet of horror–and that includes filmmaking! Throughout the series, Howard touches on films such as The Exorcist, Get Out, Alien, and many more. I was lucky enough to speak with director Laura Gabbert and co-writer Doug Pray, both of whom are also executive producers on the project. They spoke all about the process of how the show came together as an independent project that has now been picked up by TCM and what it was like to work with their mentor to produce an adaptation of his masterwork. I hope you enjoy our conversation!
You can watch The Power of Film every Thursday from now until February 8 at 8 pm EST on TCM either through your cable provider or by subscribing to Hulu Live or Youtube Live.
Hear Us Scream: Could you start off by telling us a bit about your individual work? What got you started in the film industry and then how did you come about working on The Power of Film?
Laura: I’m a documentary filmmaker, I mostly direct, but produce as well. Doug and I executive produced this project [The Power of Film] together. The genesis of this project is that we both went to UCLA’s School of Film, Theater, and Television as graduate students in the 90s and we were both lucky enough to be Howard Suber’s TAs at different times. For me I feel like it was the most influential class and relationship that I had at the Film School and he [Howard] continued to be my mentor over the years. He didn’t teach non-fiction filmmaking or documentary filmmaking at that point, but the principles he taught about structure and storytelling and what makes a good story really influenced me and I’ve used that since then in my documentary filmmaking. I make social slash cultural documentaries, sometimes independently and sometimes for outlets and I’ve been doing that for the past 25 years. Both Doug and I have been in touch with Howard over the years and we knew this was always sort of something he envisioned happening with his scholarship. We sat down one day and said let’s make it happen!
Doug: Laura and I are both documentary filmmakers, but we didn’t know each other when we went to UCLA. I’ve been making films for 30 years now. There are a lot of subculture portraits–I’ve made music films–like the Seattle music scene or the birth of hip-hop and DJs or graffiti writers. Lately I’ve been doing more television work, but all my work is always in non-fiction.
Howard was one of the most influential classes I took at UCLA. Even though he’s completely teaching about great dramatic films that we all know and love–the things he taught us apply to almost everything I’ve encountered in this business. It didn’t matter whether I was helping a friend make a short film or directing my own documentary film–everything Howard taught somehow had an effect on it. It’s just powerful. Howard had the goods in terms of like, wait, what does this mean, what is the audience getting out of this? He really puts you in a place of being analytical about what we are doing and why? How is it affecting the audience?
We always loved Howard and he always wanted a TV show or to document his work in a way beyond just writing a book. Laura and I were there at the right time and place and we said we think we can help you do this. So we came up with a pretty simple idea and worked on it for a number of years. It took a really long time.
Laura: I want to add that most shows have very serious schedules and budgets and they are made with a distributor to begin with. This is a very unorthodox series in that it was done completely independently. We really had no money to begin with–we raised some money with the UCLA network of alumni and then we all kind of self-financed and did it on a literal shoestring. Then we just continued to work on and off between our other paying gigs, so it’s been many years in the making.
Doug: It was a labor of love for Howard. This guy’s great and the world needs to know about him and–by the way–working on this, if I thought I knew his lectures before, I really know them now. Both of us poured over his material thinking “oh that’s not what he’s saying, what he’s saying is this, so let’s change the edit or let’s get this or let’s use another film as example.” We really got into it, so it feels like I kind of did film school all over again for 6 years after working on this stuff.
Laura: Same with me.
Doug: It’s been fun, it’s been a great project. Partly because there have been no companies, no bosses, no distributors, no nothing. You’ll never hear about an independent television series–there’s just no such thing. In the horror genre, there’s all sorts of independent projects and I’m sure there’s people doing episodic things, but I mean here’s a full six part series and we just kind of made it. And then TCM–we are just thrilled about the fact that they loved it. They said let’s just run this and we were like “wow, cool! It worked!”
Hear Us Scream: I’m so glad it worked out for you! I was so excited when I got the email about the project and upon watching it, it really is like nothing I’ve ever seen.
