Creating a documentary

Semester one 2021, we had to develop a pitch for a documentary.

I wanted to explore the polarizing effects graffiti can have on youth trying to express themselves artistically. I spent some time at the Yarra Youth Centre, where a program is run inviting kids from the area to hone their graff skills and also mentor them as young adults.

This idea pitched got selected.

My original goal was to cover this as the story, however, things didn't feel right in the moment, covid had things going on and off, I had class the day of the workshop and I hadn’t spent enough time to develop anything together.

The film was due to be shot in 3/4 weeks time and I didn’t have a participant, just an idea.

After my pitch was selected we arrived at doco class, assembled a crew and were given the cameras and told to go interview someone on the street for 2 hours and come back to return the gear before the end of class. Kind of a practise interview.

I went straight to Alley Tunes cafe around the corner from our classroom, with the idea of interviewing the French bloke Max out the back who sells records. I thought it would be an interesting story, however he wasn’t there. Farb was. Busy uploading records onto Discogs, He mentioned, "why don't you go interview that artist out the front, he’s does graphic design and other stuff". I went outside to check if he was keen and he was. His name is Alex Chachi. I start explaining briefly what our project was and that we just needed to test out interviewing somebody. Alex looked back at me and said "you've come to the right person". We instantly clicked. Fortunately, my friend Enzo and I had gone wheat pasting all over that area a week before. You could see at least 6 paste ups from where we were sitting by the train line as we had our coffee. I thought I'd mention that to establish some commonality. He responded "Ahhhhh...that was fucking you!". From that moment on we had each other's trust.

For the next hour, we bonded across many aspects of life and values. I knew I had just made a close friend. Alex poured out this incredibly passionate story of the evolution of his artwork, linked to expression and how he used and still uses art to process and release a lot of emotional experiences in his life.

This story turned out to be more or less the same premise I had pitched to the class - a clear example of the importance of artistic expression amongst graffiti culture. The rest of the crew were equally in shock and awe. By total fate, we stumbled across this articulate, incredibly talented artist Alex Chachi, who was so eagerly ready to share a mutual vision. The project became clear.