Hometown

Small-town America is in the grips of a silent addiction. Filmmaker, Brandon Lavoie has created a film that highlights the human element of this addiction and allows the viewer to gain an inside look into how it affects family, friends and the wider communities. Brandon talks about how this project came to him and the he was able to capture what he has.

“Although I live in NYC now, I’m originally from the small town of Salem, New Hampshire, located about 30 minutes north of Boston, Massachusetts. Like many communities around the United States, Salem, the surrounding towns, and really the whole state of New Hampshire have been hit particularly hard by the current opioid epidemic. A few years ago, I started seeing a massive increase in the number of obituaries of people I grew up with inundating my Facebook newsfeed. It was really hard to take. A lot of these obituaries would list “died suddenly” as the cause of death. I was having a difficult time coming to terms with and grasping that concept – so many young and vibrant individuals that I grew up with “dying suddenly” in their 20’s. Eventually word would travel through private messages and come to find out, in most cases, these people had succumbed to opioid addiction and lost their lives to overdose.”

“In early May of 2016, a classmate I had been in homerooms and worked at the grocery store with while growing up, Shane Walsh, passed away due to a fentanyl overdose. What captured my attention was the fact that Shane’s family had decided to state in his obituary, under no uncertain terms, that he had passed away after a long and hard-fought battle with addiction. That he had worked hard for the sobriety he was able to achieve prior to passing away. I immediately remember thinking how brave that was. It’s not that the other families who had lost loved ones and chose to not state that the cause of death was due to overdose, were not brave. Not at all. Honestly, I think in most small communities it’s stigmatized whenever people talk about the issues themselves or their families may currently be dealing with. I think that’s a huge reason why addiction has become so stigmatized as well. So, to see Shane’s family take on that stigma and try to squash it with a few sentences took me aback.”

“I thought about how I had never seen a documentary that worked to humanize the face of the opioid epidemic. It’s always about the shock value – seeing people shoot up, or people prepping their drugs right before. Personally, I think that perpetuates the stigma. I wanted to try and give the epidemic, through the eyes of mother who’s lost her son, and the first responders dealing with the issue on the front lines every day, a human face. I reached out to Lisa over Facebook messenger, and a couple weeks later we were filming an interview in Shane’s room.”

“What became evident quickly was that we were going to have to weave two narratives together – The narrative of how Shane became involved with opioids, eventually passing away from them, and the narrative of how opioids had become such a big issue in the area and the various viewpoints surrounding that issue. I think in total I filmed with about 12 people just trying to figure out what points we’d need to hit, from who’s perspective and voice. Once I felt I had gotten enough in the field and brought the footage back to film’s co-producer and editor, Brady Darragh, he was able to hone in and build an arc that intertwined the two narratives in a way I was psyched about. He brought out things and made connections that I hadn’t initially seen.”

"New Hampshire have been hit particularly hard by the current opioid epidemic."

“The next challenge would be bringing Shane’s character to life. Lisa, his mother, does such an amazing job of being his voice - but a lot of times, docs that reference a main character posthumously, have to rely on a lot of home video or archival footage of that character. In this case, there were no home videos or archival footage of Shane. I had been looking for another opportunity to collaborate with an incredibly talented animator friend of mine, Casey Drogin. Brady and I met up with him in late August, 2017, and Casey was all-in. Casey came up with the style and brought on another amazing animator and filmmaker, Morgan Gruer to assist. Together, through their water-colored, hand-drawn animations, they brought Shane’s character to life.”

“We didn’t have a lot of references for the film in terms of the arc or the emotions we wanted people to walk away with. Like I said, we wanted to build the doc on humanization as opposed to shock value. However, I did have a lot of visual references. For the interviews, I had been watching a lot of Errol Morris’ work – Thin Blue Line, Tabloid, The Unknown Known. His style of direct address, especially when it comes to tough or emotional dialogue during interviews, is something I’ve always been struck by. For the verité – specifically with the officers and in the apartment with Lisa, I referenced Barbara Kopple’s American Dream. I had the privilege of working for her when I first moved to NYC and she’s a master of the Cinema Verité medium. The idea for animating our main character posthumously came from Hisko Hulsing’s animated sequences on Brett Morgen’s Montage of Heck. Stylistically, Casey and Morgan really ran with their own unique interpretation of Shane’s world, utilizing watercolors to make things that may have otherwise been difficult to watch, beautiful and somewhat abstracted.”

