When filming a humanitarian project in a crisis, it starts with putting the camera down and developing a relationship with your characters.
This week, Tim Wolfer, humanitarian filmmaker, shares his secrets of capturing compelling stories in the midst of chaos. In this episode he talks with Tanya about how he sneaks into foreign countries, ethics as a filmmaker, and capturing the insurrection at the Capitol on January 6.
Tim’s recent film, The Right Girls, follows three transgender women as they make their way to the US in the 2018 migrant caravan.
Listen to Tim share how putting the camera down and developing relationships with your characters can help you capture better stories.
Key Points:
1:17 – Why he decided to become a filmmaker
3:00 – Getting into foreign countries
7:17 – Why specialize in humanitarian films
10:55 – The Right Girls Film
15:37 – Ethics as a humanitarian filmmaker
19:50 – January 6 Capital Insurrection
23:57 – The market in Baltimore
30:10 – Building a good team
Show Links:
Wolfer Productions
The Right Girls
Film Freeway
Sennheiser MKH 416
Tascam DR-10L
Stella Pro Lights
Full Transcript
Timothy Wolfer (00:00):
I should have known when I got there and I couldn’t find parking that there was an issue, because DC is usually really easy to find parking. I parked in my usual spot, and I walked down to Pennsylvania Avenue, and there was just thousands of people walking towards the Capitol building. I just joined the crowd and started walking towards the Capitol.
They had already pushed up onto the steps of the Capitol. It was just mayhem. Then I went around to the east side of the Capitol. They had pushed up onto the steps of that. That’s actually where they were breaching the Capitol and going inside of it.
Tanya Musgrave (00:39):
Welcome to the Practical Filmmaker, an educational podcast brought to you by the Filmmaker Institute and Sunscreen Film Festival, where industry professionals talk nuts and bolts, and the steps they took to find their success today.
On today’s show, Timothy Wolfer talks humanitarian documentary, The Insurrection And The Wide Open Market In DC. Find the full transcripts and more at thePracticalFilmmaker.com.
I’m your host, Tanya Musgrave. Today, we have Emmy award-winning documentary director, filmmaker extraordinaire Timothy Wolfer. His work has taken him to over 40 countries covering humanitarian aid and human rights topics for his documentaries and work for the UN. Welcome to the show.
Timothy Wolfer (01:13):
Thank you so much for having me.
Tanya Musgrave (01:15):
Let’s start with your journey so far. How did you get here?
Timothy Wolfer (01:18):
Yeah. I decided to become a filmmaker when I was still in high school. I was super intrigued by it. I contacted the local PBS station. I was like, “Hey. I want an internship. Would you guys do that for me?” They were like, “Sure. Come on down.” I happened to have taught myself Final Cut Pro 4 at the time, so after the internship, they realized I knew how to edit and hired me as a video editor.
That’s how I started into the filmmaking thing, and eventually went out to film school. Then the humanitarian stuff came after I did some traveling in college and was super addicted to it. I was like, “Wow. I wonder if I could actually make money by traveling.” So that’s what I did is I designed Wolfer Productions.
As a side note, if you’re ever going to start a production company, don’t name it after yourself.
Tanya Musgrave (02:14):
Why not?
Timothy Wolfer (02:16):
The stupid mistakes you make in college. Because everyone knows it’s about you. It’s hard to expand it and stuff like that. But for better or worse, that’s what I did. I was in college when I started the company, and I put the two passions for both travel and filmmaking together.
Then when the Haiti earthquake hit in 2010, I hitchhiked in about four days afterwards, and put together a film. We’ll talk about that maybe more later, but that cemented in my passion for humanitarian aid, and all these NGOs that were doing this incredible work to help the island out at the time, wanting to work for them and serve them. That’s how that all evolved.
Tanya Musgrave (03:01):
Somebody was talking about it. They’re like, “Yeah, Tim Wolfer. He can get in anywhere.” I’m just like, “How’d he get into Haiti?” Because they shut that down.
