Love, Jamie: Karla Murthy's Film about an incarcerated trans artist - Hosted by Heather Lenz

Our special guest today is Karla Murthy, an Emmy-nominated producer who has been working on news documentaries for over 15 years. She began her career working for the veteran journalist Bill Moyers and has been a producer, cinematographer, and correspondent for several news programs on PBS. Her award-winning work was described in the Columbia Journalism Review as “compelling, informative, and compassionate.” Her directorial debut, the feature documentary The Place That Makes Us screened at numerous film festivals and had its national broadcast premiere on America ReFramed. She is now working on her next feature documentary film called The Gas Station Attendant, a co-production with ITVS for public television. Karla is of Filipino and South Asian descent. She grew up in Texas studying classical piano and graduated from Oberlin College with a degree in Religion and Computer Science. Today we’ll discuss her recent short film Love, Jamie, about a transgender artist incarcerated in Texas.

Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:01

Love Top Radio.

SPEAKER_01 0:15

Hi and welcome to the Art of Film Funding. I'm your co-host, Claire Papan. Along with Carol Dean, author of the best-selling book, The Art of Film Funding, Carol is also the founder and president of From the Heart Productions and the host of this show. Today we are joined by our guest host, filmmaker Heather Lenz, best known for directing and producing the Sundance documentary, Kusama Infinity. Our special guest today is Carla Mercy, an Emmy nominated producer who has been working on news documentaries for over 15 years. She began her career working for the veteran journalist Bill Moyers and has been a producer, cinematographer, and correspondent for several news programs on PBS. Her award-winning work was described in the Columbia Journalism Review as compelling, informative, and compassionate. Her dictorial debut, the feature documentary, The Place That Makes Us, screened at numerous film festivals and had its national broadcast premiere on America reframed. She is now working on her next feature documentary called The Gas Station Attendant, a co-production with ITVS for public television. Carla is a Filipino and South Asian descent. She grew up in Texas studying classical piano and graduated from Oberlin College with a degree in religion and computer science. Today we'll discuss her recent short film, Love Jamie, about a transgender artist incarcerated in Texas.

SPEAKER_04 2:12

Thank you so much, Claire, for the introduction and thank you, Carla, for taking time out of your busy schedule to join us. Thank you for our inviting me on. Oh, you're welcome. We we love your film. So for our listeners who haven't yet seen Love Jamie, can you please tell us what it's about in your own words? Sure.

SPEAKER_03 2:35

So Love Jamie is about an artist named Jamie Diaz, and she's a trans woman, and she was um has been incarcerated in Texas for uh she's serving a life sentence. Um and when we met her, she was in her 27th year, um, and she's uh I think I said she's an artist. And so we're kind of profiling her relationship with someone that she met on the outside and how the relationship grew over gosh 10 years and eventually led to her first solo art show. Um so that's kind of the the gist of the of the film.

SPEAKER_04 3:18

Yeah, it's it's a really inspiring story. How did you originally hear about Jamie's story and how did you begin the process of making the film?

SPEAKER_03 3:28

So um I was in between projects, and my longtime friend and colleague, um actually we met working together for Bill Moyers many, many years ago. Uh, he was actually working on a different film and was at a gallery and talking to the gallery owner. And um the owner, Daniel Cooney, had known of Jamie's work and had seen her work on a website and was just kind of talking about her and was and shared some of her work with my friend Andrew Fredericks, who then became the producer and the cinematographer of this film. And um he he shared his her work with me, and I was just really blown away by the quality of her work and what she was able to produce under the circumstances she was in, and with the very, very limited um art supplies that she had access to. And, you know, I thought, oh, you know, this could be a story, but I wasn't quite sure how much of a story it could be. I mean, I was I thought her artwork was amazing, but what else was there? And and it wasn't until Daniel then shared a letter from Jamie that I thought, oh, this could be a film. Like once I heard her voice and saw her writing, and you know, she was just so honest and vulnerable and also compassionate. Um, and that's when sort of the idea of a short film emerged. And so we just started, we reached out to um Gabriel, who is the person who Gabriel uh Jamie had formed this relationship with. And um, yeah, we talked to Gabriel about possibly doing a film and and then it just kind of went from there.

