Crumble
Glenn must reconcile with lost time after leaving his 20-year career as a Hollywood sound designer.
Interview with Director Jackson Hayat
Congratulations! Why did you make your film?
I made Crumble after reading a local article about Glenn and hearing a small section of his story. I was drawn towards his unique exit from the Hollywood film industry. And after speaking to him further, about his identity and the mental health battle that ensued, I resonated with the push and pull between his personal and professional identities, facing similar feelings myself, and was intent on presenting his unique story and wisdom onscreen.
Imagine I’m a member of the audience. Why should I watch this film?
I think this film holds a deep sense of wisdom for many audience members. I try to make my films accessible and evergreen in their themes. Particularly this film taps into the resignations many of us have in our ability to switch careers and hence change our identities after years of fronting these personalities. Particularly for people in middle age, the mid-life crisis has almost become a staple of our modern world. I hope people can watch and reflect on their relationship to their jobs and inspect where they gain their sense of identity and purpose from.
How do personal and universal themes work in your film?
I think many of Crumble's themes are universal to the masses. The power of documentary in my view is our familiarity with these real-life people, and along with this comes a familiarity with Glenn's feelings of being excited, lost, and finally re-vitalised. By representing these trials personally to Glenn on-screen, people automatically relate it to their own experience and try to make sense of them through these bigger universal themes. This is the nature of any type of narrative, but I think it's especially fruitful and relatable in a documentary.
How have the script and film evolved over the course of their development?
The film has changed massively. The documentary began with a look at Glenn and his summer hobby of building sandcastles in Sandy Point. This was drawn from the original article written about Glenn. But after speaking more to Glenn and learning about his unique personality crisis, I felt there was more to him than was originally touched on in the article. This lead me to an ultimately more rewarding filmmaking experience and allowed me to dig deeper into Glenn's own personal journey as a result. Now, the film encompasses a larger facet of Glenn's history, his present, as well as an openness to his future unchained by what a singular focus on his hobby may have drawn.
What type of feedback have you received so far?
I've so far gotten some great feedback from those I've shown. Peers have noted how far I've taken the cinematography of this film, and expanded into something broader and bigger in scope after my previous documentary Declutter which sat in a conversely intimate, simple style. Having also shown older folks this film, I've been excited to hear how much they resonate with Glenn's journey through self-identity and his emergence into a more resilient, spiritually in-touch version of himself.
Has the feedback surprised or challenged your point of view?
I think this feedback has enriched and validated my initial choice to expand Glenn's story outside of his passion for building sandcastles. Having seen people relate to the film from many different ages, I've been grateful to find out that through shying away from this small aspect of Glenn's life, I've been able to capture a more nuanced and thought-provoking piece that is more than a mere lifestyle piece.
What are you looking to achieve by having your film more visible on www.wearemovingstories.com?
I'm hoping to bring more eyes onto Glenn's story and the overarching struggles between people's personal and work identities.
Who do you need to come on board (producers, sales agents, buyers, distributors, film festival directors, journalists) to amplify this film’s message?
I would love to get a more substantial journalistic distribution for Crumble. I think film festivals are a brilliant way to get shorts and features in front of cinema-goers and local filmmakers, but at times lack the appeal to the average Joe. I would love to distribute Crumble over more mainstream journalistic outlets in order to share Glenn's wisdom with folks outside of the film circuit in Melbourne.
What type of impact and/or reception would you like this film to have?
I hope this film can awaken people's awareness of where their sense of identity and purpose comes from, and ultimately alleviate the current dangers that lurk in aligning your sense of self singularly with your profession. As with many of my films sitting as emotive character pieces rather than issue-centric journalism, I hope it gives the chance for people to notice their own behavours through the wisdom put forth by people like Glenn. In the end, it's my dream that people can see Glenn and the positive re-emergence he's been able to attain through the trials and tribulations of leaving his career. Many people, including myself, are timid to leave a solid career in search of something more fulfilling and life-affirming, Glenn's story doesn't shy away from this issue but confronts it head on, and in the process, emerges with a renewed passion and sense of purpose.
What’s a key question that will help spark a debate or begin a conversation about this film?
I think people should ask themselves how much of their identity they draw from their work and what would happen to their sense of self if they too fell into disarray with their profession.
Would you like to add anything else?
I'd just like to say thanks for the support from Glenn in allowing me to represent his story onscreen, as well as to give me the thumbs up on my sound design work coming from an ex-Hollywood sound designer!
What other projects are the key creatives developing or working on now?
I'm currently beginning shooting for a new short documentary that I'm co-directing with one of my friends. I'm excited to dive into the world of co-directing and explore this new documentary's themes of balancing compassion for others with compassion for ourselves.
Interview: July 2023
We Are Moving Stories embraces new voices in drama, documentary, animation, TV, web series, music video, women's films, LGBTQIA+, POC, First Nations, scifi, supernatural, horror, world cinema. If you have just made a film - we'd love to hear from you. Or if you know a filmmaker - can you recommend us? More info: Carmela
Crumble
Glenn must reconcile with lost time after leaving his 20-year career as a Hollywood sound designer.
Length: 8:40
Director: Jackson Hayat
Producer: Jackson Hayat
Writer: Jackson Hayat
About the writer, director and producer:
JACKSON HAYAT is a filmmaker hailing from Melbourne, Australia. Jackson specializes in directing character-led documentaries, his most recent of which, Declutter (2022), was Award Nominated at the St. Kilda Film Festival 2023, and won the Best Documentary and Best Australian Film awards at the Setting Sun Film Festival 2023 in Melbourne. Jackson uses documentary to support and immortalize the voices of others with a love of stylization and an empathetic sense of connection.
Key cast: Glenn Auchinachie
Facebook: Jackson Hayat
Instagram: @jackson__hayat
Website: www.jacksonhayatfilms.com
Other: Vimeo
Made in association with: The Everyday
Funders: Self-Funded
Where can I watch it next and in the coming month?
Melbourne Documentary Film Festival/Cinema Nova - July 30th 1pm