Frame & Reference Podcast - 5: “At The Ready” DP & Director Maisie Crow

Episode Date: February 25, 2021

On todays episode of the Frame & Reference Podcast Kenny talks with Maisie Crow about her documentary “At The Ready.” Nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at this years Sundance Film Festival, ���At The Ready” follows a group of high school seniors living in a town near the US/ Mexico border as they train to become police officers and Border Patrol agents. Maisie was also the DoP for the documentary “Jackson” and for a few episodes of “True Life.” Enjoy the episode! Liking the podcast? Leave a rating and review on your favorite podcast app! Frame & Reference is supported by Filmtools and ProVideo Coalition. Filmtools is the West Coasts leading supplier of film equipment. From cameras and lights to grip and expendables, Filmtools has you covered for all your film gear needs. Check out Filmtools.com for more. ProVideo Coalition is a top news and reviews site focusing on all things production and post. Check out ProVideoCoalition.com for the latest news coming out of the industry.

Hello, and welcome to this, another episode of Frame and Reference. I'm your host, Kenny McMillan, and today we've got Macy Crow, the director and DP of At the Ready, which is a documentary that premiered at Sundance, the beginning of my Sundance interviews. And this documentary is about a group of high school seniors at a school in El Paso, who were part of a criminal justice club where they learned to be border patrol agents, you know, right there basically on the border. As I said in the interview, this documentary is pretty affecting. You know, you see some interesting morality come into play, you know, kids being sort of encouraged and, you know, kids being sort of encouraged and, you know, not to go to college and instead take the good paycheck that comes with being a border patrol agent. You know, kids talking to border patrol agents at a career fair and saying like,

oh, my family member was taken and they're like, yeah, we don't know about that, but would you like to join anyway? That kind of thing. And I'm only laughing because it's kind of shocking. but the documentary does do a really good job of explaining where these kids are coming from, their families, really fleshes out the story, as it were, and it's very good. As this was one of the first interviews I did for Sundance and a lot of these DPs were on a tight schedule, I only had Macy for 30 minutes instead of the full hour. I really just kind of jump right into it. Macy's actually a photojournalist, so the style of the

documentary is very verite, just, you know, right in there shooting. And we talk about that. So I don't need to preface this any longer. Let's get into it with Macy Crow of At the Ready. So I was able to watch all of the screeners last night, and your documentary was quite affecting, I will say. I went to college in Arizona, so at ASU. So I have a sort of bearing on these concepts. I didn't know that there was a literal class for kids to learn how to be border patrol agents. Tell me how you figured that out. Yeah, I'm based in Texas, and I actually saw kids training in the hallway of a school that I was visiting down in South Texas.

And so that piqued my interest, you know, something I had not known about before and just really started exploring it. I put in a request to the TEA, which is the Texas Education, I don't know what it is, TEA, I haven't had all my coffee yet, and found that there were 900 schools that offered these classes. And so that's when I really was like, wow, I really want to understand this and I want to understand it from the perspective of the students. That's always my interest. is like whoever the main characters are in a film, it's like, I want to see it through, through their eyes. I felt the constant sort of internal struggle of the kids between sort of where they came from or their families or whatever and what they thought versus what, I would almost say, their idyllic version of law enforcement. Because I was the same way. When I was a kid, I was like, I want to be a cop, but I had no concept of what that truly meant.

did you how did you go about talking to like where you how involved were you in talking to those kids about what was going on was it very observational because you know there's those scenes where they're looking at videos of frankly bad shit happening and and and that one girl is really like you watch it start to click with her were you showing those types of videos or were they finding it and you just happen to be there I was at her house and I mean it was like happening um the same day actually that I I filmed the like protest footage where they were like protesting the tourneo tent camps. I then went to Christina's house. I mean, it was on the news at her house and then she was like in her bedroom scrolling through it. And so like naturally I just kind of shut up and started just like, you know, rolled the cameras.