SPEAKER_04 5:08

Yeah, it's amazing. And um one thing that makes this film super interesting is that we get to know Jamie by hearing her voice and seeing her art, but she doesn't appear in any on-camera interviews. Can you please talk about whether that was an artistic choice or was that an obstacle that you had to overcome?

SPEAKER_03 5:28

You know, it was kind of both, actually. Um so, you know, also the premise of the story is watching their relationships grow. And it started over letters, um, really by chance. I mean, Jamie had sent a letter to an organization that kind of advocates for people who are incarcerated specifically for LGBTQ incarcerated individuals. And Gabriel was at a letter processing event and happened to open this one letter from Jamie that was beautifully illustrated and decided to write back. Um, and so that was sort of how the relationship grew was over these letters. Um, so I I knew we had that as sort of an element to work with. And, you know, I had filmed in many prisons before in Texas, actually. I filmed, you know, for the for news, you know, on Death Row and Huntsville and a few other places. And so we were going down that route to get permission to film with her. Um I think at the time she was in Gatesville. But then as we started like looking into how I wanted the story to be crafted and what we wanted to know about Jamie, I just started to feel like the image of her sitting in prison, um, you know, it would be behind glass, it would be with guards around, it would be over a phone. I mean, it's really hard to get to know someone that way and to hear, you know, how they're honestly feeling about, you know, and to do interviews. Um, and it wasn't very intimate at all. Um, and that image of her in prison would be the image that people would have of her. Um, it's it would be such a powerful image that would kind of consume any other thoughts you might have about her. And that's not how we wanted our audience to know her. And one of the amazing things, like we didn't know this when we first started filming with her, but um, Gabriel had started um, he he they had wanted to do kind of an oral history and write down, you know, like a biography. And so every time they were calling Jamie, um, they started recording their calls. So all of a sudden we had this like well, all of these, you know, hours and hours of phone calls that were very intimate between two dear friends. And so between that and her art, um, I think that's that was kind of how I wanted people to know her, is is through her voice and through these very intimate conversations she was having with a friend, um, and through her artwork, and through her letters. And um yeah, so so that was sort of how we came to that decision.

SPEAKER_04 8:10

Well, it's so interesting that there were already um uh many hours of uh recorded uh conversations so that that you were able to use. That's very interesting. So, in addition to that material, did you also um record other interviews with the Jamie, either over the phone or in person?

SPEAKER_03 8:30

We ended up not recording anything else with her. I mean, I spoke on spoke with her many times on the phone and we had some video calls, but we ended up only using um the the phone calls with Jamie. And there was one moment where we were filming and they were speaking on the phone, and so we would, you know, film Gabriel talking with her on the phone. And so, yeah, the only like real narration, if you even want to call that, is actually from Gabriel's interview that we did with them, and we use that as sort of voiceover throughout the film as well. Um and I think at the end of the day, it just made it much more um intimate and personal. And you know, the challenge was like with my first film, which was more of a cinema verite film, The Place That Makes This, we were following people in Youngstown over three years, and all of the surprises come while you're filming. You know, like the the the heart of the film comes from like events that you often don't plan or you see, you know, while you're filming. And in this case for this film, it was in um the letters and it was also in these phone recordings and finding, you know, when her voice would crack. Um, or and you could hear, you know, she even talks about like, oh, I can hear you smiling over the phone. Like finding those moments that can only really be, I don't know, like when you hear it, you just know that that's a moment that's that's emotional. And it was finding those to help um tell the story in the film that became the like the beautiful little surprises that you know made the film the heart of the film.

SPEAKER_04 10:13

So uh as you've mentioned, Jamie sends letters and artwork to Gabriel. Could you please talk a little bit about the process of getting to know Gabriel and how many times you filmed them during the making of the documentary?

