Documentary born at Rice receives national attention

Documentary born at Rice receives national attention
Who knew a class project would get the country talking?

BY JESSICA STARK
Rice News Staff

Relatively few people ever see their names appear in a major newspaper. Even fewer see their names in the New York Times with a positive review about their work. Rice University alumni Stephen Fell ’05 and Will Thompson ’05 have joined that elite group, thanks to a class project turned nationally acclaimed documentary, “Unborn in the USA: Inside the War on Abortion.”

On June 14, there they were in the the New York Times:

“The directors, Stephen Fell and Will Thompson — who started the film as a senior thesis at Rice University’s film school — show a wide spectrum of abortion opponents, from advocates of violence to fire-and-brimstone soapboxers to a subtler group that takes classes in empathy … a rigorously objective look at the anti-abortion movement.”

But the praise didn’t end in New York.

“This kind of attention is rare for any documentary,” said Suzanne O’Malley, the film’s executive and co-producer. “This kind of exposure makes a career. A finished film with a major distributor is a filmmaker’s ticket into show business as a director, writer or producer.”

Thompson and Fell didn’t set out to make a documentary about the anti-abortion movement. They were completing a project for the “Documentary Production” course taught by Brian Huberman, associate professor of visual arts. The assignment was to create a portrait of someone they’d never met, so they picked an activist in Houston who constructed artificial graveyards representing aborted children.

JEFF FITLOW

Alumni Stephen Fell and Will Thompson have garnered acclaim for their documentary, “Unborn in the USA: Inside the War on Abortion.”

Thesis project turned documentary

Thompson had grown up near one of the graveyards, which he believed to be made by an extremist group. After meeting the man responsible, Thompson and Fell were surprised to find he had relatively moderate views. He didn’t conform to their stereotype.

That surprise spurred further research about the anti-abortion movement. They started in Texas but soon traveled to 35 states and to Washington, D.C., for the 2003 March for Life.

“Because that march is the largest in the U.S., we thought there would be a ton of people covering it,” Fell said. “But there wasn’t a lot of media interest. It was perplexing.”

The lack of media coverage for the march propelled Fell and Thompson forward.

“There we were in D.C. with every major pro-life leader in the country, getting interesting insight into what we thought was the most contentious social and political issue facing our country,” Thompson said. “And no one from the mainstream media was covering it. That was the moment we knew that a documentary on the pro-life movement had great potential.”

The filmmakers were right on the money with that prediction. But realizing that potential in the form of a film took dollars, time and connections.

With Huberman’s guidance, Thompson and Fell had been working on their project for almost a year when Fell met O’Malley by taking her “Writing for Dramatic Television” course at Rice. O’Malley, now a lecturer at Yale University, had been brought in by Humanities Dean Gary Wihl as the writer-in-residence in the English department.

“When Stephen and Will brought me 10 minutes of the film to watch, I was hooked,” said O’Malley. “I signed on because the team was a good fit. I was passionate about the project and convinced I could realize my vision for it, which, frankly, has always included Academy Award consideration.”

The biggest obstacle for most documentary filmmakers is finding a distributor. Knowing that, O’Malley gave a first cut of the film to her longtime colleague Seymour Wishman, head of First Run Features, the world’s largest documentary distributor.

“It was Suzanne’s connection to the entertainment industry that led us to First Run Features, who eventually agreed to distribute the film in theaters,” Thompson said. “She was instrumental in getting this film made.”

Filmmakers find support at Rice

There were many other challenges in the filmmaking, but Fell and Thompson found support at Rice for funding and equipment. They used sources for funding available to Rice students, including the Envision Grant fund, the Student Activities Commission, Leadership Rice, the Rice Academic and Research Support Fund and a fellowship from the visual arts department.

The Shepherd School of Music provided musical talent. Dave Worrell ’05 composed the original score for “Unborn in the USA.” From the School of Humanities, Joey McKeel ’02 contributed additional photography for the documentary.

Perhaps it was the intangible support that the pair found most important.

“Our professors looked us in the eyes and told us we could do it,” Fell said. “That kind of encouragement can do so much. When remarkable people have faith in you, it’s a lot harder to lose faith in yourself.”

Both Fell and Thompson cited the guidance and criticism of Huberman and O’Malley as key components to their success. Huberman helped them define what they wanted to do with the film and then showed them how to accomplish their goals.

The filmmakers credit their other professors, who, as Fell said, “taught us to think in the gray area and challenge ourselves.”

The environment at Rice prepared them to create a film on such a controversial and emotional topic, Thompson said. Their experiences at Rice have also taught them how to handle the attention that is coming their way.

“Rice submerges you in a diverse social environment of intelligent people and really emphasizes the critical thinking aspects of education,” Thompson said. He particularly noted that classes made it fundamental to defend your own work and critique others’.

“Rice steers its students toward the substantive and away from the superficial, which is an invaluable intuition to take away from college,” Thompson said. “Add to that the peer interaction of so many talented and diverse people and it becomes quite a character building experience.”

What’s next for the filmmakers?

It’s been a long road, but Thompson and Fell have a few more steps on their filmmaking journey. They are seeking theatrical distribution, known as a rollout, to 14 cities.

Rollouts can be expensive, typically costing $20,000 or more, but they gain additional audiences and publicity for the film and qualify it for an Academy Award nomination. Currently the team is focused on promoting the film and working on the DVD, to be released in October.

“I think once I can walk into a store and buy a copy of our movie on DVD I’ll finally admit that we’re done and we did it,” Thompson said.

Thompson now works as the chief software engineer for Jones McClure Publishing in Houston, where he also worked when a student. He hopes to eventually produce films and documentaries full time. Living in Studio City, Calif., Fell is currently working in the entertainment industry and hopes to continue writing and directing films.

Thompson and Fell will return to Rice when “Unborn in the USA” debuts at Rice Media Center Oct. 19-21.