Behind the Scenes

behind the scenes Drag Becomes Him provides an intimate Drag Becomes Him follows Jinkx’s glimpse inside the life of internationally trajectory from a small stage in acclaimed drag performer Jinkx Monsoon. Portland, Oregon through a growing This raw and affectionate film follows the career in Seattle to the relinquishing passionate pursuits that transformed a of the crown one year after winning working class boy in a struggling family to RuPaul’s Drag Race. an illustrious performer on a global stage. Expanded from the acclaimed five- Influenced by a grandmother with charm part web series of the same name, this school polish, Jerick Hoffer learned to cherished portrayal of Jinkx Monsoon fuse the sophistication of a southern belle peels back the layers on one of the with the crass behavior of a working brightest stars on the drag circuit. girl. Jinkx Monsoon has what RuPaul describes as “a stage left, off center kind of quality.” alex berrydirector lex Berry works filming Drag Becomes Him as as a freelance a web series in 2011, two years videographer and before Jinkx starred on RuPaul’s editor in Seattle. Drag Race. To make the feature OriginallyA from Kentucky, Berry documentary, Berry combined moved to Seattle after attending footage from the original web film school in Tempe, Arizona. series with new footage and Berry and Jerick Hoffer, aka interviews with Jerick’s family Jinkx Monsoon, have been friends and friends. Drag Becomes Him for several years and began is Berry’s first feature film. & How did the idea for DBH come about? Is the rhythm different when you’re filming Jinkx versus film- QAI made this video for a local production company here in Seattle ing Jerick? called Quite Productions and they do different video projects each Yeah, there’s a difference. Jinkx is very on-fire and energetic and month on a different topic. They were doing one about gender and sharp and witty, and Jerick is more…he’s very quiet and he has a they asked me to submit a video. I thought of my friend Jerick very introverted side to him. He’s much more relaxed. He’s Jerick. because he explores gender with drag. I decided to post it on YouTube just for fun, and slowly it started to get a lot of views— What was the best aspect of filming this? and this was before he went on RuPaul. Somehow people were I really loved the fact that I was able to just experiment and come finding it and were interested in this totally unknown person. But into my own style more. I got to experiment a lot. I loved and was it was just for fun at the time—I never planned on making it a grateful that Jerick let me do whatever I wanted. He didn’t say, feature film. “cut that scene” or, “I don’t like the way I look in this scene.” He never made me change anything, and that humanizes it and allows The footage you shot is really intimate. real life to be seen. All the elements, which is what I try to capture. What was it like to film? The pretty and the ugly and the weird and the strange. Sometimes It felt really fun and natural. It reminded me of my childhood. I I would send my mom the episodes before I posted them because I started out shooting a lot of videos of my little sister when we were wanted her opinion. She always loved it, but sometimes she’d say, young. We’d make little short films. The way we shot it was very “Are you sure he’s gonna want you to use this shot of him in bed similar [to DBH] in that we made everything with his hair all crazy?” And I was like, up as we went along, we didn’t plan anything yeah, he’ll be fine with it, and that’s what or think anything out. We just let it happen, “It’s more about was so awesome. and that’s how I like to work. That’s how Jerick and I work together, so it just felt like There are a lot of getting-ready scenes I was filming my little sister again. The style feeling the scene in the film. What’s it like being in the that I used [when I was younger], I still use dressing room before a drag show? now. rather than thinking It’s a lot of commotion and it’s funny, because drag queens have crazy senses How would you describe that style? about it” of humor. There are some diva moments, I like really intimate, closeup, personal shots. where there’s some yelling and drama. I put an emphasis on emotion, so it’s more about feeling the scene But there’s always this unconditional love, like a family. They rather than thinking about it so much. I really like the camera to have their own slang, like their own language. They call each other feel like a character—like a person watching. I move the camera a out and read each other, but it’s all affectionate. It’s a totally differ- lot so that it feels like a person, I don’t use tripods or dollies. I’m ent communication style. Oh, and it’s always really hot. It smells also influenced by music, because I’m a musician. I think I shoot sweaty. And like perfume. But like, men’s sweat and perfume. and edit in the same way I write music, with a flow or a rhythm. What do you see as the theme(s) of the film? So how do you choose a rhythm for a scene? Relationships, and how important support is from the people I’ll find a rhythm in a scene—it’s musical in a way. With the you’re in relationships with. Everyone really believed in [Jerick]. camerawork and the cuts, it’s almost like I’m writing a song. It’s You just see something in him that you want to lift up. So I tried the same muscle. to capture that—the influence he’s had from his family and friends who have all woven their support into his life. It’s not just a drag Taking that into consideration, what’s your favorite scene in movie, it’s not just a gay movie. There’s a lot of layers to it. It’s the film? about an artist — a kid who has big dreams — who [achieves I really love the scene at the end, where [Jerick] is undressing. We them] by staying true to himself. I think it’s a story a lot of people see him all throughout the film getting ready, putting makeup on, will relate to. performing. And then at the end we see him take it all off. And I love the song I chose for it—it’s a song by my friend Intisaar and This is your first feature… Do you have more in the works? I really love her music. The song is called “Sequins,” and it just Yeah. I kind of want to do a narrative. To be honest, I never intend- fits perfectly with him deconstructing and returning back to Jerick. ed to make documentaries, but I guess I make documentaries now. And I like it a lot. ■ Premiere Night Photographs by Regan MacStravic, Nate Gowdy, John Martinotti, Brooklyn Benjestorf premiere night contributorsbasil shadid, intisaar jubran, brendan hogan, jedadiah bernards, producer songwriter sound design composer What was the biggest chal- What was the best part of con- What was the most challeng- What was the best part of con- lenge producing the film? tributing to the film? ing part about the sound de- tributing to the film? The real challenge was in our I have had the pleasure of sign for this film? The best part was, well... mak- thinking about how to go from watching Jinkx’s incredible The most challenging part of ing the music. It was such a nice a popular web series to a fea- journey for several years now. the mix was wrangling the au- process to make small music ture film. They are both very Knowing that one of my songs dio from the interviews. The portraits of Jerick, someone I’ve different mediums. You can’t could elevate the film of her film was shot run-and-gun style known since I was just a brat in just slap together 5 episodes of story was a huge honor, be- with a one man crew in lots of Portland. Getting to step back a web series and call it good. cause she is a genuine artist and real world noisy environments. and really hear him in the notes When I first started working is truly inspirational to me. So getting that as cleaned up made me smile every time. on the project with Alex Ber- as possible and creating some- ry, we had to take a step back What is the song “Sequins” about? thing reasonably consistent was How did you decide how to and think of the whole story we Sequins is up for interpreta- the most time consuming and write music to each scene? wanted to tell. Then we had to tion, of course, since most of challenging aspect of the film. In each of the pieces made for make a plan for filling the gaps. the lyrics in it are image-based the film, the goal was to em- Who would we interview? How abstractions.

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