Obviously then when she's talking directly to the camera, I'm asking her questions about how she feels. Sure. What that kind of, thank you for the perfect segue. I was going to say, for your documentary, it's very raw. And I mean that in a positive way. It just, it does feel like you kind of just plopped in there and were shooting, you know, embedded as it were.

What was your shooting package? How did you design a system for which you could be ready for anything? Yeah, so I shoot most of my own stuff. You know, sometimes I have a second camera when I have a second camera. Well, you shot this whole documentary yourself? I shoot most, yeah, most everything, yeah. Goodness, I thought you had at least like two other people. You get a lot of really good angles.

Oh, thank you. Yeah, but I do, I have like a list of like camera operators in the credits because like I do have people come in for some of like, especially like the drug race. like competition and stuff like that, you know, but no, I like to keep everything paired down as much as possible. I don't think that you can be as intimate with the people you're filming if you have a ton of gear and a bunch of people in there. So if anything, I like to have a sound person with me. But a lot of the time, I'm just running sound directly into my camera. So, you know,

I come from the world. I was a photojournalist. That was my career. And so I'm so used to being a still photographer and operating alone. And then switching into documentary film mode meant a lot of other gear, a lot of which I wasn't necessarily familiar with. And I'm a rather small-framed individual. So I have a, like, there's some camera gear out there that I just cannot hold no matter

like how, you know, if I'm in tip-top shape, I still can't hold it and hold it steady. So I found the C-300 Mark 2 to be like super ergonomical for me, uncomfortable for me. And yeah, I shot it without a rig unless I was using my, I can't remember. What's it? That thing that comes up. It's like a vest. Easy rig. Yes, I love my easy rig.

It's like the best thing ever. It's like saved my back. And so, I mean, that's kind of as sophisticated as I get. I'm actually really interested in my projects thus far when I've like gone out into the field. It's like whatever, like that's the camera that I had, the C300 mark two. And I think I would love to continue shooting with it. But I don't really put much thought into building out a camera package. It's just like I'm so excited about the story.

I'm going to tell that I'm just whatever's around me, you know? Sure. So how are you getting, or how did you approach getting the various shots? Because like I said, I thought you had a couple shooters on it. You did a really good job of covering it. Did you have like a checklist of, you know, this is the B-roll I'm going to get with each location. This is the, no? No, I mean, I'm probably like, I'm the opposite of that.

It's, it's, I don't really, when I'm shooting a verity film, I'm not going in with like a shot list because most of the time I'm going in and like waiting for the things to unfold that need to unfold. And if anything, when I'm getting kind of scene setting shots and establishing shots, that's all happening later. Like I, I like to just like reserve time to go like film exteriors to film, you know, beautiful B-roll. And I really don't. like to mix that into when I'm like shooting a verite scene. And then I think the camera coverage comes from my work as a still photographer because I'm so used to moving around in any given scene and covering it that way. Totally. Who are your, do you have any photographic influences,

any photographers you looked up to coming up? Yeah. I mean, I think more than anything, Eli Reid, who was an incredible photographer and he was one of my professors in undergrad, Eugene Richards, you know, both of them, I think, have spent so much time deeply embedded in the lives of the people that they photograph. And I've always deeply admired and been heavily influenced by documentary photographers who aren't just popping in and out of situations, but really investing long-term in the individuals whose stories they're telling. Another person, Brenda Ann Conelli, you know, I love her work. Yeah, that's a good point. How long were you working on this documentary? Because at one point, you know, you just do a six-month jump.

So I assume it was a bit longer than maybe a year or so. Yeah, I mean, I started. researching it in 2017 and then started getting to know these kids in 2018 and I filmed them you know I think the last shoot was with Mason in 2020 at a rally so that was the one towards the end of the film yeah yeah yeah so a couple of years yeah um actually this is this is a technical question I should ask earlier what was your um microphone package, because everyone sounded like they were Mike. Did you just have a pack on everybody?

