Speaking with Chris Temple
By AJ Tenser ‘23
Chris Temple, GFA '07, is a filmmaker and the director of documentaries such as “Living on One Dollar” and “Salam Neighbor”. He has a new documentary out now called “Five Years North”.
As well as speaking to the entire Upper School as a part of the Coyle Scholar program and visiting classes, Temple sat down for an interview with “The Beachside Press.”
Q: What first drew you into filmmaking?
So I call myself an accidental filmmaker. In college, I was really interested in understanding how there are a billion people around the world who live on under a dollar a day, so I came up with an idea to go live on $1 a day myself and make YouTube videos about what it was like to be in this community and to live on $1 a day. Those YouTube videos ended up sort of going viral and getting attention and people were really interested in this story, so I came back and I decided to try to make it into a documentary. I thought how hard could it be?
Throughout my junior and senior year of college I put together our first feature documentary which is called “Living On One Dollar”. And from there, you know, I just kind of fell in love with it as a medium to create change and to develop empathy for people. I've now started our nonprofit and everything out of that.
Q: What's the best part about your job?
There are so many good parts. One of the best parts about my job is getting to learn on a daily basis. So my job is to ask questions, to delve into stories, to listen, and then translate that into a creative output. I get to both learn and be creative.
I feel like if you can find a job that allows you to learn and be creative, no matter what it is, you're going to feel so rewarded on a daily basis because you're growing as a person, instead of simply crunching numbers or something that doesn't get you mentally stimulated.
Q: Would you consider yourself a documentary filmmaker?
Yeah, so it took me a while to call myself a documentary filmmaker because I've never taken a film class before. And I was coming at it from the idea of creating films to make an impact. And now I do call myself a documentary filmmaker, but it was like an identity crisis for many years because I had imposter syndrome. I didn't think I deserved to call myself a filmmaker because I didn't have any formal training. And now I am finally willing to accept that.
Q: So what's the actual process of making one of your films?
The process of making a film is extremely, extremely long, and it's an emotional roller coaster. I think for our last feature film, I made about 67 versions over a multiple-year period. And I think the lesson learned out of that is just to have this patience to allow your creative output to develop and to not worry so much, and really trust that creative process because it takes time and it takes iterations to get there.
Q: Which one of your films was your favorite to make and why?
I think our first film was the most fun to make because I didn't know what I was doing and I had no expectations. I had no pressure to make it good. It was just this free-form, creative experiment. I wasn't relying on it for my job, or for finances or to pay back investors or anything like that. It was just this experience of creating just with a few of my best friends and having something that was like a very, very authentic experience, in that way.
Now I feel like I know so much about film and about what I need in the footage and editing and how it all goes that I sort of lifted that curtain and I can see behind it now of how films are made. In some ways, there's a beauty in the first time you work, in a medium or in a creative art because it's all so fresh.
Q: How did your education now GFA prepare you for what you do now?
GFA was absolutely the foundation of my relationships and in the confidence to express myself. I'm still best friends with so many of my friends from this period and from this time. I would say the community, and the teachers are the things that I remember, in those having people who truly care about you as a person, not just shoving material in your head because now I don't remember a single thing that I learned, actually. While here, I remember the feeling of having someone who believes that you can do something.
