artAffect Denver

artAffect Denver, directed by Rick Wayne. It runs 1:44 and was published in February 2020, nine months after the Reno film.

Two films for the same organization in two cities is a specific kind of assignment, and it is a harder one than a single commission. The second film cannot simply repeat the first with different faces, because an audience that has seen one will recognize the template immediately and stop watching for anything except the differences. It also cannot abandon the form, because the two pieces have to read as belonging to the same body of work. What has to stay constant is the point of view. What has to change is the place.

The Denver film is shorter than the Reno film by more than a minute, which is worth noting rather than explaining. Documentary runtime is a consequence of the material, not a target set in advance. A director working honestly with what a place actually gave up will end at different lengths in different cities, and a pair of films that both land at exactly the same duration is usually evidence of a template rather than of listening.

Wayne describes his method in terms that suit this. He forages, always after the extra shot and the moment nobody planned, because the edit deserves more than the day budgeted for. He holds that the best idea wins with no hierarchy attached, and he says real human emotion is a superpower and that the most affecting material he has captured came from people with no experience in front of a camera. On nonfiction about a community and its artists, all three of those positions describe the same practical habit: show up curious, stay longer than the schedule, and let the film be about who is actually there.

artAffect Denver and artAffect Reno sit in Wayne's documentary selection alongside the Open Sound and BuildOut trailers and the Close Talker piece with Michael Strahan.