SPEAKER_03 10:27

Yeah, so you know, that was, you know, it's an interesting relationship that Gabriel and Jamie have, and that, you know, started at as sort of like a pen pal and then became very much chosen family. And Gabriel calls, you know, Jamie her aunt, and Jamie calls Gabriel her nephew, and um and at the same time, Gabriel's also very protective of Jamie because you know, when you're in prison, you have no rights. Um and so it was a little bit like getting to know Gabriel and getting their trust took some time. Um, and also just because we had a track record, both Andrew and I, you know, the the work we've done, I think helped, you know, put them at ease. Um and we also just had many conversations about and really listened to like how Jamie wanted to be seen and heard, which is you know, not as someone who's incarcerated first, but as someone who is an artist and who's a trans woman first. Um so it was a lot of conversations like that. And also I, you know, I don't know very many trans people. It was a lot of listening and understanding um and reading, you know, sort of um, you know, what it's like to be trans, how trans people want to be perceived, or you know, how uh just trying to like avoid any of the pitfalls and the stereotypes that sometimes you can see in other, you know, stories about trans people. So there was some of that, like just education on my my own part. Um and then, you know, we had to we filmed with Gabriel probably three times, and it is not easy to have a camera, you know, put in your face if you've never done it before, and to then just talk about you know your personal life. And so, you know, we did a a couple days interview up in, they were living in Somerville at the time, and then we went back, you know, two more times after that, I think. Um, but it all actually happened very quickly. I mean, we started filming, I believe, um, I think maybe it was in June 2022 and wrapped probably like October of that same year, um, and then I started editing, and then we premiered the following uh year in a festival. Um so it was uh it was a very tight, um tight, you know, kind of turnaround, um, which actually I I I liked compared to doing a feature over three years, and um it was nice to work on something short for a change.

SPEAKER_04 13:10

Yeah, well it turned out, you know, great. Um so what was it like to see the volume of amazing artwork that you included in the film, including the letters? Um, you know, there were so many and they have beautiful artwork on them as well.

SPEAKER_03 13:24

Yeah, they're they're pieces of art unto themselves, the letters. Um that, you know, what's interesting is you know, Gaber was sharing a lot of the art, you know, in person, but then when we had it scanned, and then I was like blowing it up in the screen, then I was you could really see all these details um that I had missed before. And that was really amazing to see. It was like a magnifying glass. Um, and there was a treasure, I mean, you know, Gabriel had taken upon themselves to kind of create this archive of her work. Um, so there was a lot of it. And um, you know, I was just remembering watching it the first time, you know, we premiered at the Directors Guild of America Theater in Los Angeles, and it's this huge theater, and to see her work blown up to that scale was breathtaking. Um and there's this one painting that she has, and every time it comes up, you hear like the little ripple of gas in the audience. It's like one of my favorite moments being in an audience watching that film, and it's just because you're it's you're just so struck by what she was able to create um with so little. And it's that contrast of knowing where she created, you know, on the floor of a tiny cell, and then being in this big theater in this audience. I mean, it's a very uh it's just such it's a very kind of overwhelming experience. Um, and you feel her absence, but yeah, to see her artwork at that scale was just amazing.

SPEAKER_04 15:01

Yeah, I imagine it would be amazing to see it on a big screen, although it looks good on a small screen too. Um What was the most surprising thing you learned during the making of a film?

