Local documentary filmmaker Susan Marks is nearing completion on her feature-length doc Our Wildest Dreams: A True Crime Documentary of Dolls & Murder. The film is about the use of dollhouses during the 1930s and 40s to dissect and analyze crime scenes but also delves into our culture’s frenzy over forensics. I recently exchanged questions and answers with Susan about the project and her plans for it.

RC: How did you first become aware of the use of dollhouse crime scenes and what inspired you to make a film about them?

SM: About 10 years ago I read an article about the dollhouse crime scenes (aka The Nutshell Studies of Unexplained Death) and I was intrigued by the fact that a grandmother created these dollhouses back in the 1930s and 1940s to train homicide detectives.  I thought it would make a great subject for a documentary film, but my hands were full with grad school and my first documentary, The Betty Mystique, so I tried to forget about it.

Years later, I sill couldn’t get those miniature crime scenes out of my head, so I discussed it with my producing partner, John Dehn, and we decided to make a feature-length documentary about the dollhouses, plus our nation’s fascination with forensic justice television and the stories connected with death.

RC: What are some of the most interesting things you’ve learned about the subject/forensics/our society’s view of death while making the film?

SM: We’ve learned a lot of interesting, crazy, and disturbing things in while making the film. We’ve hung out with homicide detectives, morgue technicians, and a forensic anthropologist – seeing a lot of thing  we sort of wish we hadn’t. But on the very top of the list has got to be something we could never show in the film – the unforgettable stench of eighty dead bodies decomposing in a field at the Body Farm in Knoxville.

RC: Could you talk a little bit about the process of making this film?

SM: We knew that access would be a major consideration for this film because we wanted to shoot in places that the public doesn’t normally get to see. So we had to do a lot research to become as knowledgeable as possible. This also helped us to build trust with the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner in Maryland, the Baltimore City Police Department, the National Library of Medicine, The Body Farm, the Glessner Museum (the childhood home of the woman who created the dollhouses) and the executive producer of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation.

But before we shot, we chose our director of photography carefully. Besides shooting interviews and b-roll – typical for documentary films, we knew that these elaborate dollhouse crime scenes would factor heavily into the film, so we had to find a director of photography who could skillfully do it all. So we approached documentary filmmaker, Matt Ehling to serve as director of photography because we knew he had the shooting and filmmaking experience needed for this project, along with the collaborative spirit we were looking for. Luck for us, he said yes! And he truly went above and beyond anything we expected.

I should also add that we threw a fundraising party before we shot anything, which is pretty unusual for filmmakers to do without a tailer or any footage to screen. But I guess people liked the concept of the film enough show their support and learn more about the project. We raised enough money to go out to Baltimore to shoot a detective training, a morgue, the dollhouse crime scenes and several key interviews. From three days of shooting I created a 10 minute fundraising program. I submitted it to the Jerome Foundation and was generously awarded a grant the allowed me to finish the bulk of the shooting.

We are currently editing a rough cut and just recently, we recorded an opera singer, Joe Carl, who donated his  haunting vocals for our soundtrack. But we haven’t raised finishing funds yet, so this is preventing us from moving along quicker.

RC: How did you persuade John Waters to take part in the project by narrating the film?

SM: We didn’t need to persuade John Waters, per say. I approached him with the idea for the film and he liked it. He’s very familiar with dollhouse crime scenes (they both reside in Baltimore) and he also thought our film was a good fit for him. So it was just a matter of logistics and scheduling. And it worked out lovely. We recorded him last month and were most impressed with John and so happy that we had the chance to work with him. (Which is really putting it mildly!)

RC: Any idea on when the film will be ready for screening?

SM: As soon as humanly possible.

RC: What are your plans for it? Will you submit it to festivals? How does someone in your position go about getting your film screened and hopefully distributed?

SM: It’s hard to say at this point, but we will likely submit to film festivals.

RC: What other kinds of projects do you work on as producer/writer for your company Lazy Susan Productions?

SM: The lines between my freelance work and Lazy Susan Productions are often blurred, but I really like the projects I work on and feed passionate about them.  For example, right now I’m making webisodes for the Weisman Art Museum and writing a script for a woman’s shelter. In the past, I’ve made webisodes for Target and General Mills,  and a narrative educational film lead poisoning.

RC: I read that you are also a screenwriter… what are you working on? What kinds of stories and subject matter do you find yourself drawn to when you’re working on a feature-length (or short) narrative script?

SM: Right now I’m working on a screenplay, Bridal Bingo about a wedding shower that goes horribly wrong. And I have several other ideas for screenplays cooking on the back burner. I tend to like subject matter that appears very kitschy on the surface, but has a dark side underneath.

RC: Anything else you want to add…?

SM: I am proud to be a part of the independent filmmaking community in Minnesota and I hope that we will continue to support one another and help each other make the best films possible. And if you are interested in making a documentary film and connecting with the film community, I will be teaching a one day seminar at IFP on October 18th. We will focus on the art of doc storytelling. It should be a great class!

This post was written by Rebecca Collins, Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008 at 2:53 pm and is filed under Interviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.