I mean, if I was shooting by myself, then I just had two love mics and really hope that no one else was going to say anything important. It's just terrible. I mean, but like that's how you make, I don't know. Like that's how you make documentary film because you start to introduce all these other people in a crew and it's like all of a sudden,

the fly-on-the-wall thing just isn't there anymore, you know? Absolutely. But then I had, like, the most amazing sound guy, Braleo, Beltron, who is based in Juarez. And he, like, he was, like, so patient with me and so willing to, like, if I was like, we need to mic up eight people. It was, like, we were just, like, getting everybody miced. And he was really great.

And then he also ended up a lot of times. shooting second camera for me too. Oh, perfect. And then Abby Perrault, who's one of the producers on the film, also shot, you know, she'd shoot second camera sometimes. And she then would also, there were a couple of times where early on we didn't have a sound guy or sound person because we didn't have any funding early on, or we did have some funding, but not enough to like be able to pay day rates in the

field. So she, we would just plug a boom into a Morantz and she would get boom sound while I would have two loaves into the mics. Perfect. Did you, I mean, how did you approach, sorry, into the camera, sure. How did you approach, this is a, this is a question I'm actually kind of interested in. How do you approach in situ lighting? I assume you didn't bring much. It's like, All natural light. Just always putting people near windows. I have a light that sometimes I'll use to mimic a window light. But I always want everything to look like it's shot naturally.

I think there, actually, I don't think any of the interviews that you see in the film even have that light. So it's all natural light in there, which sucks sometimes. And you see that in some of the darker scenes where it's just like so dark. Yeah. Yeah. Did um go ahead oh no so i mean it's that's it's tough but again like what am i going to be like driving in a car with someone is like the sun setting and shining a light in their face that seems like unnatural and dangerous yeah well and like i was going to ask um how were if at all

how are you giving direction to these kids specifically but even the adults you know like it none obviously none of them have they're in the middle of texas they're not uh They don't have experience necessarily with even local news, probably, let alone a documentarian. What was your interaction like with them, you know, especially sitting behind the camera? That can be a very, you know, hey, turn to the left, that kind of thing, you know. Yeah, I don't direct. I really don't direct anybody other than, like, I'll ask some questions. But I, early on, when I start filming, I always just ask people to act natural and to, like,

try and forget that I'm there. And obviously that always, people always laugh when I say that. But then, you know, it's true. I think eventually some people do just allow me to fade into the background and start to ignore me. So really, I'm never telling them to turn a certain way or do a certain thing. Totally. Well, and like you said, because you're small, you're probably a little easier to just hide in a corner. Do you remember what lens you were using, like what you're go-to sort of, I assume it was a Zoom. It was, um, I, like, wrote it down the other day.

It was like a, it was some sort of Zoom, like, kind of like hybrid Cine lens thing. Okay. I know that. Yeah, it was Canon. Gotcha. Um, I loved it, though. It was, it was really great. Wait, so no autofocus or it did have autofocus?

I don't ever auto focus. focus in, uh, okay, uh, not I just not because I'm like, I would never auto focus, but because I, I think, I think it's my still photography, uh, that's just like I'm, I can very quickly focus. And then obviously, I mean, things fall out of focus. Um, and I just kind of, yeah, yeah, I will say I've, I've got the new, um, this webcam, I know it looks ridiculous. This is a C-500, the new Canon full-frame one. It's like so beautiful. Oh, thank you.

But, yeah, the eye-tracking auto-focus is like pretty. Oh, my God. Yeah, it's nice. I've definitely, I was the same way. I was never autofocus guy. But these new ones definitely make it. Because especially on this, if you've got like three people in the shot, you can toggle between who should be in focus with the thumbstick.