Doug: Yeah, it sort of is this interesting combination of Howard’s brilliant ideas, amazing scenes, and then the experience of putting them together with music by Garron Chang, who is a brilliant composer. I think the thing I’m most proud of is the way it feels. It doesn’t feel like he’s one of those guys who just like “hm I’m a professor and I’m going to teach” – it doesn’t come off like he’s the super smart professor who knows everything about film and you think “oh my god, really?”. Howard is lovable and he’s humble and he’s not pontificating, he’s just sharing these really human truths about stories that we’ve been telling for 20,000 years and he’s relating them to the movies that we watch all the time and we go “why do we love that movie” well, because of this, that, and this other thing that’s in our own lives.
Laura: I want to give credit to Doug, who is one of the writers on the series, as well as the supervising editor and to our other two editors. I think part of what makes the series powerful to watch is that it feels like an immersive experience. It’s better than just watching a lecture in a room. The editing of it–the merging of the power of Howard’s words with the clips, with Garron’s music, and making that all kind of sing together just brings a lot of emotion to it. So I think a lot of it is in the technical part of the filmmaking of the series, which Doug gets a lot of credit for.
Doug: Some of what he says is super emotional. He’s talking about breakups, or he’s talking about the loss of loved ones. He’s talking about how we all experience betrayal–and it’s heavy. And then he relates it to civil war and civil war movies and he relates it to divorce movies and there are a ton of divorce movies. And you go suddenly–why do we watch films that are so painful? You’re in the horror genre–I mean, why do we do this? It’s because there are things we’re afraid of and we feel things from it and he can break this down so eloquently. And that’s what Laura and I kept coming back to when we were working on this. I remember there would be stuff that just got to us, and it’s like a therapy session. He’s talking about stuff that I’m going through right now. Not to be cheesy right now, but that’s the Power of Film. The way he connects us.
Laura: I can say for myself having been in film school in my late 20s and now working on this film for the last several years in my late 40s to 50s, it’s even more meaningful working on it today and learning from it because it just means that much more having 25 years behind me. There’s something very potent about what he says. Why are there only a handful of movies every year that we’ll remember? And it’s not always the one that wins the Academy Award–or even nominated–but there are just movies that stick in our consciousness as a society and that’s really what he dives into.
Hear Us Scream: Could you discuss the process of making the actual series and what that was like?
Doug: One of the hardest things to do was to get a guy who’s taught for literally over 50 years, which is kind of rare. Howard did. He is very well known and he has thousands of pages of notes for his lectures and one of the challenges we had was–knowing we were making an episodic series–to break down his teachings into the greatest hits and spread them out across these six days. We had another co-producer named Joey Sierra who was also a TA of Howard’s, and he was really instrumental. During this week of filming we decided let’s film six days, not in a row so he has time between each one. We would film him on the stage with this device that would allow the speaker to look straight into the lens, so it looks like he is speaking right to you. Then he came up with themes–on day one it’s going to be a bit introductory, but I’m going to talk about how I approach films, and then on day two let’s get into this idea of “trapped,” and so on. So with Joey’s help and Howard of course did tons of work. The hardest thing was boiling down stuff. There were tons of concepts that we just loved, but they’re not going to make it in. We can’t have this be 14 hours long–it has to be 40 minutes.
You also can’t dwell too much on the movies because that’s not appropriate either. We want to show clips that illustrate his points and you want to keep it tight and entertaining and it has to be rich and deep, and occasionally he’s got to be able to say these deeper points. That’s why it took 6 years.
Hear Us Scream: Since you’ve worked with Howard’s ideas for so long, how have they influenced your own work and translated into documentary filmmaking?
