One year ago, True/False’s hometown suddenly became the focus of the entire nation’s attention. Its major institution, the University of Missouri, was rocked by historic protests by the student group Concerned Student 1950. Last year also saw the launch of the Jonathan B. Murray Center for Documentary Journalism, an exciting new program overseen by Stacey Woelfel and T/F multi-alum Robert Greene. Three students from this new program, Adam Dietrich, Kellan Marvin and Varun Bajaj, embedded themselves in the Concerned Student movement in order to tell its story from the inside, capturing the rapid acceleration of events surrounding Jonathan Butler’s hunger strike, climaxing in the resignation of UM System President Tim Wolfe.

Dietrich, Marvin and Bajaj then began a collaboration with Field of Vision; a new documentary initiative led by nonfiction luminaries A.J. Schnack, Laura Poitras and Charlotte Cook. The final result was Concerned Student 1950, a powerful short film which had its world premiere in front of a rapturous crowd at the historic Missouri Theatre during True/False 2016. The film is now available to watch online.

Shortly after the 2016 fest, we got the chance to chat with Adam, Kellan and Varun about this whirlwind film…

True/False: To begin, could you tell me how you first got started covering this story?

Adam Dietrich: We were in class talking about some of the footage from the protest at the Homecoming parade that happened a couple weeks before and then looking at an article about the first day of the hunger strike. We had (Western co-director) Bill Ross in class guest lecturing that day. Our professor Stacey Woelfel posed the question “if you were going to try to make a movie about this, how would you do it?” Bill said you should just grab a camera, go shoot and figure it out as you go along. That started it for me. Right after class we got cameras and tried to go shoot. They didn’t let us in right away; they just gave us an email. I went through my Facebook friends and tried to find a connection to Jonathan Butler or one of the other original members of Concerned Student 1950. I found a woman who I used to work with who sent him a text message saying I was legit.

True/False: Can you tell me about how you built trust with the members of the movement in order to get access?

Varun Bajaj: We were very worried from the beginning about whitewashing this story, and we were very upfront about that worry and that we wanted to tell their narrative from their perspective. We maintained our access with our subjects because we put down our cameras as much as possible. We would help move water or set up tents, or stop to eat or pray with people. It was about those moments when we were we said “we’re students too and this affects all of us. It’s not just about us and our cameras. We’re students that are here supporting you as well as people who want to tell the story we are experiencing.” Just sharing a meal and praying with someone can go further than anyone can imagine.

T/F: I really like the way the film opens with juxtaposing the campus tour and the mock tour. Was that something you found right away?

Kellan Marvin: They rehearsed that tour of “the Real Mizzou” a couple times at the Black Cultural Center and then went out and performed it a couple times around campus. We had originally been playing around with the idea of cutting through that, from this location to this location, showing that they repeated it so many times. But it was never at the beginning. We originally wanted everything to be linear because we couldn’t really imagine telling the story working in any other way. The idea of placing that scene at the beginning was a cool thing that Erin Casper, the outside editor from Field of Vision, did when she came on. She had this outsider’s perspective. It didn’t really matter to her as much if things were out of order.

T/F: Could you tell me more about how the collaboration with Field of Vision began and how it worked?

AD: So Field of Vision:  A.J. Schnack, Laura Poitras, Charlotte Cook. The day before Tim Wolfe resigned A.J. called up Robert and asked if he could make a movie about what was happening. Robert said, “I’m not going to do that because I already have students out there filming” and A.J said “that’s even better, we want to see what they have.” Up until that point we had been filming, not for no reason, but with no endgame in mind. They kind of gave us a clear purpose.

VB: Once they got involved, things went from 0 to 60 pretty fast. We officially got Kellan on board, although she had already worked with us some.

Once we stopped shooting we put together an assembly for them and then it became a very collaborative process. At first Robert and Kellan were going to edit the film, but then Robert his film (Kate Plays Christine) into Sundance the same week, so they hired Erin out of New York. The three of us pretty much had final cut on everything, but between Laura, A.J., Robert and Stacey we had centuries of film experience working on this movie. It was really incredible. Just the concept that Laura Poitras is reading our notes and watching our film and helping us put it together is crazy.