So even if you're holding on, like, you can just have like a shot. shoulder rig and just go tick tick tick and yeah so that's that's definitely something that helped me out sort of in a single person shooting situations did you have any um visual reference or any sort of structural reference for the stock or was this really just like you got plopped in and you shot they got it figured out in the edit yeah I mean yeah I'm not interested in heavy like in high production um and like a very very like I don't want an aesthetic that starts to take away from what I'm filming. I'm very interested in it feeling like I don't want people to pay attention to the camera work.

And I do. I think there's so much beautiful camera work out there and they think that some stories warrant that. But for the films that, you know, the two films that I've recently done, you know, over the past several years, like those to me felt. like very urgent stories, but very quiet, intimate stories. And I wanted them to feel very, you know, fly on the wall. And like you as a viewer were just kind of following along. I didn't want you to ever stop and think about like the camera work.

Totally. I will say the documentary, it's when you were making it, did you, this is a tough question for anyone, but were you assuming that the previous administration, was going to continue because there's these moments in the film where the kids are really hoping for a change it would seem and then it doesn't come. How does that, how did that affect? Because I was watching the film and there's this kind of sigh of relief where you're like,

well, at least I know it gets better quick, you know, or it can, it can, you know, who knows now. But yeah, how did you think about that? While I going in, I knew that I was trying to tell a story from the perspective of high school students on the border during the Trump administration. I wasn't necessarily planning on having these news clips in the film or Beto O'Rourke and, you know, Ted Cruz's Senate race be like kind of a climactic moment in the film, but that's what happened to the characters.

And so that became a moment. And so, I mean, personally, when we were going to like Beto's uh I don't know campaign party or like you know election night at in El Paso like yeah I'm a Texan I thought Beto O'Rourke was going to win I mean I I myself was I think you know I was upset but I was not as upset as Christina was and I think Christina's sadness and realization of like, you know, what this might mean for her and for her dreams and for her career, that to me was more soul-crushing than anything because it was like in that instant I saw this young woman go from being a teenager to becoming an adult and realizing the harsh

realities of, you know, the job that she was wanting to pursue. yeah there there's also um you know all the kids especially early on seemed like they were really into the idea of law enforcement but at the same time i noticed there was um a quick clip where they were doing the um tactical run-throughs in the middle of school and these two kids walk by and they turn around and they're laughing at them uh how did the did you notice if the kids were keyed on to that that at least some elements of the school kind of thought they were a joke to some degree? I don't know that people necessarily thought that they were a joke. I don't know.

Like I think there were definitely people in the school that were like surprised or taken back by it, you know, which is why I wanted to include that. But again, like, that's why, you know, it was filmed in that way. and like shown in that way in the film is like it was from the perspective of the kids right like they were standing getting frustrated because you know mr gara was telling them they were doing everything wrong and then these kids walk by and look at them and it was i wanted the viewer to feel like they were you know standing there with a student there is there's another moment i like i really like the film so now i'm just kind of thinking about the things that i enjoyed

There's this, the moment where you're interviewing, I believe it's Mr. Garan in the middle of the hallway. Oh, Mr. Humanez, yeah. Oh, Jimenez. And he was talking about how his career ruined his life. How did you approach kind of showing or how did you think of that where this guy's basically sitting there going like, if I could do this again, I wouldn't. But I'm going to get all these kids and have been getting these kids to do exactly what I did. Yeah, I mean, I think that speaks to the complexity of the whole film, right? Is that like, this is one of the most well-paying jobs in the El Paso region.

And it's one of the, it's a job that to the outside world screams, like, respect to the outside community, shall I say. Like, that's certainly what Christina felt. And to me, that's what this whole film was about was some of the complexities, the hypocrisies, the nuances there. I mean, yeah, this Jimenez had experienced, like, severe PTSD, but at the same time, he loved the job. And this film was so interesting from the start because it was always about the gray areas, you know?