Timothy Wolfer (03:08):
Yeah. They had shut down the airport. It was just for humanitarian flights. So a friend and I, we flew into the Dominican Republic, and then we just simply took taxis and buses. At one point, I remember spending several hours in the back of a truck, with my camera equipment and everything piled on top of me, for hours through the night [crosstalk 00:03:33] mountains of Haiti.
Tanya Musgrave (03:33):
Oh, my gosh. I remember you talking about even being in South Sudan. One particular thing that stood out to me in my memory was stepping over a human spine, that kind of stuff.
Timothy Wolfer (03:48):
I did a bunch of work a couple of years ago in South Sudan, a couple of different trips for different agencies, and then also for the UN migration agency. That was very intense, because here’s a country that, they seceded from the northern part of Sudan, and now, they’re their own country. Then it fell into a civil war primarily across ethnic lines, not totally, but for the most part.
It’s just a really sad situation. You have a country that has very little to no infrastructure. There are no roads. There’s no water system, sanitation systems. It’s a difficult context. Because of this war, it’s led to some horrific sights. They hired us to come down, put together some case study films about it. Yeah, there were some horrific things there, for sure.
Tanya Musgrave (04:38):
If that’s what you would call a defining moment in your experience …
Timothy Wolfer (04:43):
Definitely hitchhiking into Haiti in college was a defining experience, and just the realities of the world, and realizing there’s millions of ways people can live their lives, and it’s all okay, and how short and delicate life is, and how I wanted to do stuff with my own life that … Yeah.
I want to do stuff with my own life that I would be proud of, and that I could sleep well at night, and wake up every day doing what I actually want to be doing. Because I think we can fall into patterns a lot of times. I refuse to do that.
Tanya Musgrave (05:19):
That’s awesome too, because it’s very easy to get sucked into, all right, first of all, you need to eat kind of thing. Like, “Okay, what can I take that will just let me eat?” It can feel like you don’t have a choice in what you’re doing, but it is possible.
Timothy Wolfer (05:36):
To go off the beaten track of what most filmmakers, what you learn in film school, if I can, for a moment.
Tanya Musgrave (05:41):
Yeah, yeah.
Timothy Wolfer (05:43):
After college, I moved back to Grand Rapids, Michigan for a couple of years. I got into a small business incubator kind of a thing. Not an incubator. It would have been coworking space, but there was a lot of people that were senior that could mentor and stuff. A couple of them helped me define what the production company should look like, and just old school business.
If you want to be doing something, hang out your shingle and say, “This is what I’m an expert in,” and then just figure it out. That went a really long ways and is something people can do. If you want to be the filmmaker of puppy breeding or something like that, hang out a shingle that says, “We are the experts in filmmaking on puppy breeding,” and then just go start shooting docs for free, or selling your services.
That’s one of the fun things about filmmaking, right?
Tanya Musgrave (05:43):
Yeah.
Timothy Wolfer (06:39):
You can meet people. They know nothing about filmmaking, and you’re bringing your skill set, and then they have an expertise, and you’re learning from them, and they’re learning from you. It can be this beautiful synergy.
Just find a niche, and get a Squarespace website and a $25 business license, and open a bank account, and throw a hundred bucks in there and go. It’s not that hard.
Tanya Musgrave (07:03):
Yeah. So you figured out that this is what you want to do in order to support yourself, make money, but then also feel like you could feel good about what you were making. You seem to have an affinity for humanitarian stories and political philosophy. Would you say that Haiti is where that started?
Timothy Wolfer (07:19):
I think so. I think it developed. Haiti definitely got me started in curiosity about what happens after disasters and stuff like this, and how do people rebuild their lives and everything. Then as my career has developed, I’ve definitely become more and more interested in migrants. Haiti, obviously, there was a portion of that, because a lot of people were evacuated to the US.
