HOW TO BREAK OUT OF PRISON

During my interviews with John, his stories transported me to maximum-security prisons, rival gangs’ peace talk and to the dark recesses of a mental prison which lies in almost everyone. Split up parents, his crippling stutter, juvenile delinquency, brutalizing and pedophile teachers at school were just a few things that used to drive him to a corner and eventually, his attempt suicide. He spoke about them light-heartedly and never failed to find humor in the tragedies. He joked being a writer of traumatizing past, he’s got a lot of capital to work with.
Not only did he generously share his capital with me, but John is also amazing speaking on camera. Through Errol Morris “interrotron” setup during the interview (through a teleprompter glass on my camera’s lens he monitored my live feed ), his dramatic telling rendered a fable quality to the otherwise too bleak and too self-important a film. Such fable quality also guided the dramatization, from acting’s choices to the art direction.
I often smile when people ask of the experience filming and listening to someone who speaks motivationally, though John disapproves of this label - motivational. He much preferred “Liberating”. His stories inadvertently broke me out of my own mental prison. His resolve in not giving in and to see hopeless situations as a gift inspired me. He had been coping with his life-long stammer, reminiscent of my effort in expressing myself fully in English. The immediate effect on me from the interview was that I signed back on to a local Toastmaster Club for my own public speaking chops so that I shall no longer shirk a director’s responsibility to pitch stories I believe in, such as this one.

The journey for John and his many inmate students would have been too big a corpus to include in this film. What I did include is how John used his inspiration from the ordeal to help his students to see the vicious cycle of criminality and incarceration. During John’s public speaking classes, minds break free. Personally, I can’t conceive of any other subject that’s more watchable, cathartic, or important.