SPEAKER_03 15:14

Um there's so many little things that you kind of learn al along the way with every film has its own, you know, set of problems and obstacles that you have to overcome, um, big and small. Um let me see. Let me I think one thing was I originally I thought um maybe her work should be animated. This is sort of an expensive lesson I learned. I even like went down the road, like we raised some money to hire an animator and th they were amazing. But then at the end of the day, I realized that her art should just um stand as it is and it didn't need to be animated. Um so that was one thing that I I learned along the way is that it just, you know, just to let the art be the art. Um what else? What was surprising? I think this this film also there are some projects that are really uh difficult and you're just like wrestling with them, and this one just really felt very easy, like everything fell into place, and that's usually not the case, and um and I was so thankful for that. And I was surprised that, you know, by the outpouring of support and you know, fundraising is always difficult, and we got a lot of you know supporters to help us finish the film, and um there were just so many pieces that kind of fell into place, and um I think I was like surprised at at how how that all came to be and yeah, just by how much easier this film was than my last one. Um I'm sure there's other things that I'm I'm not thinking about, but um I think also just in the you know, just how Jamie's circle of support has grown um and how she was just able to touch so many people through her artwork um and the community that she's built. Um it's just I I've heard other people talk about like chosen family is just very different from, you know, your family, family. Like you don't and it and it's a very um I just feel very lucky to have gotten to know her and to and and Gabriel and to now call them friends. I mean, when Jamie writes me now we you know we call each other sisters and um I think I was just surprised by that bond that can form um, you know, like the the bonds that you have with with your friends and um and that and just how amazing and supportive this community that she's been able to build around her while she's been in prison.

SPEAKER_04 18:07

It's yeah, it's a really heartwarming story, so I'm glad to hear that you have this great bond with them. That's great. For our aspiring filmmakers who are listening, can you please talk about how you funded this film? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:20

Um so this is one of those stories where I just felt very I mean, I have a stack of these ideas where, you know, I'm like very compelled to make something and I just want to make it. And we had no funding or anything, you know, to start. But I knew we needed to start filming for uh, you know, just for timing. And so we just went and did it with like our own resources. Um and then once we had like, I think we had like five minutes, um I cut that into something, and then we just started building a network of people and just sending them updates and clips. And then as we went and filmed more, I would add on another scene and say, here, look, this is what we made, and this is you know how we're doing. And we sort of did this our own kind of crowdfunding campaign in that way, um, and slowly built this network of people that didn't all give in the beginning, but eventually did, um, through like a newsletter and and just people that we knew, and we just kept building this database of people. Um, I did get a grant also from the New York State Council of the Arts, which was incredibly helpful. And then I think also we got another grant from um Vital Projects. Um, I can't remember the exact fund, but that was like such a coin, like I just happened to be an event uh with my husband, and I didn't know anyone there, and I just started talking to some random person standing next to me about the film I was working on, and then he started telling me about his nephew who um was transitioning, and we just struck up this conversation, and then I just included him on the newsletter, and eventually, like you know, down the road, he knew a different uh a grant maker and put me in touch with them. So it was all just kind of like just by spreading the word and just doing it and then hoping that funding would come, which it did, thankfully. Um, but this was not like a money-making endeavor by any means. I mean, we definitely broke even, um, but I did not, I wasn't able to pay myself or my producer, but we paid everyone else who worked on the film um with the money that we raised. So it was kind of just a piecemeal um yeah, just like if you build it, hopefully they will come and they and they came, um, which was good. Um, you were lucky to have that support.

SPEAKER_04 20:53

Yeah. I'm super impressed you were able to get any grant money in such a short turnaround because you know, often these grants take so long to get um that uh, you know, with a short film like this that you made in such a speedy way, um, it's great you were able to get funding. And yeah, it's it's it's um sad but typical that the that the people leading the project um often don't get paid. So um I'm sorry to hear that was the case. Could you talk a little bit about the process of getting the film onto PBS?

SPEAKER_03 21:24

That um was also just kind of a by chance sort of thing. I had applied to something else to get onto um American Masters through a different route for a different kind of um series that they were making. And um we were rejected for that. But they still really liked the film and they were just it just happened to be that they were starting a new um series of shorts. Um and we it was like a timing thing, like it just worked out really well and you know, a lot of these things are about it's not necessarily your film that's bad or the quality. It's just, you know, the the films that they're trying to program and they want like a you know a variety of films. And I feel like we just sort of fit into the collection of films that they were programming for the inaugural season of this new shorts series that they were programming. So yeah, it was one of those things where even though you get a no, you still kind of keep up these relationships. Every no is you know an opportunity still and they keep you in mind for things. So we were lucky in that way that it worked out that way that this series new series was happening to be launching at the same time. Yeah, so that's that's how we ended up on American Masters.