AD: Erin and I would talk at least an hour a day for the last two or three weeks. She was sending us a new cut or at least scene edits every two or three days. Working with this group of people it was hard not to make something great. It was a lot of fun for sure.

T/F: Going back to that “Real Mizzou Tour” opening scene, I think it gives a good sense that this movement is an ongoing thing that isn’t just starting here.

VB: I think what I really like about that scene is that you get to see that these are students. They are practicing and learning every step of the way. You get to see the first time they perform it and then the last time, when they’ve done it four or five times. That last time they performed right after someone shouted “white power” at them.

We also wanted to something that showed our access. We had a lot of good footage that was shot outside that anyone could have had, but because we were the only ones who had access to the movement, we needed something right up front that showed that we had both the inside and the outside.

T/F: It is kind of interesting this idea of filming a performance, but shooting it in a way where the camera doesn’t just become part of the audience. Do you have any thoughts about that?

VB: I shot both of those scenes. When I shot the first one the thought in my head was “oh, they’re practicing? I can practice shooting.” That’s why I shot that first morning, which thank God I did.

The scene I’m most proud of shooting is that second protest, when you see them actually performing. As soon as they got there they lined up in the hallway, which was unusual. I figured out they were going to one at a time speak up front, and I figured screw it, I’ll be up front too to get the audience reaction, because I’ve already got them saying it five times, and it was a group of white women watching them. By the time the first two people went I realized how much more emotionally charged this version was going to be because they had just been berated by someone yelling “white power”. As soon as Taylor says “I’ve got a high GPA, I do what you want me to, but you still see us as just a bunch of the N-words” I immediately realized I needed to get the black students reacting to it too, because that’s not just an experience she’s had, that’s an experience that they’ve all had. So that’s why I walked over and filmed everyone else.

AD: I wasn’t in that specific room, but I had filmed all of the other protests up to that one. Being in those other rooms when they did that same protest, by the third one you’re kind of on autopilot. You’re not really hearing what they’re saying anymore, which kind of changes filming a documentary I think. Part of filming a documentary is that it’s always live and on-the-fly, but having that performance aspect, you get to refilm the same scene multiple times and fine-tune the pacing with them, it’s kind of like what I imagine filming a fiction film is like. The way I read that scene, especially not being in that room, I can feel Varun’s gut instinct, not listening, focusing on the framing and the mood of the room and everything else going on.

KM: And it’s more of a cinematic look. We shot on the (Canon EOS) 7D which I’m not a huge fan of because the zoom sucks. If he had been shooting as part of the audience you never would have gotten those shots of someone’s face while they are sobbing and sharing their story. That was the one thing that really impressed me, that he knew what his camera was capable of, which I think a lot of people don’t take into consideration. It’s not just an artistic eye, it’s knowledge of the equipment you are using.

T/F: Did you have an overall philosophy to doing interviews in the film?

VB: We didn’t do any of those interviews until a couple weeks after we stopped filming. Those interviews are all afterwards because we wanted it to be completely observational but we did not realize what we needed to do to make that happen.

T/F: Why did you feel like you needed them?

KM: We talked to Field of Vision, and they thought it was still not clear and that we had to use too many title cards. We were trying to get them to actually say out loud “this happened with Melissa Click, this happened with the media, this happened on such and such a day” so we didn’t have to use title card after title card after title card.

AD: For me, it allowed us to create a deeper sense of character. We had a lot of the same faces of the people who became our main characters in some of the earlier cuts, but we never really got to know them.

VB: The way we framed them talking directly to the camera, in the way I thought about it, they are not talking to us, they are talking directly to the viewer.

T/F: It is interesting inserting footage into a film that the audience is already familiar with, such as the scene of Wolfe in Kansas City interacting with protesters and particularly the Mark Schierbecker/Melissa Click video.

VB: I think those things are very familiar to an audience here in Columbia, I think the people watching this nationally and internationally would not be as familiar. The Tim Wolfe footage I don’t think people outside of Columbia have seen at all. The Mark Schierbecker video we didn’t have in there for a long time.

AD: There was a weird restructuring where we originally introduced that Melissa Click footage through some of our main characters watching it on a computer and talking about it, but we eventually decided to get rid of that and just use the footage itself because it is a little more immersive.

