Liz Turner & Reese Dillard—filmmakers who won the “7 Conversations in 7 Days” YouTube Video Contest—discuss messaging in 105 seconds and the financial aspect of marriage limitations imposed on same-sex couples.

FILM: Left Alone – A Freedom to Marry Short by Liz Turner and Reese Dillard.

Interview By RONAMBER DELONEY
Published: Issue 1, Summer 2009

When you found out about the contest, what were your immediate ideas and why did you decide on the theme you ultimately chose? REESE: The first thing I thought about was how people in the LGBT community tend to be dehumanized by our heterosexual peers. So the objective for me was to emphasize the emotions that we all feel as human beings, particularly the pain of losing someone you love. LIZ: We had a few ideas, but the one that resonated was dealing with the emotional distress, legalities, and injustice that occurs when a person in a relationship dies and their partner/spouse is not [legally] protected.

Why did you focus deeply on the financial aspect of the couple in your film? Why do you feel that the question of inheritance—in same-sex couple relationships—is overlooked by those who argue against gay marriage? LIZ: We chose to focus on the financial aspect because a lot of people don’t take that aspect into consideration when they oppose same sex marriage. It is extremely unfortunate to lose everything that you’ve created with another person due to the legalities that prohibit such a union. REESE: We felt exposing discrimination in financial terms would be something that everyone on every level could understand. In our American landscape, people are dealing with having their financial lives turned upside down because imbalances in our social system and laws favor certain groups of people over others.

As a filmmaker, is there a certain process from concept to execution that you follow when you create? REESE: When collaborating on projects, we tend to brainstorm individually and then come together and present our ideas to one another. From there we engage in a process of adding to one another’s ideas until we come up with a concept that we both like.

Since the contest asked for short documentaries, how did you handle selecting material that you could and couldn’t include? Do you feel like you had to compromise any part of your objective in order to make the documentary short? LIZ: Shorts are a challenge since you have limited time to tell a story and get your point across. They are also a blessing because more people tend to watch until the end because of the length. I don’t think we had to compromise much because of the short category. The contest allotted for five minutes and we barely used two. The script was on point since it gave you a lot of information within the first minute.

As an artist, why do you feel it is important to tap into your creativity despite your frustration with the gay marriage ban? REESE: As artists, our creativity allows us to find answers and make peace with our world. It allows us to use our own interpretation to assess how we feel and to not rely on how we are told to or expected to feel, which I feel is a revolutionary act in and of itself.

How do you think viral media like YouTube that make it easy to share video materials can be used to create more artistic works for social justice issues? LIZ: It is a new frontier that is about to be explored. I’m seeing a lot of grassroots organizations, non-profits, and foundations catch on and see that you can reach a huge demographic and also create a buzz. I’m excited. As an artist, I’m able to get a range of feedback on my work that was previously limited. I think there should be funding for online campaigns. TAP