Depressive artistry. How to use whatever keeps you down to propel the art in you.
Being a filmmaker and actor while having depression is challenging, but I believe more
rewarding than if I did not.
Since the moment I was born, I have had an audience. No seriously. There was a large crowd of
people gathered to watch my birth. Why? Because I came out backwards with my butt in the air. None of the nurses or interns had seen a breech birth before so they all gathered around. I see it as a bit of foreshadowing that really helps explain a lot about my personality. Growing up, I always found ways to escape the world around me. My grandmother Margret taught me how to cultivate my imagination by playing “pretend” with me every chance she got. She was Mister Rogers, if Mister Rogers were a woman.
I was on the news at 5 years old alongside my mother and brother. I got my first glimpse of
what it felt like to be a star. Everyone in the family made it at big deal to sit down and watch the tape and cheer whenever I came on. I got my first cassette tape recorder when I was 7, and could not part with it. I had to document everything and tell my stories as soon as they came to me. It was well before Social Media but comparable in the sense that I always wanted my stories to be shared with someone. So much so that every time I was done recording these “adventures,” I would take the tape to my dad, mom, brother or friends to play it back for them.
I was home schooled K through 12 by my superhuman mother. She did it the “right” way. By “the right way” I mean she made sure our interests were included into all our curriculum throughout our childhood. She also knew me and my brother had different learning styles and adapted how she taught us accordingly. Being the second born, 7 years apart from my brother, I felt I had to work a little harder to be noticed. But I think that helped me as a performer in the long run. I got to do little bible plays at church and always wanted to be whomever was the loudest most outrageous or funny character if I could.
When I was about 11 years old, my grandfather gave me my first camera. I took pictures of
wildlife primarily, but became fascinated with imagery and what made something look appealing or not. I had everything I could ever dream of and was already given a great head start for the life of a visual artist.
Or so I thought.
That same year, I was sexually abused and exploited by an older kid that I considered my best
friend at the time. It was brushed off by his mother as being “not a big deal” that “boys will be boys.” etc… My mother was given a downplayed story that kept her from knowing what actually happened and caused her to believe it was not a major problem. It got slipped under the rug to protect her son for years before my mother found out what had actually happened.
Fast forward to about 17. My mother and father were getting a divorce after 28 years of
marriage. I somehow found a way to blame myself and fell into a dark, suicidal depression. The church leaders I had admired betrayed me and everything they taught me seemed pointless. Due to strenuous family discord, ultimatums were made and I was without a place to live. For almost two years I was sleeping in my car, or wherever I could. I was hungry and malnourished, but I never wanted anyone to know I was homeless. So I hide it behind big baggy black clothes, chains and a Mohawk.
My mother called me one day and told me she found something I might be interested in. She
said she heard of an acting class in the Chamblee Tucker Rd area that some guy from Callanwolde Fine Arts center was teaching. She said she would pay for it if I wanted to go. I was in one of the lowest places of my life, and I had been suicidal for some time. I strongly debated if I wanted to go or not but something really lead me. As if God was in my ear saying, “what do you have to lose?” I thought I would just go for one class to please mom, see how lame it was then stop going.
It ended up being the life changing experience I needed to propel me forward. Learning acting
from Marty Barrett of Callanwolde changed my life. He took an unconventional more spiritual
approach to teaching. He taught me that acting was more than a stage, a camera, or an audience. It was how you learn to deal with what you are presenting. If you can’t deal with the emotion, you can’t present it properly. It was the therapy I did not know I needed. I was able to process emotions I never thought I would have been able to prior. I was then able to express them openly which was something my family was not good at. He taught me how to be unaffected by the world around me. To let go of preconceived notions or ideas of how other people may see me. Most importantly he pushed me out of my comfort zone, challenged me and encouraged me more than any man had up until that point.
My life after that began to transform. Marty took me under his wing, and I began to really
peruse my interest in film. In 2010, I became an award winning filmmaker, winning 1st place for best short at a college film fest. It was amazing and euphoric that something I had a hand in creating was praised so highly. Since then I have made a feature film, and close to 20 shorts of my own.
To me, film making at its root is about processing ideas and emotions through stories. When
crafting a film, I always approach it when I feel I have nothing left. I pull from the times I felt or feel the absolute worst. Depression and PTSD play a major role in how I make my art. I never write when I feel “good.” Doesn’t mean I can’t make “happy” content, but that content still comes from the same place. I often write, create, and draw inspiration when I need to deal with something. When I need to process, don’t know how to process, or have processed something. I want others to feel that experience.
Whether I am acting, writing, directing, editing, or the DP. I feel like I am not alone in this. Arguably the best art in history was born out of pain and hardship. Take jazz and the blues for example. The blues was a child of one of the most difficult times people of color ever faced. It was a way to process that emotion, and it lives on today as some of the most notable and compelling styles of music there is.
To find your “style” as an artist, you need only pull from experience. You don’t have to have
come from where I come from to make film. In fact, I hope you don’t. Your differing experiences will help shape that style to make for something fresh and new. Take your experiences good or bad, even your traumas, and pour them through the lens and let the film act as a filter. A filter that weeds out the unnecessary distractions and focuses on how to tell the story the way its meant to be told. Tell your story. We lose our sting as artists if we simply say, “I’m going to make this kind of movie,” or “I think I’ll make this genre.” Craft it first without any of that in mind to make it fresh and new. You can always categorize it later.
I found a way to take what was trying to kill me, and I turned it into art. No matter what you
deal with or struggle with, there is always a way to redirect it so that it works for you, not against you. In turn, it made me a performer that loves to watch his work. Not out of vanity or to boast, but because my art is therapy. Its almost like watching it helps me see that issue dealt with in one way or another. It helps me to continue to work on myself. It helps me learn how to communicate better in art and in life.
Kenneth Forrester
Allora Studios 