But really interested in migrants. Here are people that have lost everything, who are so desperate that they are willing to travel to the lengths of the earth to find a better living and achieve their dreams. They’re always super strong dreamers, are migrants. It’s just incredible, the people that are coming to our southern border, they’re incredible people, the people that are willing to walk across Africa to find better homes or whatever it might be.
Then unfortunately, we demonize them. Western countries, politically, we make it as horrible for them as possible. It’s just such a tragedy. It’s something that I’ve just really want to always be spreading a light on is that’s not the truth. These are incredible people. So yeah. I guess that’s where I’ve evolved to.
Tanya Musgrave (08:37):
I shot one time in a refugee camp. The first few days, I’m almost useless, in that first week. Yes, I’m shooting and I’m doing this stuff, but there’s so much of a dichotomy going on in my head. Once you realize the seriousness of the situation, and you’re like, “What the heck am I able to even do to make a difference? Is this going to even really make a difference and how? And how in the world can the Kardashians or something exist in the same world as these people right in front of me?” I’m curious what your balance is.
Timothy Wolfer (09:16):
I definitely hear you and have had the same kind of esoteric thoughts during this situation, so I definitely empathize. I think part of it is breaking it down into steps. By the time you, if you ever do get the opportunity to film in a situation like that, definitely make sure you know what you’re doing with your gear. This is not the time you need to be figuring out how to set your aperture or focus or something like that.
But I think part of it is just, first of all, focus on doing your job. But I think another aspect of that is learn to set your camera down, and just learn and talk to the people in front of you. That helps break it down into very human aspect that can calm that stuff. But a lot of times, yeah, it is overwhelming, when you’re just swinging the camera around, and you look at your stuff in post, and it’s like, “Oh, my God. I got nothing.” Yeah.
Tanya Musgrave (10:14):
Once that initial … I guess … I don’t know. The shock? It’s not full on shock, but …
Timothy Wolfer (10:21):
The sensory overload.
Tanya Musgrave (10:22):
Yeah. Once that wears off and you’re able to have those conversations and find your story, find your angle, but then also find your people, find your people that you can have those conversations with, and that really open up your experience, and shed a light on a very specific area of where you’re at.
For instance, I remember following your Instagram. You headed down to the border. I’m just like, “Oh yeah. He’s covering the migration,” and all of the stuff that was going on down there at the time. Then I hear about The Right Girls. Tell me about The Right Girls.
Timothy Wolfer (10:57):
Yeah. The Right Girls are my latest film. That happened very much out of this whole thing about migrants. We were just talking about how migrants I know are just people who have incredible dreams and stuff ahead of them.
Trump had been tweeting about this caravan of horrible people coming to the border, and using all these derogatory terms. I was like, “I know that’s not true. That is a falsehood.”
So I jumped on a plane and flew to Southern Mexico, and found the caravan, caught up with the caravan on the side of the road or whatever, and did that exact same experience of what you described. That sensory overload was definitely happening.
I hear some music one afternoon. They had taken a break. It was a Saturday, I think, that I’d met up with them. I heard some music. I look over, and there’s some people dancing to this music. I just, for whatever reason, start filming this.
I go over and start talking to these women. They were all transgender women. They had band together to do the journey together. I was like, “Hey. Can I come film with you tomorrow when they start walking?” They’re like, “Sure.” So then the next day, I was like, “Hey. Can I come film?” They’re like, “Sure.” The next thing I know, I had done that for six weeks …
Tanya Musgrave (10:57):
Wow.
Timothy Wolfer (12:16):
And built a very strong relationship with this group of women.
Tanya Musgrave (12:23):
Yeah.
Timothy Wolfer (12:23):
They eventually made it to the border. I was there with one of them, Valentina, the last one. She literally walked up to the border, to the US border and customs officials, and said, “Hey. I fear for my life,” and requesting asylum, and went into the United States that way.
Tanya Musgrave (12:42):
Yeah? Yeah.
Timothy Wolfer (12:43):
Yeah.
Tanya Musgrave (12:43):
Oh, my gosh.