SPEAKER_04 22:50

Yeah it's great and that's how I saw the film because I'm on their mailing list. So that's great. Azure film has made its way into the world um what is the best part about sharing it with audiences?

SPEAKER_03 23:05

I think you know one of the things that I mentioned before was you know seeing people's reaction to her art has been amazing and to know that all of these people are are hearing her story even though she, you know, is this one person sitting in prison, she's able to reach so many people now through our film. And you know she was also granted parole um just recently she was serving a a life sentence but at 30 years she was up for parole and was granted parole and the film allowed her to have um a a support network of people who have come out to to help her with her re-entry. And she'd also suffered a stroke while she was in prison and that was has been just devastating for her because it affected the right side of her body and her you know she paints with her right side um and the number of people now who have come to support her and knew her through the film you know taking her to doctor appointments or to go see artwork you know now that she's out it's I I I'm just so thankful that we made the film when we did because it's who she who she was and so when you meet her now like even when she had her stroke you know she was um it was actually happened the day before Gabriel and I were scheduled to meet with her and have her first contact visit. Gabriel had never in their 10-year relationship ever given her a hug and this is going to be our first opportunity and she had had this stroke and was in a hospital surrounded by guards and shackled to her bed and couldn't speak. And I was so thankful we were there to be her voice for her and to tell everyone around her, you know, who who this person is and the film has allowed us to do that too because she you know she suffers from aphasia and it's start she is starting to learn to paint with her left hand but this film is a representation of of everything that she you know of who she was. So it's been really useful I think for Gabriel to help build this support network for her the entry is already difficult and then also you know with a stroke on top of that. So it's been an incredible tool in a lot of ways and it's kind of like the power of storytelling and I'm so grateful to be able to give this almost like a gift for for Gabriel and Jamie to have while she's you know now on the outside.

SPEAKER_04 25:44

Wow that's um quite a story about the first meeting I'm sorry it worked out that way but um but I'm glad like you said you were able to be there and offer support. What advice would you give to aspiring filmmakers in general especially documentary filmmakers?

SPEAKER_03 26:03

Well I think you know it's is to follow your your gut you know if you see a good story and you don't always think you might get I mean I again like as I said I have like a stack of ideas that I would love to do and um I think if you're in a position to to do the work without getting paid it it can pay you back. I have a friend who's this who's a director and you know he does a lot of commercial work and can and has you know can make money and s and survive off of that and this isn't the case for everyone but he always tries to devote 30 30% of his projects to something that he is not tied to money and where he can just be very creative and oftentimes it's his clients will see that work that he made and s and be like, oh that's what I want you to do for us. And in a lot of ways I feel like this project was one of the we fell into that 30%. It was I knew we weren't going to get paid a lot. Shorts are very difficult to you know make money off of um so I it wasn't going to be because you know we were going to make money from doing this project but oh the the reward for making it just creatively um it is just and it's just been so fulfilling and has fed all the other aspects of my life in many different ways. So I think I would say to aspiring filmmakers if you can like maybe it's just like a five minute project that you do on the weekends and if you have to work a lot just trying to do these creative um creative work that's not tied to money all the time can be just very fulfilling and and and feed your other work um in ways that might be unexpected. So that's that's one kind of piece of advice I would give. And also you know every no even though you're getting a lot of rejections with grants or whatever it is I mean there are those are relationships those are people that you've talked to those are they've seen your work they now know your name and I've seen over the years now that those same people come back and and they and ends up being a yes you know and a lot of it is about timing and not necessarily about you know your work um the quality of of your work um so that's some advice I would give.

SPEAKER_04 28:38

Yeah that's that's great advice. Is there anything new that you're working on that you would like to share with our audience?

