糖心影视

In March 糖心影视鈥檚 "Principles of Documentary" class had the pleasure of hosting Dave DeSario, the producer behind A Day鈥檚 Work and founder of the Alliance for the American Temporary Workforce. A Day鈥檚 Work, the first documentary from DeSario and director David M Garcia, illuminates workers' risks in the temporary staffing industry. The film tells the poignant story of 21-year-old Day Davis, who was killed 90 minutes into his first shift as a temporary employee, through the perspective of Day鈥檚 mother and 17-year-old sister. The family鈥檚 vivid account of Day鈥檚 incident raises awareness for the thousands of temporary employees killed annually. Dave DeSario鈥檚 visit to MDOCS helped students better understand the work that goes toward producing a documentary film before and after principal photography.

DeSario focused his presentation on both making and finding an audience for the film from trailers to film festivals. First he introduced the film鈥檚 official trailer, a short summary of the temporary staffing industry that introduces Day Davis鈥檚 story. DeSario stressed the trailer鈥檚 importance as a marketing and fundraising tool. By distributing the trailer through popular social media and other easily accessible channels, DeSario was able to build awareness for the project and attract potential financial backers, who supported the final stage of production鈥攖he editing, insuring, and release of the film. Desario counseled that a large part of releasing the film was strategically picking film festival submissions. He identified several festivals to fit his target audience including the Workers Unite! Film Festival and the Reel Work May Day Labor Film. He described reception for A Day鈥檚 Work as overwhelmingly positive. Since DeSario was in the Capital Region to at the Albany Law School, it appears to be successfully generating awareness of temporary workers issues.

During a question-and-answer session, DeSario fielded questions about the filmmaking process, the use of security footage and news broadcasts and the legal obligations of a documentarian. He noted that a majority of the primary budget for the film was spent on renting high-quality camera equipment; DeSario drew a correlation between the visual quality of a film and its validity as a documentary. He also discussed the planning portion of pre-production and how it contributes to content. He gave as an example that prior to principal photography, he identified familiar documentary film elements鈥攕uch as interviews with news experts, news footage and security footage showing the incident that killed Day鈥攁s fundamental to both telling his story and the film鈥檚 credibility.

Once the film was complete, DeSario faced a new set of problems. First he scrutinized every element of the film to make sure it didn鈥檛 included words relating to race or politics that might limit audience identification with the underlying issue (it鈥檚 someone else鈥檚 story) and to maximize the impact of Day鈥檚 story. The final step DeSario took before releasing the film was insuring the film and having it vetted by a team of lawyers. DeSario drew on several fair-use laws and publicly accessible records in the film to ensure it wasn鈥檛 breaking any copyright laws or susceptible to lawsuit. DeSario exposed students to a firsthand account of the documentary-making process and the many of the planning steps outside of filming and researching the subject.

A Day鈥檚 Work is screening across the country for the next several months including showings at UMass-Amherst on April 19 and at the AFL-CIO Central Labor Council in Massena, New York, on April 30. The film鈥檚 official website is DeSario and the Alliance for the American Temporary Workforce can be reached at . 

鈥擜ugustus Svikhart 鈥�16 (management and business major; computer science minor)