Story Frame 31 – Now What?!

You may be thinking, "That bastard!"

I admit to harboring plenty of ill feelings and thoughts myself, especially considering the timing. Martin ended our future together just a few weeks after he’d spoken at my sister’s memorial service and within days of the first birthday in my life without her.

The song I played on repeat those days was Everything But The Girl’s “Missing” –

I step off the train

I’m walking down your street again…

I look up at your house

And I can almost hear you shout down to me

Where I always used to be

And I miss you

But I also couldn’t help but notice that having dodged a second marriage, along with all its encumbrances, I also felt a bit relieved. I felt free. And that felt good.

Once the shock of Martin’s announcement wore off, I realized he was probably right to pull the plug on the relationship and kick me from the nest I’d thought we were building together. It’s possible he sensed in me something that chaffed at being under someone else’s wing, something I may not yet have understood about myself at the time – an innate desire to strike out and be completely on my own, working on my own ideas.

American Byzantine, however, was not yet finished. I’d written the first draft of the script and I knew the characters, research, locations, subjects, and funders better than anyone else. It was me who brought the film – along with its very significant funding – into the documentary workshop. The awkward reality was that we still had to work together to complete the project.

Martin immediately switched me from salary to hourly, but with not quite enough hours to get by on. It was a petty move, especially considering I’d raised the money for the entire production. With no savings to fall back on, because it was all I could do just to pay the bills, I began the desperate search for another job.

Through my work at the documentary workshop for nearly seven years, I’d amassed a solid network of friends and connections in film and television, mainly through the Washington, DC chapter of Women in Film & Video – a non-profit organization founded twenty years earlier by four pioneering filmmaking women.

WIFV was the premier collection of people in media in the DC-metro region, a vibrant, creative community of professionals with national and global connections. The previous year, WIFV president Michele Delino had asked me to serve on its board.

I also knew people at Discovery Channel, National Geographic, BBC, and PBS. I had connections to production crews at government departments and in the private sector; film festival organizers, writers, editors, sound techs, cinematographers, and gaffers. I knew, and was friends with, a lot of independent filmmakers. I even had connections in New York, Los Angeles and other parts of the country.

Despite all of this, it didn’t take long to realize nobody actually hires a documentary filmmaker. Documentary filmmakers have their hands full managing their own projects and trying to get paid. They are already doing the work themselves. I knew this from my own experience, yet I was still surprised and disappointed at the closed doors and lack of opportunities. I worried obsessively – how on earth would I take care of myself and the kids?

Over the next seven months, Martin and I would continue to stumble along awkwardly, finishing up the re-writes, the editing process and the creation of the film’s music soundtrack, trying to avoid one another and yet still get our work done. Ahead of us, we had on-location shoots in Ravenna, Italy and Istanbul, Turkey.

Lastly, in order to complete the documentary, and thread together its many disparate parts, I’d also booked a potentially fabulous interview in London with one of the world’s preeminent Byzantinists, John Julius Norwich – a member of the British House of Lords and, in the words of author Judith Flanders, “a man of many enthusiasms.”

I couldn’t wait to meet him in person.

[photo of Kristin with cinematographer Jason Scholder by Zoë Alexandra]

Kristin Fellows is a published writer, world traveler, and a well-seasoned documentary film consultant. When not writing, Kristin can often be found listening to someone’s story or behind the lens of one of her cameras.

More about Kristin @ kristinfellowswriter.com