Timothy Wolfer (12:43):
But it’s such an amazing relationship, because I still try and keep in touch with them and stuff [crosstalk 00:12:49] can.
Tanya Musgrave (12:49):
Yeah, absolutely.
Timothy Wolfer (12:50):
That’s what I mean by you get to know them on a human level. It’s not just sticking a camera in their face, but hanging out with them.
Tanya Musgrave (12:58):
Absolutely.
Timothy Wolfer (12:59):
Yeah.
Tanya Musgrave (13:00):
Yeah. It’s so interesting how that changes the perspective, even if it’s just a personal thing. Because honestly, if we think about it, systemic change happens by having those very, very personal experiences.
When I think of my friend, I don’t think of the term refugee, in fact. It’s almost …
Timothy Wolfer (13:24):
It’s cringe worthy. Yeah.
Tanya Musgrave (13:25):
It’s cringe worthy. I don’t like referring to him as that.
Timothy Wolfer (13:29):
Yeah. I think of my grandmother moving here from New Zealand. She came through Ellis Island and the whole works, but I don’t call her a migrant. She’s my grandmother who moved here from New Zealand.
Tanya Musgrave (13:45):
I guess one of my questions before was what did you feel like you could do to make that much of a difference?
Timothy Wolfer (13:47):
I don’t know if making a difference is something that ever crosses my mind. I think that the thing that I feel I can add value to is that I did have the opportunity and the time off and everything like that to put faces behind what the news was covering in a very wide range. They’re talking about 7,000 people, so there are very few people who were focusing in on just a few.
It was a huge risk I was taking, spending six weeks, and not having multiple characters for my film. I just had the four characters. That was all I was filming for four weeks.
Tanya Musgrave (14:23):
Yeah, yeah.
Timothy Wolfer (14:24):
That’s the value I thought I could bring, is just having that laser focus on this one group that really needed some attention.
Tanya Musgrave (14:33):
Okay. I haven’t been trained in journalism.
Timothy Wolfer (14:36):
Okay.
Tanya Musgrave (14:36):
I remembered that, particularly for a lot of, I don’t know, I want to say humanitarian docs that I’ve been a part of, I would realize later the fact that I could have caused more damage with my presence than actual help, because of just media ethics, I guess. To go into a place where my camera costs as much as this village makes in a year, that kind of thing …
When I was about to go over to the refugee camp, I got in touch with one of my journalist friends. I’m just like, “Hey. Any kind of ethics thing I should be aware of?” She was just like, “Well, before you parachute in and think that you’re going to say the day, have a whole lot more understanding and openness. Be upfront about what you’re doing,” and all of that stuff. How do you navigate that?
Timothy Wolfer (15:36):
First of all, yeah, of course. You’re very upfront. With the characters in the film, as what I was doing is evolving, because I thought it would be a short film, I kept them posted or whatever, but I think that that’s part of the thing of building that relationship and just building a form of trust.
Journalists can spread the gamut. Some just run in, take pictures of whatever, which is legal. If you’re on a public street and somebody else is on a public street, you can take the photo, and it’s a newsworthy topic, it falls under the editorial, and there’s nothing that anyone can do about it. But I think asking that permission, and building that rapport and that relationship, and being upfront about what you’re doing is really the name of the game.
Tanya Musgrave (16:21):
What steps did you take to sell your docs?
Timothy Wolfer (16:23):
When I went into The Right Girls, I had distributed Adopting Haiti, but that was 10 years ago. The whole landscape has totally changed for indie filmmakers.
It was a bit overwhelming, because obviously we applied to South by Southwest, and the film wasn’t quite ready yet, and so it got rejected from there. Then we applied to a bunch of the big ones, and got rejected. I was a bit of a defeatist, like, “Oh, well. I guess this film is done.”
Then it was thanks to actually [Jesse 00:16:53] and [Jonny 00:16:53] and AJ and this team that I had, that they kept pushing it and pushing me, and Siobhan, one of the producers. We just started applying to festivals on FilmFreeway.com. I applied to festivals until my bank account hurt. We applied to 140 festivals.