Laura: He talks about modulation in a feature-length project and audience psychology–what is the audience thinking or how is the audience projecting their feelings onto characters–in any kind of story. The idea of loss. It’s different because you’re not writing a script for a documentary, but you are following a story and many documentaries have components of all those things in them. I know for me, I think about Howard’s lectures all the time when I’m trying to construct a story and when I’m trying to find the structure. When I’m showing a rough cut to people and I’m getting feedback–this thing I’m trying to do here isn’t working for the audience somehow and they’re not feeling how I want them to feel and why [is that]? I’ll go back to some of the principles and things that Howard talks about in his lectures. Even in choosing projects–does it have the components to make a good story? Or is it going to be a flatline story and not enough is going to happen? Are the characters going to change? Is there going to be conflict? What are the stakes for the characters? It’s just really how I think about filmmaking now.
It informs the questions you’re going to ask as a documentary filmmaker. It informs what you decide to shoot and what you don’t decide to shoot. In the editing and post-production, it’s key. It also tells you when you’re done shooting and when you’re not.
Hear Us Scream: What is your favorite episode of the series and what is the most important insight you have gained from the series?
Doug: My favorite episode is five because he talks about paradoxes and I’ve always loved scenes where someone’s laughing but inside they’re crying. I always love the ying-yang mix of characters because I think that’s just so true of life. He really breaks it down beautifully. He takes that into the physical realm of chimeras and human beings being animals and Pixar characters. He goes into all these realms with it, but the basic idea of life is not black and white. The coolest movies–the ones we really love are the ones where the villain is kind of awesome and the hero is sometimes really boring. I love that and it’s the deepest episode to me.
Howard does talk about horror and this idea of “the other” coming into the community and then in episode 5 he talks about chimeras and the idea of people becoming animals and robots being human or not human. He goes into this whole thing about how fascinated humans have always been with this idea of “by-association.” It’s when two things that are not meant to come together come together. Like the idea of the wolfman or the fact that Dracula doesn’t ever die. There’s all these things that are human but they’re not. He goes into that and makes you realize this is not new at all. There is nothing new about this idea of us being fascinated by horrific and terrifying things we don’t understand.
He makes the point in several other episodes that we are fascinated by the concept of “things are not what they seem.” One of the episodes starts out with a few shots or scenes from Get Out–well it looks like this, but it’s not. We love movies like that! Especially with horror movies, it’s like “no, no, don’t go to the wedding party!” or whatever it is. He really shows the commonality of all that. Horror movies are absolutely no different from other genres. We relate to it as human beings in the same way we relate to all other stories. It has nothing to do with the amount of blood or the effects. It’s about how real and how good it is and how much we go “oh my god, I feel this.”
Laura: I would agree that five is my favorite, with two being a close second. I just think that this idea of “trapped” you can apply to everything. It’s the basis for a lot of horror movies. If there’s one thing that’s stayed with me the most from Howard’s teachings, it’s the idea of paradox and I think about that a lot when I watch films today. There it is–there is that thing that you can’t quite put your finger on it maybe, but it keeps you interested, it keeps you engaged. It also reflects what we experience in life. There’s light and shadow in everyone and everything–that’s what’s interesting. It’s this idea of mystery you’re still trying to sort through. The classic example Howard always uses is Casablanca–it’s not a happy ending, but it also feels right. It feels inevitable–that’s kinda what should happen, but you didn’t want that to happen and that feels kind of good, but you’re really like “wait, what?”. That’s why you keep thinking about it. That’s why it sort of clicks around in your mind for a while.
Doug: That’s why horror movies are so great! From the start, they’re confessing and admitting from the start that human beings are deeply flawed. And we’re really scared of stuff and we don’t know what life is all about and there are all these things that we don’t know.
Laura: They’re constantly subverting your expectations too, which is also what makes movies so fun to watch, if it’s in a big, scary way or in a really small character study way. It’s fascinating to us because that’s what we see in our own lives.
Hear Us Scream: What films were you most excited to hear Howard talk about?
Doug: I can certainly say all the classics that you would study in film school, for really good reasons, are definitely important. He does talk about The Wizard of Oz, Casablanca, Citizen Kane, The Godfather, and Shawshank Redemption and newer films from the last 30 to 40 years–Thelma and Louise or even something like Sideways, Alexander Payne’s work.
