Jeff Wray: Doing What's in His Heart

Greater Lansing Business Monthly, Sep 2008 by Whittington, Jane

When Jeff Wray was in undergraduate school at Hiram College in Ohio, he was drawn to film, but somehow it just didn't seem like a career possibility. When he graduated, he and his wife, Tama Hamilton-Wray, joined the Peace Corps and spent two years teaching in Kenya.

He says now that besides being "a good thing to do," it also gave him time to think about what he really wanted to do with his life and, as he puts it, "what was in my heart." And it was filmmaking. When they returned to the United States, Wray applied to film schools and chose to attend Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, which had a small but excellent film program.

It was there that he made his first films and discovered that, indeed, film is his passion.

Q: Tell me about your first experiences in filmmaking in graduate school.

A: The second film I made there was called The Beautiful Ones and that got me started. It was an experimental work, rather autobiographical, about my losing my father at age ten.

Of course, I fictionalized it, but everyone's first question was, "Is it autobiographical?" But the film got me some good attention; it played in film festivals all over the United States and even was shown a couple of places in Europe. I trace my real start back to that film.

After I finished at Ohio University, I was able to get money to continue making films. So that's the track I've been on ever since.

Q: How did you end up at Michigan State?

A: I was teaching at Ohio University, and I found that I really enjoyed teaching. I like the give and take with students and they always inspire me. Anyway, my wife was offered a job at Michigan State running the African media program and two days later I was offered a job at Pennsylvania State. But we decided to come here and ifs been a very good move for us. I've been teaching here since 2000 and got tenure last year.

Q: When you do a film here, do you use MSU's facilities and equipment?

A: No, I'm off on my own. I really try to keep those two parts of my life separate. Of course, the university has been very good to me in terms of supporting my work. I think what you do as an independent filmmaker is build up a network of people - I have a core group of four or five people with whom I went to film school.

Q: Are they local?

A: No, they're all over the place. But since I've been here, I've been able to bring in some Michigan folks, so they've become a part of our "family." My mentor at Ohio University always spoke of film people as being part of the same family, and the family keeps growing for me. I believe in making films where you are, so I believe in using local talent Some of them have been former students or people I've met through other people in local filmmaking. It doesn't make sense to me that if I'm living here I'd do my work someplace else. Plus, I'm selfish, and I like to be at home.

Q: What are some of your productions?

A: In 2003, we did a film called China for PBS and funded by them, and it was shown all over the country. It's about a couple in their sixties, settled and kind of bored. Then, out of the blue, the husband takes up martial arts. It's about how their lives change and how they adapt to it. More recently, I did a film called the Soul Searchers. It's actually three short films. The first is Get Thee Behind Me, about a little boy, about seven, who thinks the devil is after him and who is falling in love for the first time.

The second is Two Pink Dots - You're Positive about a 19-year-old young woman who's pregnant. It's quite surreal actually because we go inside her head. And the third one is called Middle Skin about a couple whose marriage is strained. We finished The Soul Searchers in March, so it's just starting to get around.

0: How do you feel about the plans for City Center Studios?

A: Well, I was trained without sound-stages, so I've learned to - and I like to - do lots of location shooting, I like the realism and the naturalism of that But you can't control the elements and that's an issue sometimes. City Center will open up new possibilities for shooting a film using a controlled environment We can control the sound, the lighting, the space to move the camera around - it's just a great new option.

Q: Will you be taking advantage of the new legislation?

A: Of course! We're planning to shoot a film in Detroit next summer. It's an idea I've had for a while, but what kicked me into gear were the possibilities opened up by these incentives.

Q: Tell me about the new movie.

A: Well, Detroit's a complicated city. It's beautiful cinematically, both on the high end and the low end. I keep seeing places there and thinking to myself, "Man, I'd love to shoot a film there!" The script I'm working on is tentatively titled Men of Detroit. It's about a laid off auto worker who's now working in a big box store. He dies early in the film, and his friends, all of whom have left Detroit, come back for his funeral.

Q: So when you do a film, what's your role? Writing, directing, acting?

A: I'm generally the writer and director. And maybe the producer too, since I have to raise the money! But my wife is a great producer. She's good at raising money and keeping things organized and on track. My loves are writing and directing. The writing part is pretty solitary, but then when we get to the part where we're shooting, that's very social. Writing can take a long time, but shooting is a very intense three or four weeks. We have a lot of fun, and there's a great sense of shared purpose.