导演剪辑版

Media 艺术 and Culture Professor Broderick Fox 去年，他是否在一个研讨会上向学生们展示了如何将所需的所有生产设备装进两个包里. “我基本上就像要用他们检查过的设备去拍摄一样,小狐说。, who has made three feature-length documentaries of his own during his 18 years at Oxy. “在某些方面，我创作作品的方式与我们的学生所处的条件非常相似. I’m literally using the same camera and editing system that they are. 而且我手下的人往往比分配给他们的人要小，”他笑着补充道.

福克斯的最新纪录片， Manscaping (whose tagline is “酷儿ing the barbershop”), may be his most accessible work to date. Since its world premiere at the Santa Fe (N.M.) Film Festival in February, the film has played at 21 festivals, including the British Film Institute’s BFI Flare festival in March and the Outfest L.A. 7月电影节—with more to come. “Outfest was really special for bringing together current and former students,小狐说, “even my grad school mentors and other members of the Oxy community.”

Fox graduated from Harvard in 1996 with a degree in biology and documentary film. “I went in thinking that I wanted to be a marine biologist,他说. “Unconsciously, I was putting together this liberal arts core experience.”

Intent on pursuing a career as a filmmaker, he went to graduate school at USC to study media production, where he was chosen to make a thesis film, which is a competitive process. 然后, 他说, “让我的几位导师非常震惊的是”——尽管他们中的许多人都非常支持——他选择攻读博士学位.D. 在批判性研究中.

“Integrating history, theory, and practice has always been innate to me,他说. “如果你不看过去的作品是如何制作的，你怎么能想到创作作品的道德责任或更大的可能性呢?? These are the questions that we are able to explore every day at Oxy.”

他补充说，在当前的数字时代，“我们的学生在很多层面上都获得了更多的经验. 从那时起，为了成为一名电影制作人而去读研的想法发生了深刻的变化. And I think we equip our students pretty well.”

When Fox set out to make his first documentary feature, 我的皮肤, 他发现自己正处在一个十字路口:当时他还是Oxy大学电影和媒体研究专业的兼职教授, 他的个人生活跌入了谷底——一次酒精引发的事件几乎让福克斯失去了生命. “Intellectually and emotionally, 我在很小的时候就避开了有组织的宗教，因为它与酷儿有关的令人担忧和排斥的做法,他回忆道. “我还没有培养出一种自我之外的精神感——也就是我们现在所认为的正念之类的东西. But that was a really hard moment.”

也许潜意识里, 福克斯转向电影制作是为了从创伤中寻找意义——探索酗酒是对与美国文化关系不稳定的一种反应. “我对自己施加了很多自我毁灭的行为，特别是对我的身体，”他说. “As I was entering into my 30s, I was trying to chart a more sustainable and meaningful balance between mind, body, 和精神.

“The idea of getting a tattoo,他解释道, 对我来说，这是一种思考方式，让我思考如何让一个我已经做了那么多流血和伤害的身体做一些更有意义的事情, 持久的, 和美丽的.

“数字技术的好处是，我可以在没有工作人员的情况下完成这项工作，”福克斯补充道. “I could do it at my own pace, and I gave myself the reassurance that I never had to show any of it to anyone.” After a six-year journey, 我的皮肤 had its premiere screening on the Oxy campus in February 2012. 在接下来的18个月里，它在11个国家的17个城市举办了电影节. 

作为一个电影制作人， 福克斯已经从创作一部自传体作品发展到将镜头向外，讲述一个人的故事，他以一种更有见地和更有根据的方式与一个社区一起面对死亡和死亡(禅宗与死亡的艺术， 2015年)转变为一种多人叙事，将三个不相关的生活置于对话中(Manscaping).

“I think of documentary’s potential as being inherently 酷儿: using intersectional and interdisciplinary frameworks to unpack perceived norms,” Fox writes in his director’s statement about the film. Manscaping 用理发和体毛作为一种质疑西方关于男子气概和男子气概的历史和文化观念的手段.”

在研究这个课题时, Fox contacted seven individuals—two barbers, 两位视觉艺术家, 两位表演艺术家, and a historian—filming six of them prior to the pandemic. Once he sat down in the editing room, 最能引起他共鸣的材料是三位将自己扎根于理发店实体空间的参与者:理查德·萨维(Richard Savvy), a fetish barber and 酷儿 activist in Sydney, 澳大利亚; transgender activist Jessie Anderson, who owns a trans-friendly barbershop in Vancouver, British Columbia; and Devan Shimoyama, an assistant professor at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, whose paintings examine his relationship with Black barbershops.

与 Manscaping, 小狐狸说, “这是我第一次真正探索将多个个体的经历交织在一起意味着什么. 我以一种类似于我要求我的学生去做的方式开始这部电影——思考哪些驱动问题将成为这个项目的基础, and not to have all the answers by any stretch of the imagination.”

When Fox gets to the editing stage, Lee biolos，他的搭档, 生产商, and sound recordist—is his first set of eyes and ears on his projects. “Lee also is an extraordinary dramaturg, having worked with playwrights and storytelling in the theater for decades,小狐说, “and we are not precious with each other around content. 我也觉得我越来越善于对自己所拥有的东西诚实. One of the blessings of editing my own work is that by the time I say a film is done, there is no stone left unturned in the material.”

在澳大利亚拍摄《十大正规网赌平台》的最后一天，福克斯意识到少了一些东西. “We had gotten some amazing material of Richard doing body grooming, but I realized that I hadn’t filmed him giving a haircut,小狐说. (Curiously enough, Fox has cut his own hair for the last two decades.)

“And so I told my partner, ‘You are getting a haircut,’” he continues. Like any good 生产商 would, Biolos stepped into the barber’s chair for the camera. “李安在电影中剃了一把剃刀，并得到了这个非常意想不到的反应，他在这个经历中流下了眼泪.”

在完成 Manscaping, Fox expanded his production team to include composer Ronit Kirchman, sound designer Scott Johnson, and Oxy’s director of digital media, 戴安娜·基勒09年, who did color grading and motion graphics for the film. He plans to do a screening at Oxy in the spring, around which time the film will be distributed digitally as well.

Has Fox thought about his next subject? “我的每一个作品——无论是上瘾和身体问题，还是死亡和垂死，还是关于身份和男子气概的问题——它们都是酷儿的镜头，折射了我所有的问题,他说. “但对我来说，它们都是有趣又脆弱的地方，既有魅力又有恐惧. And given the way in which I make documentaries, and the time I’m going to spend with this project or issue, 它能维持我的个人兴趣和投资吗?

“我认为下一个以某种方式开始形成的项目将围绕酷儿社区的老年和老龄化展开,小狐继续说道. “American culture more broadly has a fixation with youth and beauty, 但在酷儿群体中，有一些有趣而复杂的方式，在这些方式中，代际知识之间存在着脱节. 我很想探索这是什么，并可能尝试重新想象这种代际联系发生的方式.

“Maybe I did the films out of order,” he notes with a smile. “I should have done the aging one before I did the death one.” 

图片: Artist Devan Shimoyama gives himself a haircut in his Pittsburgh home.