Nothing is black and white, and especially in this story, I feel like everyone lives in the gray, and it is so complex. And I think that he illustrates that beautifully, you know, even like being scared for his own children to go into that. And they think it's not like he walks around being like, aha, I'm sending these kids into a career that like gave me PTSD. I think it's more like I loved this career, but it broke me.

And, you know, it's that push and pull in those emotions. that I think in some level at different things in all of our lives we experience. And so I just was so appreciative of him to, you know, I was so appreciative for his willingness to be so vulnerable on camera. I think it's really hard as a grown man. And that's me, you know, projecting because, but I think it's hard for people to go there. And especially when you're asking him to go there on camera. Yeah, no, totally.

And, again, I feel like you were very effective in, pardon me, in displaying that gray area. The whole film you really are watching that internal struggle. And yeah, it's wild. It's, you know, like I said, me and my girlfriend were watching it. We turned it off. We both kind of sat there and just went like, well, I didn't know any of that was a thing. You know, and that's like the mark of a brilliant documentary is like you just turned it on. fit like it just goes like you turn it on and then you're just suddenly you're every step you're

just learning something new that you kind of almost wish you didn't know you know because now I have to deal with this sort of mental like hopefully hopefully it gets better you know I would love to see these kids go into a career in which uh they can be fulfilled and they are being paid well because that was the other thing that I noticed you would you would kind of hit on in the documentary is most of these kids are doing this for the paycheck it seems yeah I mean I think again like when you can go into a job starting at $50,000 just a couple years out of high school and that's not something that you had previously had as an option. I think it becomes very enticing. And I think when you've been, you know, you go to the career fair at your school and the majority

of the job options there are within law enforcement, you're not. not really being asked to think beyond that. And so again, you know, I think my hope is that people see this film and if they're dissatisfied by what they see, by what they've learned, that they, you know, start having conversations because I don't think it's just like, you know, not one person is going to change all of this. I think it's a cultural, you know, thing that's happening in our entire country. And I think it's, you know, we need to be better for our kids and for our students.

And if we want them to do something different, we need to provide that opportunity for them. The opportunity is not there. They're never going to be able to, like, I mean, I certainly, everything that I thought about in high school or any career path that I was going to go down was based on, like, what was right in front of me, you know? Totally. Well, we got to let you go here. But I like to end every podcast with two questions, one being, you know, kind of did you learn anything during the process of this documentary that you think would be helpful for people trying to make documentaries, something that you think, you know, was a struggle maybe that you worked through. And then secondly, if there's any personal projects that you're working on right now. I think it's something that I already knew going in, but that I always relearn is that nothing is ever as you expect it.

And so to go in with, you know, preconceived notions and not be willing for those to be challenged or changed is just unproductive. And so always, I think for me, it's always being willing to learn more. And then personal projects, yeah, I'm like, I'm in the process of researching my next film right now. Awesome. Perfect. Perfect. Well, thank you so much for taking this time and speaking to me. Enjoy the Sundance experience. I wish I could be there, or I guess both of us there, but...

Totally. But, yeah, thanks again. Cool. Thank you. Bye. So that's it from me and Macy. Once again, I really appreciate her giving me her time during the busy Sundance press schedule. I hope you found that interview as enlightening as I did. while the documentary is not available right this second, as it was premiered at Sundance. If you hear this interview in the future, I assume it'll be on streaming or rental or something

like that, in which case I highly recommend you search it out because it is powerful to say the least. Anyway, that's it from Frame and Reference. Next Thursday, we will have another amazing cinematographer to talk to, and until then, thank you for listening. Frayman Reference is an Al-Bod production. It's produced and edited by me, Kenny McMillan, and distributed by Pro Video Coalition. Our theme song is written and performed by Mark Pelly, and the F&R Matbox logo, was designed by Nate Truex of Truex branding company. You can read or watch the podcast you've just heard by going to ProVideocoolition.com

or YouTube.com slash Albot, respectively. And as always, thanks for listening. Thank you.