JPG: Now you said good story or potential for one. As you’re going in do you have a fixed focus — you have to have some kind of plan of attack — or how malleable is that? Did you have to have one vision of things and it panned out in the editing room or do you just shoot tons of interesting stuff and when you get to the editing room, you put the pieces of the puzzle together?
JK: I like to plan. I feel better, especially before a big undertaking. So I have 20-something pages of notes going into the shoot. And I have things, shot lists, and things that I thought were interesting and work them into questions for people. But, thankfully, I don’t get too upset when the plan doesn’t work out. And what ended up happening is it ended up being half of the film I thought I was going to make, and half dictated by the events that happened. When something presents itself, it’s a gift. You have to go with it. You gotta go with what seems like the story is at that time.
JPG: In the case of the Rainbow Gathering, how did you get the trust and were you able to get it before you even arrived or did you work on it the whole time you were there?
JK: The trust was tough, and it was something I started, basically, a year before the shoot. There was this big regional gathering back in Allegheny and I went to that and just started seeing if it was how I remembered it, and talking to people about filming and listening to what they had to say about it. I kept going to local events, like local pot lucks throughout the year, talking to anybody who would talk to me. And I would just listen to what their concerns were, tried to get as good of an idea of what I would expect. I was mostly expecting to have people surround me and give me hugs and tell me they love me, but they’re not going to let me film them and this and that. I really expected to get no footage, except of people saying, ‘Put the camera away. I love you bro.’ But, people got to know me. They checked me out ahead of time. People that I knew knew them so they said, ‘Okay, he’s this guy. They know him. He’s not some agent provocateur or something like that.’ And then it was just a matter of being patient at the Gathering and not trying to bust in all gang busters. We didn’t get nearly as much footage as I would have liked to for the 10 days we were there, but it was better than not getting any at all.
JPG: I’ve seen many people at shows and on tour among the jamband who easily look like those you filmed. Dealing with the attendees that are there, do you think that a big part of the criticisms and hassles is a matter that they’re not clean-cut looking folks that are there who would be driving an SUV and wearing khakis and golf shirts…
JK: Yea. One of the things that Rainbows always say is they’re trying to create this temporary alternate world. They call the outside world ‘Babylon’ and they always say Babylon is always there and it’s affecting people’s decisions at the Gathering and it’s affecting the Gathering. I think that’s it.
People on tour probably most of them, are probably middle class, at least, because when you go to see a band like Phish or you go to any of the big music festivals, tickets sometimes cost a couple hundred bucks, not to mention going there and everything. At the Rainbow Gathering, there is no ticket to get in, so I think that makes it more popular with working class people or totally on the fringes. So, it makes it popular with those people and to some degree people are prejudice against people if they don’t have money or if they’re poor or they’re choosing to live this very alternate lifestyle, that they rather eat garbage than eat an animal.
JPG: Now, you had already attended one but filming it, nearly 10 years later, were there aspects that surprised you in a positive or negative way?
JK: No. That’s a good question. I was most surprised that even with a camera there, people still treated me like I was there at the Gathering and I should have the Gathering experience. That was the most surprising thing that people were so nice to us and took the time to trust us. It was a little inspiring, especially based on some of the expectations that I had. There are no rules at the Rainbow Gathering according to Rainbows because there is nothing official about it. It’s supposed to be this anarchic thing. There are certain things that are tradition, supposedly had consensus at some point or another, because those are the only things that most people agree are rules. But even some people would be like, ‘I don’t believe in consensus, I wasn’t there.’ The camera thing was a long standing one, but it was changing a lot already because everyone’s got a camera, everything is a camera, your cell phone’s a camera, everybody’s on Facebook and they need to have a cool picture of themselves doing something cool, so they can put it on Facebook. So, everybody’s been pushing the limit.
Plus, people are really starting to see, having video, press and cameras, being like an ally for them because they’ve been feeling like they’ve been oppressed by the incoming command team and they felt like this was a way to help fight back against that. And the fact that we were there, doing this big production, and it just so happened to be the same year that the worst example of that abuse happened. In the Rainbow mythology it’s kind of meant to be. So, I agree with that, that it was meant to be.
JPG: Speaking of that incident at the Kid Village, was that you who got yelled at by the forest service official of the National Incident Management Team (NIMT) to leave the area?
JK: Yeah, weird thing. It’s a weird story and I think it’s kind of like the demonstrative of the whole Rainbow weird experience, too. I was there for the whole incident, from the beginning to end. I happened to be getting water in Kid Village and from the very beginning when they came into Kid Village I noticed them and was watching them. The film crew was a mile away, had wrapped for the day. It was like a really long day, many people hadn’t eaten. So, I’m standing there watching the whole thing, the sides started to form and they started shooting, and I was one of the first people that realized that it was pepper balls because people thought they were rubber bullets. It’s weird because there’s video of the whole thing, so I know exactly what I was doing. I was yelling, ‘Get the kids away! It’s pepper gas!’ They had aiming lasers on their guns. At one point, I’m standing there, and I looked down at my shirt and there’s like three or four aiming lasers on my shirt; a weird, very cinematic experience.
Now, in true Rainbow fashion, there is a job that needs to be done, and some Rainbow will step up and do the job, and, luckily, hopefully, more than one Rainbow steps up and does the job. And that’s what happened. A couple people had cameras, one of them, in particular, was able to hold it steady throughout the whole thing and make sure that they got most of it. And she was really nice about getting me the footage; actually had to mail it twice because the file was corrupted the first time. Didn’t want any money or anything. Was just happy to help out. That’s what we had. Interestingly, that wasn’t me who had the taser pointed at his face, but I also had a taser pointed at my face. It’s weird. At one point, a little bit more than halfway through this whole weird confrontation, the backup started to arrive. And the backup had R-15s. They all had real guns, like their sidearms, but then people starting coming in with these assault rifles and I got really scared. I remembered that I didn’t have a camera, I had a press ID and so I held it up. Honestly, I guess it was like self preservation. Consciously, I also thought, ‘Okay, maybe they’ll be less likely to kill everyone here if they see that somebody from the press is here.’ One of the guys came up to me, I was not saying anything, I wasn’t like moving anybody or being threatening, came up to me, pointed his taser right in my face, like right at my face, not even a couple feet away and said, ‘I don’t give a fuck about your press ID. Get down the hill or I’m going to tase you!’ I didn’t say, ‘Don’t tase me bro’ or anything. I got down the hill.
JPG: I guess it’s nice to know that no incidents happened in 2009 that sound remotely like that.
JK: I didn’t see any really bad stuff. I saw the typical car searches and stuff. Overall, people said that there weren’t too many incidences. Early on, apparently, there was some bad stuff where they were coming in with their guns out, just like rolling up on camps, but there was also US Marshals there to watch the incident command team. I guess they were being monitored.
JPG: As a documentary filmmaker, do you have plans for your next subject or are you seeing where this takes you?
JK: You know, that’s a good question, we’re going to continue to screen it and pursue doing the feature length. There’s two other projects that I’m really feeling strongly called to right now. I’m in a pre-production on one, just got the idea for the other one from yesterday, still mulling it over.
My wife and I were both in the twin towers on September 11 before the plane hit, not like at the top floor running down… A strange story, I was feeling strongly called to do a short animated documentary about me and my wife’s experience on September 11. I just think we had a unique perspective on it. I think it’s part of the healing process for a lot of us now. It’s time to start thinking about it again.
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