Laura: If I had to say, The Godfather just encompasses so many of his ideas and principles that he explores. One of them for me would be Do the Right Thing. I’m so happy that it’s so prominently placed within the series because it’s not as old as some of these other films, but I do think most people agree that it will be a memorable film and that it was ahead of its time. It has this amazing structure to it.
Doug: He does such nice breakdowns of films like Alien, Terminator, and Blade Runner. One of my favorite sequences is the very end of the very end. He ends the series talking about The Wizard of Oz, which is one of the most beloved films of all time. I get emotional when I watch it because it’s the end of the last episode, and it was his last lecture as well. There’s so much in this film that is so human–it’s sad and longing and beautiful and strong. All the emotions are in there. It wraps up all of the ideas from all six episodes in one final scene. By then you really feel like you’ve gotten to know this guy–it’s very touching.
Laura: He does also touch on more contemporary films even though the premise of the series is exploring American popular and memorable films. We do include films like Moonlight for example. It hasn’t really stood the test of time yet, but he’s sort of betting on the fact that it will last and it will be something that people go back to.
Doug: Another moment I love is when he talks about The Social Network and the betrayal. This idea of betrayal is so powerful and he talks about his own life. He’s very personal. So much of these little sequences, they almost border on therapy. It’s just really interesting and you see it on the screen.
Laura: And it makes you think about when you were betrayed. That’s just the human experience.
Hear Us Scream: What movies do you wish would have been included in the series but were not?
Laura: I wish we would’ve done more with Singing in the Rain.
Doug: That is Howard’s all time favorite movie and it’s not in the series. How’s that for being bold in your edits? I think that wins the award for most painful edit. It’s okay though because on the Criterion Collection he does a wall-to-wall narration of just Singing in the Rain. That’s also how we got the idea of doing the series–we thought “wait, it’s really entertaining hearing this guy break down this movie while watching it.”
Laura: He also did that [the narration] for High Noon and The Graduate on The Criterion Channel if you ever want to check those out. They’re great.
Hear Us Scream: What do you hope audiences take away from the series and what have you taken away from the series while working on it?
Laura: I hope it encourages people to go back and look at some of these movies. For people who usually watch contemporary stuff, I feel like there’s a lot to glean from a lot of these movies. They’re super entertaining and super moving and I think it’s about keeping that culture alive. And I hope it gets people to look at movies differently and ask themselves why is this moving me? It’s interesting and it’s provocative.
Doug: We’ve been doing the exact same thing for thousands and thousands of years. It doesn’t make what we’re doing bad or cheap, it just makes it totally human. I hope it makes people realize those movies are amazing. They’re amazing stories told by people at the time [they were made] in their own little myopic worlds, but they’re still very human. The ones Howard talks about in depth are really powerful. That’s the thing people have been saying the most since watching the series: “oh my god I gotta go back and watch those movies.” It’s like we forgot and it’s an incredible history. I also want people to make better movies and I want them to study with Howard and now they can! It’s film school in a box!
Hear Us Scream: How has the Power of Film (the series) impacted you and how do you hope it impacts people now that it’s out in the world?
Doug: On a more personal level, I would say it’s been nice to re-bond with a mentor. Everyone loves a story with a mentor and an apprentice. Howard’s been that to Laura and I. For me, my dad was a professor and he passed away in 2016 and that was right about when this thing started and Howard and I really bonded over this. In some ways, he is a father figure and I have a lot of love for professors and the academic world and I grew up around that world. It makes sense that of course I would end up doing something academic.
Laura: Working on the series has been a full circle moment for me and Doug. There’s something so meaningful about going back and working with a mentor and collaborating on something together. Bringing work that was so important to me personally and my work out into the world. We also had a pretty joyful collaboration for the most part and that does not always happen. It’s just been a really meaningful project to work on and it felt wonderful to sit down with Howard and his family and watch episode one together.