Before MySpace, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, there was “Quiet: We Live in Public,” a social experiment launched by Internet pioneer and provocateur Josh Harris. Harris—christened by the media as the “Warhol of the Web”—concocted an ambitious scheme where technology, media and social interaction would collide. On the cusp of the millennium, Harris invited more than 100 audacious participants to live together for a month in a bunker under 24-hour surveillance. A retrofitted spacious Manhattan loft with sleeping pods, communal showers and toilets, the bunker was essentially sealed off from the outside world. Food, booze and drugs were provided in exchange for permission to unremittingly document every detail of the participants’ lives. With cameras placed in nearly every corner of the loft, nothing was too benign, too private or too provocative to document—sleeping, eating, defecating and sex were all subject to the camera’s unscrupulous gaze. The communal utopia soon turned into a dystopic nightmare, and eventually FEMA caught on and condemned the space. The experiment never arrived at its fullest fruition. Not to be deterred, Harris revisited the experiment a few years later, but this time he turned the camera on himself and his new girlfriend, rigging every corner of their loft with motion-controlled cameras to document their every interaction. The camera captures the raptures of first love, but it doesn’t take too long for the relationship to unravel and implode. As with her earlier acclaimed film, DIG!, Ondi Timoner chronicled her subject over many years—a decade, in fact— weaving thousands of hours of footage captured by Harris’s impartial camera with her own stylish documentation. Winner of the Grand Jury Prize at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival, WE LIVE IN PUBLIC is at times titillating and other times disturbing, but never short of engrossing.

Filmmaker Q&A

Introduce yourself:
Ondi Timoner is an American film director, producer and editor. She is the only director to win a Sundance grand jury award twice in the festival's history. She graduated from Yale University, where she made films as an undergraduate, and went on to found Interloper Films. Her documentary DIG! won the Grand Jury Prize in 2004. She has shot music documentaries, commercials, and is about to make her first narrative film on the life of Robert Mapplethorpe.

What inspired this film?   How did you find your subjects?
What inspired me to start this film was Josh Harris calling me in 1999 and asking me to document “cultural history” when he was building the “bunker” in Manhattan; but what inspired me to complete the film ten years later was when I went on facebook and saw “status updates” and realized that what I had filmed in 1999 was a physical metaphor for the internet and our lives online. It was very important – this was about early 2007 when I realized that it was crucial to make this film as quickly as possible right now, while it was a tipping point where the virtual world was taking over the physical world.

I first came into contact with Josh when I was shooting my movie DIG! in New York in 1999…I knew Josh then, but he got a recommendation from my friend Jodi Wille. She was a book publisher and Josh called her asking who would be the best person to direct a film about the bunker that he was building over the millennium in New York. She referred him to me.

I didn’t know what the heck he was talking about when he called me to “document cultural history” because he wouldn’t tell me. He said, “Are you interested in documenting cultural history?” and I said “yes, always, but what did you have in mind,” and he didn’t have an answer. He said it was kind of a morphing thing. He said I’d have to come see it…so I took the subway down while they were putting the first metal in to build the capsules in the bunker. I ran into a guy stringing surveillance cameras and he told me they were building a room for 150 people to move in underground…and I said, “okay, I’m in.” It was a no-brainer. I didn’t know what it was exactly, but that it should be documented.

What were some of the biggest challenges/surprises?
I’ve always been a big believer in the unfolding narrative of documentary. All my films follow their subjects over a long period of time. So, there are infinite surprises that happen. True life is actually stranger than fiction, and there’s no way to show that as a filmmaker unless you hang out and capture that serendipity and then connect all the dots and condense the story down and tell it to people. I can’t even tell you how many surprises. On the filmmaking side of it, it was a surprise to me in 2001, when I was about to finish the cut of the bunker, I came back to my loft in Manhattan to find that Josh had cleared out all of the tapes and taken everything because he said he didn’t like the way it looked.