VB: I think that Schierbecker footage really plays because it’s almost a montage of journalists interacting with the protesters at that point. You have the build-up of the first kid outside the circle say “Bro, what are you doing, why are you blocking my camera?” And the second one in the circle says, ”You’re going to respect us” “Why are you turning your phone on?” “I’m just checking my notes”. And then the last one: “I’m just here to tell a story” “No you’re not”. I think it puts that one video in context of everything that was happening that day, especially because you see Melissa Click get manhandled earlier by that other reporter.

T/F: I really like the scene of Wolfe’s resignation and how you captured the weird energy in the room in the lead up.

AD: It’s awesome that you touch on that because that was something that we fought about and talked through and changed and restructured up until two days ago.

KM: What actually happened was that the conference call wasn’t working, so he actually resigned twice. Also, one of the curators stood up and said “Mr. Butler’s father is in the hallway if you want to talk to him.” And Wolfe was like “No, I just want to give my speech.” We originally wanted him saying that he resigned twice, but it made more sense to build the tension throughout the scene. Only we would find it funny that he resigns twice.

AD: It was about, like you said, the energy. Kellan and I were there that day and being in that moment was incredibly weird and uncomfortable. Restructuring the scene and moving things around was about trying to rebuild that energy without losing context, because to play that scene as a whole, him getting up and resigning, the conference call cutting him off and the technical difficulty, the curator talking about Mr. Butler in the hallway, and then another resignation, makes absolutely no sense in a storytelling sense. It doesn’t get any of the information to the viewer in a proper format; it’s just a mess. It is a pinnacle point of the story, but we also let the resignation be more than just “I resign” and tried to portray what that room felt like. So I’m just really stoked that you felt that energy.

VB: I wasn’t there, but my favorite part of the scene is when Tim Wolfe says to the guy on the phone “Can you hear me now?” because this is all about a lack of communication. That’s probably my favorite line in the movie.

T/F: I also think the final scene works really well. Can you tell me about deciding to end there? Because obviously this story is still going on, there are still things happening.

KM: We really didn’t really know when to stop. We were still filming stuff this semester. Originally we had another protest in Greektown and Jesse Hall, the “we are not afraid march”, in mind as the ending, but it was too much of a bookend. Too much of a happy ending.

VB: It’s still happening. We didn’t want an ending where it seemed like it was happy and it was over because it is not over and they are not happy.

Having it end with that town hall, DeRay (Mckesson) was in the room who is running for mayor of Baltimore, Netta (Elzie) was in the room from Ferguson, both huge activists, Jonathan was done with his hunger strike so he was feeling back to a hundred percent, but it was still so scary. I don’t know how to describe the emotion of that room other than powerful. So when you have Ayanna (Poole), who is one of the most powerful people I’ve ever met, leading that, with me right in her face. I didn’t know I had that footage at first, but I don’t think there was anything else we could have ended with.

AD: After going through it so many times, Erin sent us that idea in one of her cuts and it just stuck. I don’t think we even needed to talk about it. I don’t think it was ever disputed.

T/F: To finish, could you tell me about the experience of premiering the film at True/False?

VB: The way we got accepted to True/False is that Pamela (Cohn) reached out and then Kellan cut together the silent piece (featured on 2016’s The Great Wall). Once they saw that they were like “Wow, let’s see what else you guys have.” We had something to show them on Friday, told us they programmed it on Sunday, announced it on Wednesday morning and we finished the film Wednesday afternoon to play Saturday.

Eight days before our film premiered that we found out that True/False was interested.

AD: It was crazy.

T/F: How about the screening itself on Saturday night?

VB: It was like watching a home video with 1200 of your closest family and friends. People were cheering during it. And then when it ended, we had all eleven of the original (Concerned Student 1950) members and they just stood up and started chanting. It was chills and cheers. I kept crying and wanted to throw up. It was amazing, the fact that the students that allowed us to film them and did this amazing thing on campus could be a part of showing the film. We made it, but it has nothing to do with us is was about them. The fact that they could be a part of that screening was really, really special.

AD: It was insane. It didn’t feel real. The whole weekend of True/False it didn’t feel like it was actually going to happen and then sitting there in the audience watching it it didn’t feel it was happening. And then afterwards talking to Charlotte, who was the former programmer at Hot Docs, she said she didn’t think she had ever been in such an electric screening ever.

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Concerned Student 1950 is now available to watch online.