Tanya Musgrave (17:16):
Oh, my gosh.
Timothy Wolfer (17:17):
Just everything from the big ones to just no name festivals that say the word documentary in them, or migrant or foreign. Anything. It’s so easy to click submit, click submit, click submit. Through that process, we got into 20 or 25 festivals. That generated a lot of attention, which is awesome.
Then another one of the producers worked on getting it in front of distribution companies. That’s really the secret. There’s 36 distributors, I think, in the US, or something like that. There’s a lot of them. They all, on their website, have a spot say, “Submit a film.” Why don’t you? Why don’t people? You can do that.
It’s work. I think that that repetitive work is what really makes the film, and just putting in that labor of just all nighters of just submitting crap constantly.
Eventually, Passion River out of New Jersey picked it up. I was thrilled to work with them. Their whole thing is working with community impact style docs, or films, not just docs, but community impact stuff. They were awesome to work with in that aspect, and got the film onto the platforms and everything. So I can’t wait to work with them on the next one. Yeah.
Tanya Musgrave (18:37):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s amazing. Are there any ones, and you don’t have to name them, are there any that you passed on for a specific word in their agreement or something like that? Things to sidestep?
Timothy Wolfer (18:49):
There were a couple that were a little too eager, that we were like … They were just trying to get us to sign, and I passed on it. There’s also certain things that filmmakers complain about, but all distributors are going to do. I was looking for that, because some of them were like, “Oh, you don’t need to do that,” but I’m like …
For example, errors and omissions insurance is very expensive, and all filmmakers have to do it when you get a film distributed. But one of them was like, “Yeah, we take care of the errors and omissions.” To me, that was actually a red flag.
Tanya Musgrave (19:24):
Interesting.
Timothy Wolfer (19:24):
Yes, that’s nice of them, but that’s just not customary. It’s usually on the filmmakers’ shoulders. Liability’s sake, I get why it’s on the filmmakers’ shoulders. So that, to me, was actually a red flag. We steered clear of it.
Tanya Musgrave (19:39):
A lot of these places, especially with those relationships that you make, you are literally putting yourself at the right place at the right time, but sometimes it just happens, right? I want you to talk about the random right place at the right time that you were at on January 6.
Timothy Wolfer (19:57):
Everyone knows it. January 6 was the insurrection here in the United States. I’m still, in many ways, processing what happened myself.
A friend of mine that I had made on The Right Girls had texted me. He’s a photographer from New York, and he was coming down to cover the rally. There was a rally in the morning, and then we knew there was going to be protesting in the afternoon. But usually the Trump protests that I had been to, which was not many, were a lot of pomp and circumstance. People out there, waving whatever, in their camo, and doing their thing. Then we figured we’d go out and have drinks afterwards and just catch up, because I hadn’t seen him in several years because of the lockdown.
Yeah. So I went to DC. I decided not to go to the rally itself. I was just going to go to the protest afterwards, because the whole goal was to actually just grab drinks.
I should’ve known when I got there and I couldn’t find parking that there was an issue, because DC is usually really easy to find parking. People don’t own cars in Washington DC. So it’s actually super easy. I parked in my usual spot, and I walked down to Pennsylvania Avenue, and there was just thousands of people walking towards the Capitol building.
I just joined the crowd and started walking towards the Capitol. I got there about 1:30 or so. They’d already pushed up onto the steps of the Capitol. It was just mayhem. I went around to the east side of the Capitol, which, it turns out, was an interesting decision. I’ll come back to that. But I went around to the east side of the Capitol. They had pushed up onto the steps of that. That’s actually where they were breaching the Capitol and going inside of it.
I just spent the afternoon filming on the steps of the Capitol, and right at the doors as they were going in and out. The guy with the horns that everyone talks about, I stood next to him for several hours as I was filming and stuff.
