Jared Jakins and Professor Thomas Lefler, Theater Media Arts
Introduction
The production of this documentary has been extensive, and in the process the project was renamed “Ghosts on the Mountain.” The film examines the isolated lifestyle of H-‐2A guest workers in the American West by subtly exploring the emotions that come with their occupation. The film’s subjects leave family and native lands to work in the US on H-‐2A work visas, or no visas at all. Surrounded by breathtaking vistas, these workers find themselves in solitude and loneliness. This isolation is heightened by language barriers and the remoteness of the sheep’s pasture lands. They become, in a sense, “ghosts” to their communities, families, and to themselves.
Methodology
Preparations for the documentary began during the summer of 2012, when we made contacts with those in the sheep-‐farming sector and the lifestyle of this type of work was explored. Filming commenced the next summer of 2013 (May-‐August), following and filming four main migrant-‐worker sheepherders in the Manti-‐lasal National Forest. An intimate production crew was chosen—me, as the cinematographer, then a sound recordist. Using a small crew, we avoided overwhelming our subjects, were able to be mobile, and capture the herders in close quarters, such as their sheepcamps, or small camping trailers that the herders live in, isolated, year-‐round. We captured our footage using a “cinema verite” style, letting the camera roll with minimal interference from the filmmakers. We would interact with the herders as friends might, asking them how things had changed from our last visit, how they might feel about this or that, but most of the time, we just let them talk, and let things happen as they would. We wanted this film to show their story.
After collecting footage the summer of 2013, I set to work logging, editing, and subtitling the film. Because of the cinema verite style, there are hours upon hours of footage, and I had to pick out those parts that I thought best represented the herders as a group. With help from our mentor, Thomas Lefler, family, friends, and colleagues, we whittled it to a half-‐hour tv-‐show timeslot. We held formal pre-‐screenings of the documentary-‐in-‐progress to receive feedback from professors, students, and others not previously aware of our project. After these, I recruited fellow film students Ricardo Quintana and Kelyn Ikegami as producers. A music student, ____, was recruited to level all the sound in the film.
Results
After completing the film, we submitted to fifteen film festivals around the country. Of those, we have had the honor of being accepted and shown at these festivals to date: Final Cut Film Festival, Brigham Young University Awarded Audience Choice Award Outstanding Non-‐fiction Filmmaker Award Cine Las Americas Film Festival (Austin, Texas) North American Premiere Little Rock Film Festival, (Little Rock, Arkansas) In competition for Best US short documentary Society of Visual Anthropology Film & Media Festival (Washington, D.C.) Awarded Best Short Film Heartland Film Festival (Indianapolis, Indiana) Awarded Best Short Documentary Nomination for Rocky Mountain Regional Emmy Logan Film Festival (Logan, Utah) We were also invited to present an “Art Talks” screening and Q&A at Snow College in Ephraim Utah, which went very well. Nearly 100 students attended.
Discussion & Conclusion
Because of the nature of film and its distribution, the discussion on the project is ongoing, and much of what is being said happens in circles beyond my reach. In the film, viewers are visually invited to reconsider previous notions of what it means to be a migrant worker, a Latin-‐American worker in the United States, and/or an “illegal” worker. It opens discussion on the migrant worker’s importance to the food economy of the United States, and explores a job we do not often think about. Other viewers have left the film questioning their motives of their career, commute, and family priorities. As far as my personal thoughts on the film and its success, it validates my belief that the sheepherders have a story that needs to be heard, and perhaps needs to be heard on a larger scale. We are considering our options of adapting the film into a feature-‐length documentary as a possible next-‐step to creating a larger discussion of change.