Harvey Hubbell’s Loopy Dreams

By Shannon Hicks

More than 10,000 films are started each year. Fewer than 250 make it to the theater.

Those are the sobering facts that greet viewers of Loop Dreams: The Making of A Low-Budget Movie, a Captured Time Productions documentary that will be presented on CTPV next weekend. Why so many people continue to stay enthralled by the so-called magic of moviedom, even against such odds, is the subject of Loop Dreams, which was made during the filming of another film about two years ago.

Loop Dreams is the latest award-winning film by Newtown native Harvey Hubbell V. The documentary will be aired on Connecticut Public Television next weekend, debuting on Friday, September 26, at 9 pm, and then repeating on Tuesday, September 30, at 11 pm.

Mr Hubbell served as the director, producer, and writer of Loop Dreams. His wife, Andrea (“Andie”) Haas Hubbell, was the film’s co-producer and the voice conducting the interviews in the documentary.

The film is Mr Hubbell’s first feature-length documentary and it was made while he was serving as 1st AD (Assistant Director) on the low-budget Blackmale, which was shot entirely on location in Connecticut. Mr Hubbell agreed to serve as Blackmale’s 1st AD only after the film’s producers agreed to his terms: He would be allowed to make a documentary about the making of a film, and why people work on low-budget films, while working as the 1st AD for Blackmale. When the co-directors agreed, Mr Hubbell got to work assembling two teams – one to help make Blackmale and one to make his documentary.

Loop Dreams covers the making of Blackmale from beginning to end. It offers interviews with the film’s co-directors and writers –– the brothers George and Mike Baluzy –– and other crew members, from its line director to the unpaid PAs (production assistants, the lowest steps on the movie-making ladder, viewers soon learn). There are also countless interviews with the film’s stars to the extras.

The crew of Loop Dreams captured just about everything that happened on the set of Blackmale, and presents a lot during its run of just over 76 minutes. Everything means the near accidents (one of which nearly killed an actor when he camethisclose to being hit by a Danbury city bus), ridiculous conversations between actors (“All this time I thought New England was a state!”), the writing of the script and the hiring of actors, the problems of running into overtime without a budget, the mood swings, the sex and violence of the script, and how it is filmed within SAG regulations… everything.

“It’s about independent filmmaking, but it’s also ‘why do people have this passion?’” Mr Hubbell said. “Why do they do these 18–20-hour days. One third of the crew, after they finished Blackmale, came up to help us with the logging. We’re talking about adrenaline junkies here.”

Logging, or transcribing, all of the raw footage usually takes place within a few hours or days of being shot. Mr Hubbell and his Loop Dreams crew could not start logging their footage until the work on Blackmake had finished, however.

Roger Coraggio, the director of photography for Loop Dreams, had shot more than 100 hours of tape that needed to be sorted through before the documentary could begin to take any shape. The labor intensive logging then took a number of months.

“These are people who are very dedicated to their work,” Mrs Hubbell said. “Their journey is also their reward. People who are filmmakers –– people who are any kind of artists –– really do love the process.”

Patrick Ahearn was called in as one of the documentary’s co-writers and editors. Mr Hubbell credits Mr Ahearn, an award-winning editor for CNBC “who doubles and triples as a writer-producer-director of his own independent film, video, and CD projects” with “the ability to tell a story with comic and dramatic pacing.” The documentary’s final co-writer was Jeremy Brecher, PhD, who is “the author of ten dreadfully serious books … [done] before he got mixed up with Captured Time.”

The result is a documentary that is both entertaining and truly educational. There is a lot of adult language and situations in Loop Dreams, but its core is an unflinching look at a movie set and its magic.

 “For PBS to show this, we really applaud them,” Mr Hubbell said this week from his home and studio in Litchfield, where the Hubbells have lived since 1999. Harvey and Andie found an 1812 farmhouse surrounded by 36 acres of land and turned that into their home and the headquarters of Captured Time Productions, LLC.

“It has some adult scenes, and in some respects it may be a little bit of a departure [from traditional CPTV style],” Mrs Hubbell added. “But this is a Connecticut documentary about a Connecticut film.” Blackmale was shot predominately in Danbury, as well as Bridgewater, Newtown, New Fairfield, New Milford, and Ridgefield. The crew visited 40 locations in 30 days.

“It’s great that CPTV recognizes the value of promoting this,” she continued.

CPTV is not the only group to take notice of the value of Loop Dreams. When it debuted at The International Film Market in New York a few years ago, it was to a standing room only crowd. The film got great reviews.

“The film was playing to a bunch of filmmakers, so it was a tough crowd,” Mr Hubbell said. “It was a tough audience. These are people –– along with those who were directly involved with this particular film, its cast, and crew –– who have really been there on their own projects. We weren’t sure what to expect.”

“One of the critics said it was a laugh-out-loud movie, though, so we were obviously very relieved,” said Mrs Hubbell.

IFM’s successful fun was just the beginning for Loop Dreams. It has since won major festival awards including Gold World Medal For Comedy at 2001 The New York Festivals, Best Documentary Feature at the 2002 Magnolia International Film Festival, Comedy Winner at World Fest Houston, the 2001 Connecticut Vision Award, Promotion Award from Rhode Island International Film Festival, and The Robert W. Wagner Screenwriting Award (Best Script) at The Columbus International Film & Video Festival.

Loop Dreams was a Documentary Finalist at the Philadelphia International Film Festival. It was also an Official Selection for Santa Barbara International Film Festival, New York Independent International Film and Video Festival in Los Angeles, Guerrilla Film Festival, and 2002 Directors View International Film Festival.

The Hubbells are no strangers to awards. He has won more than 50 film and video festival awards including six Emmys; she is an Emmy Award-winning producer, director, and writer who was named The 2001 Connecticut Filmmaker of the Year.

A New Appointment

As part of the state’s budget woes this year, the State Commission on the Arts, Connecticut Historical Commission, Office of Tourism, Connecticut Tourism Council, Connecticut Film, Video and Media Commission, and The Connecticut Film, Video and Media Office were all disbanded. A new “super commission,” as Mr Hubbell calls it, was created: The Connecticut Commission on Arts, Tourism, Culture, History and Film. The new commission was created by House Bill 6806, Sections 210–230, earlier this year; its first meeting is scheduled for September 25.

As a whole, the commission will be expected to market and promote Connecticut as a destination for leisure and business travelers; promote the arts; recognize, protect, preserve, and promote historic resources; interpret and present Connecticut’s history and culture; and promote Connecticut as a location in which to conduct filming and to establish and conduct business related to the film and video industries and to enhance these industries’ economic impact in the state.

Mr Hubbell was appointed to the new commission by Senator Martin M. Looney (11th District), who is also the state’s Senate Majority Leader.

“I think it’s going to be a good idea for group ventures,” Mr Hubbell said.

“We don’t know too much about the commission yet,” said Mrs Hubbell, “but we do know the idea is to bring all these different industries together so that there are more possibilities for collaboration.”

Mr Hubbell grew up in Newtown. His father still lives in the house on West Street where Harvey and his sisters were raised (their mother, Jean Simpson Hubbell, died in the mid-1970s), and Mr Hubbell graduated from Newtown High School in 1977.

Blackmale was not the first time Harvey Hubbell V worked as an AD in order to fund his own documentaries. And it may not be the last.

According to 1999 Newtown Bee story, Mr Hubbell has very fond memories of his hometown. This week he hinted at a future project he would like to do concerning his hometown, its history, and his memories… once he finds the funding for it.