It was crazy. It was crazy, because I did not realize the gravity of it maybe in the moment. I was just focused on [inaudible 00:22:17] the job. I was watching my phone. I was checking my phone maybe every 40 minutes.
I knew these people didn’t particularly care for journalists, so I was just trying to work very slowly. I’m not filming a ton. I’m just taking shots when I felt comfortable, and making sure I always had an escape plan if things did go south on me, and which way I was going to go out of here.
So yeah. I just filmed for several hours. A major news outlet picked up all the footage and distributed it.
It wasn’t until I got back to my car that evening, I realized the entire Earth shut down for that day, and was glued to the TV footage of everything. Just thinking about how I just happened to randomly end up there …
I did end up seeing my friend. As the National Guard is pushing them back, we did run into each other and got our selfie with the National Guard at the Capitol behind us. Shit is going down. Talk about … So I did get to see him. Yay.
Tanya Musgrave (23:24):
Oh, my gosh. You had told me about getting … on the steps from this major news outlet.
Timothy Wolfer (23:32):
Yeah. Another close friend of mine, I had texted her the night before. I was, “Hey. Are you going down?” She’s like, “No. I’ve got too much work.” They had called her, and then she’s like, “Hey. He’s there. I know he is,” because she couldn’t get ahold of me. That’s when I got contracted.
Tanya Musgrave (23:51):
You go into DC a lot. At first, I thought you were based in DC. You’re not. You’re in Baltimore, yeah?
Timothy Wolfer (23:58):
Yeah. The way I’ve structured the last six or seven years is that I ended up in Baltimore. The cost of living in Baltimore is way more affordable than DC. Before the pandemic, I’d say it was about a third. I think it’s down to about half now, because Baltimore is coming up quickly, and DC has gone stagnant, as people moved out of the city. We’ll see what happens now that we’re in this next wave.
But yeah. It’s been a much cheaper place to live. It’s one hour into DC, which on the East Coast is a long ways, but if you’re in LA, everyone’s like, “One hour drive? That’s not bad.”
Tanya Musgrave (24:35):
That’s it?
Timothy Wolfer (24:36):
Yeah.
Tanya Musgrave (24:36):
That’s across town, if that.
Timothy Wolfer (24:39):
Plus, Baltimore has a lot of great stuff. Yeah. My cost of living here is cheap, and there’s a great film community. Baltimore is a wonderful city to live in. But most of the clients are in DC. There’s great airports there that I can catch flights out of.
DC is one of those markets that, because it’s not just filmmakers, like LA or other cities might be, there is an abundance of work and not enough people to do it.
Tanya Musgrave (25:08):
That sounds amazing.
Timothy Wolfer (25:11):
It is. It’s incredible. And a lot of it’s super easy. It’s a lot of talking head interviews for different groups that need stuff done. You’re always in and out …
Tanya Musgrave (25:22):
[crosstalk 00:25:22] money.
Timothy Wolfer (25:21):
Yeah, exactly. You’re in and out by 5:00. It’s none of these 10 hour days or anything. It’s wonderful. So I’m always telling people do that.
Then Baltimore’s filmmaking, there’s a grant that I’m always telling people about here in Baltimore. As a filmmaker, you can apply for up to $50,000. It can be used for development. The only requirement is you have to live in Baltimore. That’s it.
Tanya Musgrave (25:47):
Stop. Wait. What?
Timothy Wolfer (25:47):
Yeah. It’s called the-
Tanya Musgrave (25:47):
Wait. What’s it-
Timothy Wolfer (25:48):
… Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund, but that’s just-
Tanya Musgrave (25:50):
Say it again slowly.
Timothy Wolfer (25:51):
Saul Zaentz Innovation Fund.
Tanya Musgrave (25:54):
Okay. All right.
Timothy Wolfer (25:56):
It’s incredible. I’m always saying, “Move to Baltimore. They don’t even have enough filmmakers.”
Tanya Musgrave (26:01):
Yes.
Timothy Wolfer (26:02):
That’s the kind of supportive film community that’s here. A lot of great docs have been coming out of here because of that kind of mentorship and cashflow and stuff.
