12 O'Clock Boys
Open City Docs Festival is in full swing in London and 12 O’Clock Boys is one of the movies that are being screened this weekend.
The movie marks the feature film directorial debut of Lotfy Nathan, who spent three years filming a notorious dirt-bike gang in Baltimore.
We caught up with the filmmaker to chat about the film, working his way into this group and what lies ahead.
- 12 O'Clock Boys is your new movie so can you tell me a little bit about the film?
12 O’Clock Boys is a documentary about a young boy called Pug who is growing up in inner city Baltimore. He aspires to join an illegal dirt-bike group
- So where did this project start for you? And where did you interest in this subject begin?
I was living in Baltimore where I was attending school for painting; I have no links to Baltimore as I am born in England. I had just seen this very intimidating motorcycle pack tearing through the streets on a Sunday while I was attending school there.
I thought that it would be interesting to try and film them from a distance as they just seemed so alluring and exotic; they were almost like a bunch of pirates.
I showed up to where they congregated with a camera and they were really receptive to the idea of being filmed. So from there I just got deeper and deeper into the subject matter.
- That leads me into my next question as this movie really gets into the lives of Pug and the guys that are involved in that lifestyle and I was wondering how welcoming they were towards you?
Yeah, I would say that they did. I think that they appreciated someone who wanted to know about them but was coming from the outside.
The whole foundation of the group is to show off and exercise your audacity - it is like peacocking - so I think that that was another reason why I was brought in.
It did take time to gain an active trust and to get some stories out of them, some revelations and their take on the city.
- You spend a lot of time of Pug so what kind of relationship did you build with him during filming?
It was a funny relationship. He is not like the easiest kid; he is sweet and he has this vulnerability but he already has this hard edge to him.
Through the time that I knew him he was exercising more and more what it is to be a man in his perspective - that was always interesting. But we became friends.
- How difficult was it for you as you built up this relationship to see him want to be part of that group and put himself in harms way?
It was difficult and the moral quandary of the whole effort was crystallised with that. I liked this kid I wanted to look out for him and yet he is trying to join this group, which was all part of the story of the film, but what if something happens?
But ultimately I just had to appreciate the fact that he was gunning for this acceptance way before I came along, and would be regardless. It was part of his ethos.
For me to just come and try to think that I could steer him away from that just in passing knowing that I am not actually in that world… on one hand I felt passive and on the other hand I did share with him my take on things and my perspective of what is important and what he should be trying to do.
I didn’t pretend that I was just going to come in and reform this kid - you can see that he is very strong-willed.
- Watching the movie you get a real sense of the danger that the dirt-bikers put themselves and other people in but what was it like seeing that first hand?
It was all sorts of things; I found myself on either side of it in my opinion. Sometimes I thought it was really thrilling and other times I thought that it was just far too dangerous. I certainly met some consequences at times and that was certainly very sobering.
But all in all I was just trying to get in as close as possible. A lot of the time I just put aside my caution in the name of filming; when I look back on it I did really put myself in some really stupid situations to film. I really can’t believe that I did that and I wouldn’t necessarily do it again.
- The filming took three years did you intend for the shooting process to take so long? And why did it take so long?
I definitely didn’t intend for that; in fact I thought it was done every year (laughs). At the end of every summer I would say ‘that is it’ and would expect to find clarity in the editing process.
It took so long because I wasn’t finished filming yet and, like I said before, developing a real trust takes time.
There was more to be done and there was some closure that didn’t exist yet. I was definitely imposing a lot more at the end of the filming and that helped to steer it and consolidate it.
- Can you talk a bit about the editing process as you had three years worth of footage to cut down and piece together so how difficult a task was that?
I had a really incredible editor - he was a first time editor - called Thomas Niles and he really went right to work.
I had three hundred hours or so distilled to about four hours and I had maybe five key things that I wanted to get across. So it was just six months of really intensive work and Thomas worked tirelessly.
He has a real respect and intimacy with these characters that he had never met before - I think to have someone who had no real knowledge of it but a connection to the character to the footage was what it took in the end.
- When you set out on this project you had an idea of the story that you wanted to tell with this movie. As you got the footage over the years how did that story change?
I didn’t necessarily have a story at first I think I had more of a thesis that I wanted to answer; ‘why do they ride?’ Also aesthetically and visually I wanted to illustrate what it feels like, what it looks like and what the rush is; I think one answers this other.
So that is all I had going into it and I didn’t meet Pug until a couple of years into filming.
I had a sense that he was a really colourful character and there was something to his expression as there was a vulnerability on his face while he is trying to be one of these guys.
I thought he could be an entry point into the whole thing and be a good way of explaining why it exists. But then I had to find a story in Pug’s life; there was so much going on with them that it was just a matter of tying it down.
- By the end of the film we do see Pug doing well in school so what do you think the future holds for him - it is quite an ambiguous end?
It is intentionally ambiguous as I didn’t want to put a bow on the end of it because it remains to be seen what Pug does. His mother is trying her best and it is not easy.
But he definitely wants to be a vet and I think he is going to start by getting a job at a pet shop.
- How have you found the response to the film so far?
The response has been really positive. There has been some controversy around it but, by and large, people seem to understand the dangers and the consequences implicit.
I didn’t want to have this talking head and issue driven film - but the issue is there. But it is not necessarily seen as a celebration. Hopefully it will appeal to both sides.
- The film is going to be opening the Open City Docs Festival in London so how much are you looking forward to showing this film to a UK crowd?
I am really looking forward to it and I hope people in the UK can understand it because it is a totally different dialect. So we will see how that works.
- This movie marks your feature length directorial debut so how did you find being in the director's chair for the first time?
It was a great experience. It is what I want to do in the future and it has given me an appetite to try and engage in some fiction work as well.
But it was exciting. It was also very arduous and I think that I was just as much a producer as I was a director, but that is just what you have to do.
- Finally what is next for you? You have mentioned you would like to do fiction but do you plan to stay with documentary film as well?
Yeah I definitely want to stay with documentary and I have a couple of ideas. So I am in development with a couple of projects at the moment.
Read our 12 O'Clock Boys Review