Culture under siege

Culture under siege

By Michael Horowitz / Daily Bruin Senior Staff

PARK CITY, UTAH — Parked at a corner on Main Street at the
epicenter of the Sundance Film Festival sits a huge, white,
bus-sized truck filled with music memorabilia. To the filmmakers of
"Hype," a Documentary Competition entry in this year’s festival,
the truck provides a traveling museum, a portable office and a
festival headquarters.

Director Steve Helvey and producer Doug Pray sit in the "Hype
truck" as they speak with The Bruin about their first film: a
hilarious and comprehensive look at the Seattle music scene.

Helvey, like Pray a recent graduate of UCLA’s Producer’s
Program, came up with the idea for "Hype" three-and-a-half years
ago. He recruited Pray, who had helmed videos for small Seattle
groups like Flop and the Young Fresh Fellows and knew a lot about
music, to direct the project.

"The idea kind of germinated out of his relationships with a lot
of the bands in Seattle, my interest in documentaries, and the
desire to make a film," remembers Helvey.

"So he approached me with this idea," explains Pray, "and I was
just like ‘Steve, this is the worst idea in the world. Right now,
Seattle is the world capitol of media cynicism. You can take a
point and shoot up there and get beat up.’"

But Helvey wasn’t interested in filming what he refers to as a
"rock star movie." In 1992, at the peak of the Seattle frenzy, in
Spin’s "Year of Grunge," the community was under seige from the
press and popular culture. As the movie would later chronicle,
"grunge fashion" and grunge muzak were global.

"I had a sense there was probably a story below the story,"
Helvey says. "There was something about the fact that the (Seattle
community) was so angry at the media that that was probably the
more interesting story. The more we heard of their being sick of
photographers chasing 12-year-olds down the street, and how
assaulted they felt … the more this movie was going to be the
story of these people being turned into a pop-culture commodity,
packaged, stamped and duplicated."

So Pray began talking to his Seattle connections and discovered
their distaste for cameras wasn’t absolute. "I started calling my
friends and asking about it," he says, "and you know what? They
weren’t that opposed to it."

"They were so sick of a Madison Avenue version that the idea of
a more basic documentary appealed," says Pray. "It wasn’t an easy
sell, but they didn’t say ‘no.’"

The two figured that "someone’s going to do this movie, it might
as well be us."

Thus began a three-and-a-half year process that relied on
grass-roots connections and dedication. Helvey was still in Howard
Suber’s Producer’s program during the start of "Hype." ("In an odd
way, this was my thesis project for UCLA," laughs Helvey. "I got
credit for the time I spent on this.")

"In many ways, I really think this film can be considered a
product of the Producer’s Program," says Helvey, "and definitely a
showcase of the things that are stressed in that program about
getting out, just making something and being independent."

The filmmakers gained credibility by taking the time to film and
study bands unknown outside Seattle – instead of the big five bands
everyone else in the press followed. They also gained sympathy from
the bands by running out of money and just waiting around. As
Helvey would venture back to L.A. for financing, Pray remained "on
location" to keep the project alive.

"I didn’t want to leave Seattle," says Pray. "That would be like
waving the white flag. Days turned into weeks turned into months
and we were in debt. It was kind of depressing, and I would just
hang out at bars and talk to people."

Helvey says after the shoot was over a friend of his explained
how the community overcame their distrust of the filmmakers. The
friend said, "’We kind of overcame our suspicions of Doug when he
was hanging out in bars, totally depressed, hadn’t shot in three
months. At that point we realized he’s definitely not Hollywood.
He’s the filmmaker equivalent of a broke punk rocker."

"In a tiny way it endeared us to the bands because we were kind
of losers," says Pray, smiling. The documentarians were able to
slip under the skin of the community and create the first film that
"gets" the Seattle music scene. Many of "Hype’s" most enjoyable
moments focus on incidents when outsiders are clearly grasping for
straws.

In what Pray calls "In fairness, a pretty well-documented hoax,"
"Hype" follows a 1991 story in the New York Times, the beacon of
print journalism.

The article professes to offer a "lexicon of grungespeak, coming
soon to a high school or mall near you," but "Hype" interviews the
source of the vocabulary lesson, a cynical, sarcastic sales rep at
Caroline Records named Megan Jasper, now revered in Seattle for the
help she offered the Times reporter. Among the phrases she shared
that ended up in print – "Wack slacks": old ripped jeans, "Swingin’
on the flippity-flop": hanging out, "Harsh realm": bummer, "Tom-tom
club": uncool outsiders and "Bloated, big bag of bloatation":
drunk.

"We were keeping articles when this came out," says Helvey. "I
remember reading it and calling Doug and saying ‘Have you seen any
of these words?’"

Ultimately, "Hype" divides its audience and the Seattle world in
two: those who get it and those who don’t. Pray sums up the
sensibility required: "If you’re somebody who’s sick of the Seattle
scene, sick of the idea of the Seattle scene, this movie is for
you."

* * *

Other strong documentary selections have helped Sundance’s 1996
nonfiction line-up be consistently stronger than last year’s. While
the impeccable "Crumb" won most of the honors last year, there was
a sharp quality drop-off after "Unzipped," the second-biggest
draw.

This year, the Documentary Competition boasts "Hype," "Celluloid
Closet’s" look at homophobia in Hollywood, the story of Orson
Welles’ "Battle Over ‘Citizen Kane,’" Jewish children escaping the
Holocaust in "My Knees Were Jumping," and Leon Gast’s intense and
far-reaching "When We Were Kings."

"When We Were Kings" chronicles the 1974 "Rumble in the Jungle,"
the epic Ali-Foreman title fight in Zaire. But the documentary
isn’t aimed at boxing enthusiasts, it uses the event to explore
black identity in the era. Muhammad Ali’s powerful socio-political
speeches blend seemlessly with his rhetorical self-promotion and
even a plea to America’s kids to eat natural foods because "we must
whoop Mr. Tooth decay." After following promoter Don King,
then-mean world champion George Foreman, Zaire dictator Mobutu, and
musical performers B.B. King and James Brown, "When We Were Kings"
ends with footage of the fight narrated by Norman Mailer, George
Plimpton and Spike Lee.

As of now, it’s the documentary to beat …

Doug Pray and Steve Helvey are in the spotlight at Sundance with
their film ‘Hype,’ AN exploration of the effect the media had on
Seattle’s music scene. Oh, and they got credit for the film from
UCLA.

Mark Arm of Mudhoney in the documentary "Hype."

A stage diver in Steve Helvey and Doug Pray’s documentary
"Hype."

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