Tanya Musgrave (26:11):
So particularly for people who are looking to go into documentary, not necessarily narrative, yeah?
Timothy Wolfer (26:11):
Yeah.
Tanya Musgrave (26:18):
Or narrative too?
Timothy Wolfer (26:20):
There is some narrative going on. I don’t want to speak too far out of turn, but [inaudible 00:26:24] narrative, they have all the tax stuff set up like a lot of states did, and then they rolled them back, and then all the narrative went away. They’ve recently put them back into place, and hopefully more of that will come back into town. But yeah, I think they did take a [inaudible 00:26:39] major hit on the narrative side.
Tanya Musgrave (26:41):
Gotcha, gotcha.
Timothy Wolfer (26:41):
So [crosstalk 00:26:42]
Tanya Musgrave (26:42):
But documentary.
Timothy Wolfer (26:43):
Yeah, docs-
Tanya Musgrave (26:44):
It’s a gold mine.
Timothy Wolfer (26:45):
And journalism and the intersection between those two, yeah. I can’t think of a better place, really, to live for this.
Tanya Musgrave (26:53):
We’re going to wrap up by asking some tools of your trade, really quick.
Timothy Wolfer (26:53):
All right. Hit me.
Tanya Musgrave (26:57):
All right. What gear or gadgets, or even software, is your favorite old reliable?
Timothy Wolfer (27:03):
Old reliable. I love audio. I think good docs are built around good audio, so my MKH-416 microphone never leaves me. That’s my favorite microphone.
The other gadget I’ve been shooting with a lot is the Tascam DR-10L. It is a field recorder. You simply throw an SD card in and it records.
Tanya Musgrave (27:27):
That’s so awesome. That’s so freaking cool.
Timothy Wolfer (27:28):
It looks like a lavaliere mic, but you don’t have to worry about the interference. In DC, that’s crucial, because there’s just so much interference. So I don’t even own lavs anymore. I just have this.
Tanya Musgrave (27:40):
Okay. Does it have any quirks, like you’ve run into, “Oh, yeah. It does like this weird thing when you …”
Timothy Wolfer (27:46):
The downside is you can’t monitor your audio.
Tanya Musgrave (27:49):
Okay, okay.
Timothy Wolfer (27:50):
You clip it onto somebody and pray that it works. The batteries are reliable. It has an auto leveling function and everything. I’ve never had any problems. Knock on wood.
Tanya Musgrave (28:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. That might work for this next question, but I’m going to ask it anyway. What’s your favorite new gadget that revolutionizes how you work?
Timothy Wolfer (28:13):
Lights. I’ve been shooting with Stella Pros. Huge fan of them.
Tanya Musgrave (28:20):
Stella Pros, okay.
Timothy Wolfer (28:21):
Stella Pros. They’re a light. They’re the size of, think of a large beer can, one of the tall ones.
Tanya Musgrave (28:28):
Yeah, yeah.
Timothy Wolfer (28:28):
They have a built-in battery that lasts for 90 minutes. You can submerge them down to a hundred meters. You can drop them from three feet. They work like a traditional Furnell. They don’t work like the panels are everything. So you can put barn doors on them and really control your lights.
Tanya Musgrave (28:28):
Really?
Timothy Wolfer (28:47):
I’m always shooting through silks and stuff. I like the control. I don’t really like light bleeding all over the place.
Tanya Musgrave (28:55):
It is kind of like LED?
Timothy Wolfer (28:56):
It is an LED. Yeah.
Tanya Musgrave (28:58):
Okay. Would you have mobile …
Timothy Wolfer (29:01):
Has remotes and everything, to turn them on [crosstalk 00:29:01]
Tanya Musgrave (29:00):
Yeah. Mobile remote. Sweet, sweet.
Okay. The current project that you are excited about now.
