“I grew up loving documentaries like To believe and Never say Never, “admits the 19-year-old music phenomenon, referring to Justin Bieber’s popular movie concerts. Then, when a camera crew showed up at his childhood home in Los Angeles in 2018 to film a documentary on the production of his debut album, she welcomed it with open arms – if not exactly optimism. “My whole family and I thought, ‘Hey, this is never really going to come out,'” she says. “It’s been very insane and surreal ever since . ”
Billie Eilish’s When we all fall asleep, where are we going? emerged as a multiplatinum, Grammy-scanning success, rendering the resulting film, The world is a little blurry, not only a reality, but also much awaited. Its release this Friday on Apple TV + falls just a few weeks after its 10th birthday, when fans like Eilish sat anxiously in a cinema and helped make Bieber’s first film, Never say Never, the highest grossing musical documentary of all time (almost $ 100 million globally), ushering in a new wave. The following decade saw other top musicians, such as Beyoncé, Taylor Swift, Ed Sheeran, Travis Scott and others, participate in films of a similar nature, focusing on their personal lives – with a particular blessing occurring last year.
Philosophically, the question of why global stars agree to have cameras follow them for a year or so is difficult to answer. But Scott Manson, chief operating officer at music management company SB Projects, offers a pragmatic reason. The 2020 YouTube Originals’ executive producer docs Justin Bieber: Next Chapter and Netflix Ariana Grande: Excuse me, I love you says: “Normally, they are built around a moment or a phase in the artist’s career that is really essential for the artist, in the first place, to capture … The artist will come to us with the moment, or the moment will be obvious in terms of impact and scale. ”
According to a veteran finance executive, “it’s exciting for artists to work independently because they have more control”, although it’s also a long wait before seeing any financial benefits. “Although there are certain economic incentives for some of these artists, they are not being paid as in a casting,” adds a source who worked on high-profile music documents. “There is [no] rate on the camera. That is a big difference. Therefore, these narratives are being conducted by third parties. Maybe they are a filmmaker, maybe they are a financier or creative producer who sees an opportunity. “And in the interest of the artists they represent, Manson adds that SB Projects often makes exploratory footage until the time or stage mentioned above that requires a complete documentary.” We always avoid releasing anything that is not completely created in a creative way, “he says. “Even if there’s a bidding war, we don’t want to put our artists in a position [in which] they are bound to deliver a story that doesn’t inspire them, or they have no creative control over it. ”
When it comes time to partner with a director to clarify this vision, it’s all about trust. Summoned to a preliminary meeting with Eilish, filmmaker RJ Cutler (The September Issue) was impressed with how “the singer’s incredibly warm family was so welcoming” on their first visit. “It was very easy for me to be comfortable with them.” He and the young star knew that day that they should make a movie together. “If it is easy for everyone to be themselves at the first meeting, you have a feeling that there is something there,” says Cutler. Eilish adds, “He was very sweet … He carried out his plan. Something about him fit. And it made sense.”
Across the spectrum, singer Demi Lovato, whose new YouTube Originals series Dancing with the Devil debut March 23, met director Michael D. Ratner for years before deciding to work together. “I met him as a friend [first], “Says Lovato.” So, when we started, I already trusted him. I didn’t have to work to be comfortable. When I sat down to talk about what had happened, it had been two years and I was ready to tell the world everything. ”
“The better the connection, the more intimacy and trust,” adds the source quoted. “A lot of these subjects, do you talk to them after they filmed the [doc], and their relations with the filming and the filmmaker are very different [than] at first. In many cases, the subject is almost surprised that they have revealed certain things. ”
In this sense, becoming a cinematic subject has practically replaced magazine cover stories and network TV meetings as a way for artists to reveal themselves in a new light. “You don’t necessarily know what this journalist is going to write about you, but often [here] you’re fixing an artist who is telling his story with another artist who made the final version [that] history, “says Manson. While not directly analogous to traditional journalism, the musician who places his trust in the filmmaker” created this kind of magical creative sandbox for filmmakers to interact with global superstars who are also artists – and see how they collaborate. “
Lovato, for example, had a sense of ownership over the story that Ratner was telling through the documentation. “I was able to create the precise narrative of what happened to me, without worrying that it would be edited by a press or news outlet”, he explains.