“I think the most unusual thing about this project was that I filmed it in the town I grew up in. Salem is my Hometown. I decided to name the film ‘Hometown’ because I felt like Salem could be reflective of anyone’s hometown around the country right now. However, most of the people you see on screen are people I’ve known in some capacity my whole life. All of the locations hold memories of my childhood. In some ways, it made this project easier than it would have been otherwise, and in a lot of ways it made this project all the more heartbreaking. I think it being so close to home raised the stakes for me personally. I’ve definitely been in a strange headspace these last couple of years.”

"A few years ago, I started seeing a massive increase in the number of obituaries of people I grew up with inundating my Facebook newsfeed."

“Hometown has been a passion project from the very start – so like most passion projects, starting production was an out-of-pocket expense. On the first shoot, I was filming on two borrowed Sony A7S’s. From the second shoot through wrapping production, I shot on rented A7S II’s. Each interview was lit with one Kino Diva-Lite 401 - daylight temp with the lights off. I would rent a couple c-stands, a tripod, a boom, a shotgun mic and recorded all of the interview audio to my old Zoom H4N. I was filming drive-around footage out of the back window of my mom’s Hyundai, while she drove around town at 15 MPH, the hazards on, shooting at 60FPS in hopes that the higher frame rate would smooth out the bumps in the road. Of the 25-or-so days I spent on-location, I had a field recordist for 2. Doing most of the work in the field was mentally and physically exhausting, but it made me feel closer to the material. It raised the stakes.”

“By the time we were heading into post, we had raised about $15,000 by way of an Indiegogo campaign and a few generous private donations. With this money and a few thousand more, split between myself and my partner, co-producer and editor, Brady Darragh, we were able to afford a proper round of post-production for the film.”

“Brady edited Hometown on Adobe Premiere, with the help of our amazing Associate Editor, Nicholas An. It’s crazy because I think for the first time working on a documentary, the editing was the least stressful part for me as a director. That’s a testament to Brady’s diligence and ability - he has a great eye for story.”

“Casey Drogin came up with the hand-drawn, watercolor-drenched style for the animations and then brought on Morgan Gruer to help animate those sequences. Their creativity and work brought the film to a different place. I believe most of the final animations were completed in Cinema4D.”

“A really good friend of mine and long-time collaborator, Fernando Martinez and his talented friend/composer, Ed Marks wrote the film’s original score. It was amazing to see how much more emotion came out of the footage when their tracks were laid down.”

“One Thousand Birds did all of our sound design and sound mixing. Sound was such an important part of this project, not only because of the importance placed on the world’s diegetic, but also because of how important a role sound design played in bringing Casey and Morgan’s animations, and therefore Shane, to life. Kira MacKnight at OTB was our Post Audio Producer and Calvin Pia and Torin Geller were our sound designers/mixers.”

“Matthew Greenberg over at Irving Harvey brought out the color in our characters’ world. He graded in DaVinci Resolve.”

“I enjoyed making ‘Hometown.’ It was such a collaborative labor of love, and it’s been one of the most immersive learning experiences of my career thus far. Shane’s mother Lisa and I have become close friends as a result of this project, and she’s someone I will always treasure.”

“My hopes for this project is that it will begin to humanize the opioid epidemic. I hope people can watch this and see that before anyone started doing drugs, they were somebody’s kid, brother, friend, loved one, etc. We have a long way to go. I hope this film can help people connect to their empathy, and for some, let them know that they’re not alone. If this film helps just one person, that will have made it worth it for me.”

Credits

Director

Brandon Lavoie

DOP

Brandon Lavoie

Executive Producer

Brandon Lavoie

Executive Producer

Brady Darragh

Editor

Brady Darragh

Animation

Casey Drogin & Morgan Gruer

VFX

Lucjan Gorczynski

Original Music

Fernando Martinez & Ed Marks

Sound Design

One Thousand Birds

Audio Producer

Kira MacKnight

Colorist

Irving Harvey

Aerial Photography

Max Collins

Artists

Brandon Lavoie

Brandon talks about how growing up in a single parent household finally led him to filmmaking.

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Location

Salem, United States