Timothy Wolfer (29:11):
Right now, I don’t have a current project, which I know is always taboo to say. I will be doing another probably journalism news style doc in the next year or two. But post-pandemic right now is just trying to get financially back on my feet. I think like a lot of filmmakers, things got tight for a little bit there. So just trying to do as much commercial work, especially with all the pent up demand that’s just been rolling in. I’m just trying to ride the wave for a while, and then we’ll start on another project.
Tanya Musgrave (29:39):
How do people find or follow your work? This is a shameless plug opp.
Timothy Wolfer (29:42):
Oh, awesome. Check out my website, WolferProductions.com. Really please go check out the film, The Right Girls. That’s just theRightGirlsFilm.com. It’s currently Amazon, iTunes, and Google Play and all those. All the major ones you can find it at. So yeah. Please do go check it out.
Tanya Musgrave (30:02):
What questions should I have asked you?
Timothy Wolfer (30:05):
One question is about building a good team.
Tanya Musgrave (30:08):
Consider the question asked. How do you build a good team?
Timothy Wolfer (30:11):
As a doc filmmaker, you do work a lot by yourself, right? So like in Mexico, I did that by myself, or the insurrection, I was by myself. But I think having a good team behind you that can help with logistics, or who are willing to stick by you, and then keeping with them.
Like AJ, the graphic designer I work with, is the same guy I met in college that helped me on Adopting Haiti. He’ll do the rest of my films probably for the rest of my life. Even if there are better graphic designers out there, which I’m not saying there are, I think AJ is the best, I’m going to stick with AJ, because he stuck with me.
I see a lot of filmmakers like, “Oh, I want to collaborate with this person or this person.” But part of it is good workflow, and part of it is just good synergy of building that team that’s going to stick with you the rest of your life. Just saying, “I like working with these people.” It’s not just about the destination, but the journey of, “This is my tribe. Let’s do this together.”
Tanya Musgrave (31:10):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. There is joy in the journey. Honestly, once you find that, it’s just like, “Why? Why have to break in another best friend?” kind of thing. Why would you have to build all that up again?
Timothy Wolfer (31:23):
I had some friends that were dying to help me on The Right Girls. I was like they’re going to bail on me. Jonny and Jesse’s their names.
Tanya Musgrave (31:33):
Wait. What?
Timothy Wolfer (31:34):
They wanted to help translate stuff, because we were having a horrible time with all the translation. So I was like, “After three hours of translating, they’re going to be so sick of this,” because translating is such a big job.
But those two stuck with it. They’ll definitely be working on my next projects, because it’s like …
Tanya Musgrave (31:52):
Yeah. At first, I’m just like, “Dang. You’re calling them out on a podcast. Like, ‘They’re going to bail on me.'”
Timothy Wolfer (31:58):
I thought so. No. I’m saying I was the idiot for not believing them.
Tanya Musgrave (32:04):
Oh. Okay. I gotcha.
Timothy Wolfer (32:04):
You know what I mean? But they really went for it. They just stuck with it. I could not have pulled that film off without those two. It’s incredible.
Tanya Musgrave (32:12):
Yeah. I’m glad it went that way.
Timothy Wolfer (32:15):
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. No. They’re [inaudible 00:32:18] No.
Tanya Musgrave (32:18):
Man, this is like, it’s not like, “No. I’m going to stick with AJ. It’s not like these other two, Jesse and …”
Timothy Wolfer (32:23):
No. No. No.
Tanya Musgrave (32:23):
“They’re going to bail on me.”
Tim, thanks so much for your time. I appreciate it, all of your wisdom and craziness, man. Keep it real out there.
Timothy Wolfer (32:33):
I appreciate it. Thank you for having me on the podcast. Feel free to reach out.
Tanya Musgrave (32:38):
If you enjoyed this interview, follow us right here and on Instagram, and check out more episodes at thePracticalFilmmaker.com. If you have comments or know someone who would be a great guest on our show, send in your suggestions to tanya@thePracticalFilmmaker.com. Be well and God bless. We’ll see you next time on The Practical Filmmaker.