What’s even more surprising is that I’m really glad he did steal the masters because there was no way to know how relevant that data would be now. And I didn’t make the film in all those years in between because I didn’t feel it was socially relevant. And then when it became socially relevant with the advent of social networking sites and how much we were running to join them as fast as people had been running to join the bunker, I realized this is great. Everything happens for a reason, and sometimes you can’t see it at the time. I’m glad we didn’t put the movie out back then.

Who are some of your favorite filmmakers?
One filmmaker who I think is incredible is Fernando Meirelles (City of God, Constant Gardener). Also, Thomas Vinterberg (The Celebration). That work really inspired me. And, of course, D.A. Pennebaker. There’s also a movie you can’t really get your hands on about Leon Russell made by a wonderful filmmaker named Les Blank. He’s amazing – he’s best known for Burden of Dreams, a documentary on the making of Fitzcarraldo.

What is your all time favorite documentary?
I guess it would be “Don’t Look Back.” But, actually, I’m a really big fan of my latest film, “We Live in Public.” I really am…It’s what I’m most proud of. I think the film has fulfilled my goals in what a documentary can be in terms of how a documentary can look, feel, how entertaining and important it can be in terms of hitting the zeitgeist of our lives. It’s a miracle it came together—5,000 hours shots in ten years. We cut the film in 8 months and I had an amazing team. So, when I watch the opening of the film, I still get so excited. Nothing I’ve ever made has made me feel like that before. It’s actually nice to be proud of what I did – I’m usually so critical of my stuff. I feel like every choice I made I stick by.

What other projects are in the pipeline?
I’m set to produce/direct the story of Robert Mapplethorpe as a narrative film, along with Eliza Dushku. The script we optioned is called “The Perfect Moment.” I’m embarking on another documentary about global warming and economics, and how we’re attacking these problems, tentatively called “Cool It.” Although, I want to call it “The Solutionist.”

Otherwise, I’m going to go down to Mexico and try to catch the Swine Flu to show how much our media blows things out of proportion and how much it’s hurting Mexico. The media is being typically retarded – so I feel like I need to go down there and kiss pigs and hug children in the square to show how ridiculous it is. Right after SILVERDOCS and the LA Film Festival, I’m heading to Mexico.

Why did you become a filmmaker?
I was born to make films. I didn’t consciously choose to, I never decided to be a filmmaker. I had decided to be a musician, but somehow, some way, I ended up with a home video camera in my hand asking people in tollbooths and convenience stores what makes them happy, and what they feared the most. Actually, that was my first film. I asked a truck driver what he feared the most and he said, “women with video cameras.” I realized the camera, when I picked it up, became this bridge into a world I could never otherwise enter. I realized the power of film when I was filming women in prison and I could take their voices, their stories, their struggles, and bring them outside prison walls. I could break down stereotypes by filmmaking. I loved the power films had to forge understanding. So, that’s why I became a filmmaker.

Did you go to film school?
No, I didn’t go. I was rejected by NYU and a school in California. I was coming out of Yale, I had won a prestigious film award there, and had made four films in college. I thought it was strange I was rejected. But, I actually feel really lucky that I didn’t get into film school because I don’t think it’s necessary. I taught myself how to film and how to use Avid, where I think I discovered God. I never feel like I wish I had gone to film school. That said, I’m about to do my first narrative film now. So, maybe if you interviewed me in a year, I’ll be like “Damn! I should have gone to film school.” I don’t think so, though. Learning through practical experience, by actually doing it, is the way to go. It’s about having a story to tell, and in film school, you can lose your voice. Find an internship with someone whose work you respect instead. Find something your really care about, and go do it, go shoot your movie.

What do you shoot on?
I shoot on whatever it takes to make the right movie. I have this theory that form follows content. With We Live in Public it was digital video and surveillance. For a lot of my films, I use super-8 film, and lately it’s been HD.

Why did you want to screen your film at SILVERDOCS?
Because I love Sky. Because I was on the jury at SILVERDOCS, and it’s a very reputable festival. I love docs. I think the Q and A’s after docs are always more compelling than after narrative films. It’s in the DC area. And, because nowadays technology is so affordable, there’s a tendency for everybody to go out and make a movie. Festivals curate the work and weed out the crap, so I support the festival circuit.