Edinburgh based director Peter Gerard is encouraging audiences to download his latest film Just to Get a Rep- the definitive graffiti/hip hop documentary. Viewers either pay and download or watch first and then decide what to pay. The ticket price? Whatever you think it’s worth.

I grew up in Missouri, where I made my first documentary “Out of Breath” with friend Aaron Davis. We were teenagers at the time and made a bit of a navel-gazing piece about teen angst in Columbia, our mid-sized college-town. The film won the audience award at a film festival in Portland, Oregon, which inspired Aaron and I to start our own film festival- Bargain Basement Film Festival. We ran it for two years in Columbia and made a great success out of sharing ultra-low-budget films with our local community.

What then prompted the move overseas to Scotland? And how was your production company formed?

I got a scholarship to study at USC (University of Southern California) in Los Angeles. I found the experience of living in that artificial oasis in the concrete desert rather suffocating. USC is also known as the University of Spoiled Children. That became particularly clear when George H. Bush gave a speech on campus and I challenged his foreign policy during the Q&A. I was booed out of the auditorium and became the target of hate-mail. So I quickly looked for a way out, and ended up on a study exchange in Edinburgh. I’ve been here now for 9 years and don’t often look back.
Accidental Media was born back in the 90s when Aaron and I were trying to create a film scene in Missouri. He and I started shooting “Just to Get a Rep” just before I moved to Scotland, but we soon followed different paths so I finished the film myself over the following 4-5 years.

Why did you decide to look into the cultural history of graffiti art?

I fell in love with hip-hop music when I was a teenager. We used to try to rap and DJ, but graffiti didn’t have much of a presence in my town. As I learned more about hip-hop I became intrigued by the myth of the “four elements” and the excitement of graffiti. Then Aaron and I heard about Paint Louis - a massive graffiti event in Missouri, just a couple hours from our home. We decided it was worth a short documentary….

How long did this project take from initial idea to completion?

What started as a week or two and a fun little idea turned into a deep passion for me. I was mesmerised by the massive paintings writers can put up quickly and freely. The ephemeral nature of the art really drew me in. It’s simultaneously anti-authority and anti-consumerist. And then there’s the community. It makes me sick when I see police campaigns labelling graffiti as “anti-social behaviour”. Writers are the most welcoming and friendly people I have ever met. If you’re in the graffiti community you can travel anywhere in the world and instantly find people to paint with. I received excellent hospitality all over Europe and the U.S. from writers who welcomed me into their homes, told me their stories and took me out bombing.

The film focuses on the manufactured link between hip hop and graffiti art, were you aware of this before shooting or was this something you uncovered during the process?

The accepted story of hip-hop and graffiti is so widespread these days that you really have to work to find the truth. For the first few months of filming I was pretty naive about this link. I was filming a lot of guys in the UK who accepted the package of rap, DJing, break dancing and graffiti. Then I started to do my research and hunted down some of the legends from the 1970s - guys like Blade and Comet, who were painting on trains years before Kool Herc had even created a “break” and a decade before “hip hop” even meant anything. I needed a story to tell in the film, and I had found it. How did we get to a point where the history of the culture had become so distorted? I worked hard to find artists from the 1970s and the key players who were involved in the creation of “hip hop” in the 1980s. I tried to structure the film to follow my path of discovery, but that was getting quite confusing so I eventually got to the edit you can see today. I don’t have a problem with the “hip hop” package per se as this myth has influenced a lot of amazing artists both in graffiti and rap. However, I think it’s important to understand your roots and to hear people who never had a chance to tell their story before.

The ‘writers’ paint a colourful history with amusing and genuine accounts of their culture, whose story did you, enjoy the most?

I don’t like to speak in binaries like “best/most”, so I’ll skip that one and tell a story about an amazing artist who unfortunately is not in the film. PHASE2 (later known as “TRUE”) was one of the original style-masters in the early 1970s, widely credited with inventing a lot of the techniques that continue to define graffiti even today. He co-wrote a book (Style: Writing from the UnderGround) that tells one of the most accurate stories of the early writing scene. I did my best to track him down and eventually interviewed his publisher and had a long email conversation with TRUE. He speaks out eloquently and creatively against the way aerosol culture was mis-represented, mis-labelled and taken advantage of repeatedly. I shouldn’t even use the term “graffiti” because it is a negative term applied by the establishment. Everyone from that era says: they are “writers”- just writing their names. There’s something about that simple need to express one’s identity that has resonated with thousands, if not millions, of writers around the world. It’s true, it’s not “graffiti”, it is “writing”. Writing something important, something temporary, something marginalised - your name.

So far what has been the response to the documentary?

At festivals it was always really well received. Le Monde in France wrote a good review. But for too long “Just to Get a Rep” hasn’t been readily available to its most important audience. The reviews people are blogging now really make me feel like I’ve achieved what I set out to do. Thousands have downloaded it and I’m getting donations, which is great.

You are now encouraging the pay-what-you-feel download; this is an interesting method of distribution, what inspired it?

I’m simply asking people to pay what they think it is worth. If it’s worth nothing to them, then they can have it for free. Of course worth and value are all relative, and I’m happy for people to give what they feel is appropriate.

Film distribution can be a frustrating business. When you’ve gone out on your own and just made a film without any support from the industry, it’s incredibly difficult to get a deal, and even harder to get a deal that pays. “Just to Get a Rep” has sold in four continents, but I’ve never really made any money off the broadcasts or DVD-releases. This is a common story for independent filmmakers, and I believe we need to take control of our work and use the new tools that are becoming available to reach our audiences directly and personally.
We are embracing the spirit of aerosol culture. The freedom of expression, the way writers give away their paintings even if they get removed or painted over the next day. It’s an amazing culture of sharing, and it’s only fitting to put the film out in this way. The aerosol art community has given me an incredible amount of stories and generosity throughout the making of this film.

What future projects do Accidental Media have planned?

We’ve got some exciting stuff going on. We’re working hard to finish our next feature-doc “Eat Songs” - a darkly comic tale of two well-meaning filmmakers who dive too deep into an African musician’s incredible dream, trapping themselves in a cycle of dependence that challenges their intentions and strains their friendships to the breaking point.

Also look out for my new short film  “Motion/Static” that premiered at the IDFA in November.

Don’t miss out- download the film and contribute at www.justtogetarep.com

For more information on the team at Accidental Media and their projects follow www.accidental.tv

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This article was published in Scotcampus (Dec 09)
www.scotcampus.com/december09