Meet the Filmmakers: David Sauvage--'Carissa'

Over the next couple of weeks, we at IDA will be introducing our community to the filmmakers whose work will be represented in the DocuWeek^TM Theatrical Documentary Showcase, August 8-14 in New York City and August 22-28 in Los Angeles. We asked the filmmakers to share the stories behind their films---the inspirations, the challenges and obstacles, the goals and objectives, the reactions to their films so far.

So, to continue this series of conversations, here is David Sauvage, director/producer of Carissa.

Synopsis: Years ago, Carissa Phelps was abandoned in the lobby of the juvenile hall in Fresno. She ran away from group homes and ended up on the streets. Homeless and alone, she begged and stole to feed herself. With no one to turn to, Carissa was taken to "Motel Drive," a street known for prostitution, and told what to do; she was 12 years old. Amazingly, Carissa turned her life around. Today she is a graduate student at UCLA, earning a law degree and an MBA. Carissa recounts her inspirational story as we travel back with her to the places where it happened.

IDA: How did you get started in documentary filmmaking?

David Sauvage: My dad, Pierre Sauvage, is a documentary filmmaker. When I was growing up, he was working on a film called Weapons of the Spirit. I would occasionally pop into the editing room and watch. I thought it was awesome that you could piece together, with scissors and strips of film, a story of real people.

IDA: What inspired you to make Carissa?

DS: When Carissa told me her story one evening at UCLA, I was floored: Homeless on the streets of Fresno, forced into prostitution, locked up in juvenile hall--and now a law student and a business school student at UCLA. It was an amazing turnaround. Looking at Carissa, you couldn't imagine it. But there it was.

I was a classmate of hers, and I was looking for a story to tell. Most MBAs get summer internships where they dress up every day in business casual attire. I didn't want to do that. When Carissa and I talked, I realized I had this particular movie in me.

IDA: What were some of the challenges and obstacles in making this film, and how did you overcome them?

DS: At the outset, the biggest challenge was money. Fortunately, I was able to put my MBA to work, and together with Carissa and our fellow producer Chad Troutwine we raised a real budget from our amazing corporate sponsors, Virgin Mobile and the Los Angeles Dodgers Dream Foundation. But at first, it was tough using my meager student loans to rent camera equipment.

Shooting was sometimes brutal. My cinematographer, Jonathon Narducci, and I ran across some unsavory characters in the less friendly parts of Fresno. But no amount of urban decay could prepare me for the challenges of editing.

Here was the most intractable problem: Carissa, the subject of my film, had been exploited by two different pimps when she was 12 and 13. I found the first of these pimps, Icey Jackson, at the High Desert State Prison, serving 144 years for robberies. Unfortunately, I was not allowed to interview him, due to a ridiculous California state law. The second pimp was a fellow named Joe. Carissa and I not only found Joe, but I interviewed him for several hours. Amazingly, he confessed to his crime on camera-to pimping out a 13-year-old over several months.

The best moment of the interview came when I asked him whether the people who were "buying" Carissa felt bad about it.

Me: Did they ask how old she was?
Joe: I mean, I would tell them how old she was: 13. I mean, they didn't care.
Me: Did you?
Joe: [Shrugs.] At the time, you know, I didn't care. I was young and I just didn't care.

It was an unreal.

Trouble was, it didn't fit into the structure of the film. There was no way I could delineate Carissa's two pimps; it was always confusing, no matter where my indomitable editor, Aaron McAdams, and I put it. Still, we left Joe in. The exchange was just too good.

A few days before I locked, I showed the film to my executive producer, Davis Guggenheim, the brilliant director of An Inconvenient Truth. He said, "You don't win points just by having great moments. It's not cumulative. If it doesn't advance the underlying truth, it doesn't belong. Period."

I cut the scene. It was the hardest thing I did on the film.

IDA: How did your vision for the film change over the course of the pre-production, production and post-production processes?

DS: I had a vision of Carissa wandering around the places where her life had unfolded, and I saw that vision all the way to the end. I always thought I could let life happen naturally, then piece the footage together into a coherent and compelling story about a girl who turned her life around.

Somewhere in the middle of editing, though, my editor Aaron and I realized there was much more there, so many stories. We thought we had a movie about family. We thought we had a movie about memory. We thought we had a movie about the human need for attention and how that played out both in Carissa's life and the film itself.

Then, finally, we went back to the original theme-a movie about transformation. That was, we realized, the thing that made Carissa's story important. Sometimes you have to go a long way around to end up at the same place you started. But now you know you belong there.

IDA: As you've screened Carissa--whether on the festival circuit, or in screening rooms, or in living rooms--how have audiences reacted to the film? What has been most surprising or unexpected about their reactions?

DS: The reactions are almost all positive, which has been very gratifying. There's one really funny moment in the film, one that I was hoping would fly. Nearly every time, it gets a laugh!

IDA: What docs or docmakers have served as inspirations for you?

DS: Can I say my father, Pierre Sauvage? I have to imagine he was the most important influence.

One thing he did particularly well in Weapons of the Spirit was to let moments breathe. If someone was having an emotional experience during an interview, he would tap into that experience so as to capture it most honestly. Most interviewers either miss the moment altogether or condescend to it. I was able to do better in Carissa because I naturally mimicked my father's demeanor. That is why, I think, the characters in the film reveal themselves so thoroughly. They had the emotional room they needed.

Carissa will be screening at the Arclight Hollywood.

To view the DocuWeek schedule in Los Angeles, visit
http://www.documentary.org/content/docuweek-los-angeles.

To purchase tickets to DocuWeek at the ArcLight Hollywood, visit www.arclightcinemas.com.