SPEAKER_03 28:46

Yeah um I uh was mentioned before but um I am in the middle of finishing uh my second feature link film which is called the gas station attendant and um it grew out of phone calls that I recorded with my dad while he was working nights at a gas station. I feel like I'm like I really love working with audio and phone calls because there's just like just this intimacy in those recordings that you don't get when you're you have a camera. So I feel very fortunate to have these phone calls but um this is more of a personal essay film that kind of explores the American dream I guess for you know new immigrants and for me as a second generation it's kind of interweaving both of our stories and kind of telling the story of my my dad's life through these calls and using a lot of home movies and some you know home movies past and even today and present of my my own children too. And so yeah so that film is for public television we are hopefully going to be in festivals next year and then and then it will air on public television.

SPEAKER_04 30:05

Well I can't wait to see it for anyone who would like to follow your career and track the Love Jamie film or any of your other work can you please share um your website and any relevant social media handles?

SPEAKER_03 30:20

Sure. My Instagram is at CarlaMakingStuff and Carla is with a K. And the film Instagram is at love Jamiefilm I think on those on Instagram you can then find our websites but my website is um my namecarlamurcy.net and uh my production company is called Greenfort Productions with an E G-R-E-E-N-E excuse me um so yeah so those those are how we're um how you can find us and our film Love Jamie is streaming on American Masters for free and it's on YouTube or on their the PBS page and I was so I feel so fortunate that we were able to give Jamie that platform for her artwork um and for like American Masters is was such a dream.

SPEAKER_04 31:17

So um I'm really happy that's where we ended up yeah it's a great place to be and uh you know all the art lovers out there can see um Jamie's just wonderful is there anything else you would like to share that I haven't already asked you to think about one of the things that I kept thinking about was um making the film excuse me let me just drink some water and like have a little frog in my throat.

SPEAKER_03 32:16

I um love that Jamie and Gabriel met through letters and I feel like the art of letter writing is lost and I I um that was one of the surprising things actually when you were asking me about, you know, some of the surprising things I learned is how much I kind of miss that form of communication. Um because like we we, you know, meet people and we text with them and it's it's just such a beautiful thing to have this this I mean like they have hundreds of letters that they've shared with each other. And it's such a beautiful archive and I've I really um kind of miss that art of letter writing and I wish it would come back.

SPEAKER_04 33:02

Well I agree letter Oh go ahead. I was just gonna say letters are great and from what I understand the younger generation a lot of them aren't um learning to write cursive anymore so I don't think they'll be able to read the the old letters and archives anymore.

SPEAKER_03 33:20

No, it's so sad. I mean when I was growing up like we would read we went to performing in visual art high school and we were like required to read you know the letters of Chopin and all these people and it was just such an amazing archive to have um yeah an amazing to a way to get to know someone too um and not through these like little short bits of information. So um I think we should bring back letter writing and make everyone learn how to write cursive again. Wow.

SPEAKER_04 33:54

Terrific okay well on that note I do before we wrap up I just want to give a a shout out to Jamie and Gabriel for sharing their story and just um let Jamie know how much I you know love seeing the artwork. It's amazing. And thank you so much Carla for joining us we we really enjoyed it and I appreciate you sharing your wisdom with our listeners. Oh thank you thank you so much for having me sorry about my voice. No, no problem.

SPEAKER_01 34:24

And thanks everyone for listening now in its second edition Carol Dean's popular book The Art of Film Funding has 12 new chapters to cover all areas of film financing and how to avoid expensive pitfalls. Learn how to start with an idea and end with a trailer how to make an ask for money create your story structure and your trailer legal advice fair use successful crowdfunding how to ask for music rights and what insurance you can't shoot without. Available on Amazon under Carol Dean and at FromTheheartproductions.com I want to remind our listeners that David Raikland is a brilliant and talented award-winning musician who scores films and can compose music for a trio or for a full orchestra David is a very good friend to the independent filmmaker and comes highly recommended by From the Heart Production. If you need music to help tell your story please contact him at davidrain.com That's david r-a-i-k-l-n dot com and Carol and I want to thank you for tuning in to the Art of Film Funding. Please visit our website at From theheartproductions.com you can also find us on Facebook and Twitter.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

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