You Gotta Believe
I love ‘70s funk. While I was making my last film, “Esperanza’s Turn,” The Fatback Band’s “You Gotta Believe” became my theme song. I listened to it hundreds of times:
You gotta believe
When life is gettin’ you down
You gotta believe
You gotta face your ups and downs
You gotta believe
You can’t be afraid
You gotta believe
You gotta look straight ahead!
I’d made shorts before, but I’d never solo directed a narrative, and I’d certainly never organized such a complex production. On top of all the usual things, our 12 year-old lead needed four costume changes, three months of Hip-Hop and Flamenco lessons, and a heart of gold. Pre-production moved along well until a mystery illness hit me one month before our shoot. I was dizzy, in pain all over, and fighting off chronic migraines. I started having trouble with my memory, walking, vision, and reading. While I waited weeks for my insurance company to approve an MRI, I was scared to death that I had a brain tumor. And as if that wasn’t enough, around the same time, our primary location, a middle school, fell through. I tried to negotiate something with the Portland Public School System, but it was the end of the year and too late to jump through all of their hoops. Thanks to a pep talk from a fellow director and The Fatback Band’s encouragement, “You gotta face your ups and downs,” I refused to give up. I started looking for a new location.
And then my fairy godfather appeared. The director of an arts center housed in an old grade school gave me a deal to rent their building for the weekend. We were back on track, but not for long. With one week to go until our shoot, our Director of Photography injured himself and couldn’t work. At that point I was sure the universe was conspiring against me. So I returned to Fatback for inspiration, “You gotta believe/you gotta look straight ahead,” they sang. I stopped feeling sorry for myself, and called Padraic O’Meara, a D.P. I’d always wanted to work with. Thanks to his willingness to step in at the last minute, we shot on schedule. It felt like a small miracle.
Now the film was in the can, but my health had deteriorated to the point that I spent most of a year in bed wondering what the hell was wrong with me. Eventually, I found a gifted doctor who got me back on my feet. It was finally time to put together my post team, and I needed an editor who could make the tricky dance scenes work. I’d seen Heidi Zimmerman’s editing on the swing dance documentary Alive & Kicking, so I knew she would be perfect. Looking back it seems silly now, but I was afraid she would say “no.” I was an unknown director and she had edited major Hollywood productions. And though we laugh about it now, I was afraid to ask Kelley Baker to come on board as sound designer too. Kelley is an accomplished writer and director, and he did sound design on some of my favorite films, My Own Private Idaho, Finding Forrester, and Far From Heaven. A self-doubt soundtrack played on a loop in my head, “Why would they work with you? You’re nobody…” Once again, Fatback came to my rescue, “You can’t be afraid/You gotta believe/You gotta look straight ahead!” Thanks to my theme song, I got up my nerve and called Heidi and Kelley to tell them about my film. My passion for the story must have been contagious because they were excited. We ended up having a wonderful time working together, and I learned so much from them.
After screening in The McMinnville Short Film Festival in 2020, “Esperanza’s Turn” traveled around the globe to 20 more festivals before it was picked up for distribution by Global Cinema Online. My mystery illness turned out to be chronic Lyme disease (more on that in my next documentary). While that’s not a diagnosis anyone wants to hear, I’ll take it over a brain tumor any day. I hope this story inspires you to find a powerful theme song and go make your film.