If artists find the ideal way to avoid the press, distributors see it as a quick pass to the front page news. In fact, you may have noticed that all of the projects mentioned above have found flashy homes on streaming platforms. “All the streamers use the same expression, which is creating the ‘cultural moment’”, says the experienced source. “How do we create a cultural moment around the Jonas Brothers? You release the album simultaneously with the first documentary. You have an accompanying documentary two years later and you do it on a global streamer … Streaming is no longer a pejorative means of distribution. “(Streamers also have money to burn: Apple reportedly spent $ 25 million to purchase Cutler’s Eilish film.)
Michael John Warren, who directed non-fiction projects focused on Jay-Z and Nicki Minaj, including a documentary series from HBO Max on the latter, adds that streaming partnerships also benefit filmmakers. “There is a little more freedom to experiment, to really do what you want to do,” he says. “I don’t mean to say that the stakes are lower, but if you put something in prime time on MTV 10 years ago, MTV would have to be like, ‘Okay, this is the only thing we have on the air tonight at eight o’clock’ clock . ‘ [Meanwhile] see what Netflix does. They are not just trying to become a television network; they are trying to become television. This is their thing – they are so wide. ”
As more streaming services are launched and hoping to attract new customers, Manson asks, “What better way to market your subscription-based platform than [to] offer millions of potential future subscribers an intimate view of their idols? ”
YouTube Originals Director Susanne Daniels also promises flexibility. “Sometimes we are introduced to a job [that’s completed], and it’s a bidding war, “she says.” But sometimes people come to us with something that is partially completed. That was the case for our documentary Johnny Cash [The Gift, 2019]. We acquired it based on what we saw, and then they broke up with us. [And] is sometimes an initial argument, as Justin Bieber: seasons [2020]. We’ve been there with them since day one. ”
Daniels also has a theory of why stars like Bieber, Lovato and Minaj, who made feature length documentaries, returned with a longer approach. She postulates that the duration is determined project by project by a variety of sources, admitting: “It is something that is more launched and it is something that we like to do. I think our audience likes to watch in chapters. Over the five and a half years that I’ve been here, the data shows that people are watching YouTube content for longer periods. And certainly during the pandemic, we’ve seen that watch time has increased significantly. People like chapters, they like to eat episodes, if you go. So it’s a different way of telling the story, and sometimes it’s a more touching way of telling it. “
For Lovato, the decision to tell Dancing with the devil, which has a more distressing tone than the average of these documents, was caused by life events. “I had already started filming this one in 2018, but after I overdosed I had to change gears because my life has undergone drastic changes,” she says. “It covers what led to that life-changing moment during my recovery … I went through different stages in this process and that is why we wanted to tell you this.”
It’s no secret that these films and series have exploded against the backdrop of COVID-19 – and the resulting pause at live events. “The pandemic has slowed the rate at which everything moves. And that probably [people] more time to think about making a documentary, “says Warren. Thinking of ways to connect with fans and inspire them without being able to tour, musicians ask themselves,” What am I going to do now? “Warren continues:” They are artists; they have to [have] result. This is part of what makes them happy, it is doing things. ”
The timing of the market could not be better. “There is definitely a global appeal as well as an appetite, especially from streamers, to explore the magic and existing fan bases of some of these great personalities,” says Manson. Documentary J Balvin from SB Projects The boy of Medellín, which Amazon acquired last fall, exemplifies this possibility, with Oscar-nominated director Matthew Heineman (Cartel Land) following the Reggaeton icon home in Colombia, to perform in a football stadium.
It all looks new – at least as a trend. But, says Cutler, it may not be. Citing revered musical documents as Do not look back (1965) and Give me shelter (1970), which followed Bob Dylan and the Rolling Stones, respectively, The world is a little blurry the director sees a historical precedent. According to him, these classics claimed “that these films could be commercials, that they could live on the big screen, that Mick Jagger was as worthy of being the star of a film as Robert Redford”.
“This is the great tradition in which many of us are working, pursuing these films”, he concludes. “If you are looking for a great subject, you need look no further than Billie Eilish.”
A version of this story appears in the March issue of Weekly entertainment, on newsstands now and available here. Don’t forget to sign up for more interviews and exclusive photos, only at EW.