Alumni Feature: The Creative Class By Cathy Yingling Chapelle ’87

BY CATHY YINGLING CHAPELLE ’87

The two alumni documentarians featured in this issue of The Phoenix exemplify Park Tudor’s mission of inspiring balanced, lifelong learners. One is pursuing filmmaking full-time, releasing his first feature documentary; the other is beginning a promising legal career, while still finding time for the creative outlets that she loves.

Skye Wallin ’07 first discovered one of the main characters in his film “American Gadfly” while still a student at Park Tudor. The documentary tells the story of a group of teens who enlist former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel to make a Presidential run at age 89. “I became interested in the 2008 Presidential campaign while I was taking AP World History in high school; Mike Gravel was a candidate and I noticed him on the stage during the Democratic debates. I followed his career from afar ever since, which is how I learned about his latest run for office.”

Skye recently took time out of his busy schedule to discuss “American Gadfly” with me; the movie has been screened to critical acclaim at several film festivals, including Indianapolis’s recent Heartland Film Festival. It won the Audience Award for Best Documentary at the Ashland Film Festival where it premiered in March. On January 4, 2022, it will be available virtually in the United States and Canada on most of the major streaming platforms; Skye directed and produced the film. Tell me more about “American Gadfly.”

It’s about a group of high school kids who became upset that the issues they care about – specifically an anti-war, anticorruption agenda – weren’t being discussed enough by the Democratic candidates in the 2020 Presidential primary race. They discover Mike Gravel, who was a U.S. Senator in the 70s and was a pivotal figure in the anti-Vietnam war movement, and become determined to get him to enter the race. It’s essentially a political “coming-of-age” story as these teens use their social media savvy to turn Mike into a Twitter meme and get him noticed by a whole new generation. But it’s much more than just a political story; these kids really formed an unlikely friendship with Mike and he was so full of gratitude for all they did to give him one last ride on the political stage (Editor’s note: Mike Gravel passed away in June).

How did the kids discover Mike Gravel?

They found him on YouTube. He ran for President in 2008, so there are clips of him from the Democratic candidate debates. He truly was a gadfly – criticizing the other candidates on the stage for not doing enough to end U.S. participation in various wars. And he was ahead on other issues, as well – marriage equality in particular, which none of the mainstream Democratic candidates supported in ’08. The kids admired his positions and his bluntness, so they got his contact info and called him. He was shockingly open to them and that started the campaign.

You also discovered Mike as a high school student. Tell me about that.

I was taking AP World History as a senior in 2007, and we talked a lot about the war in Iraq. I became very intellectually engaged in the upcoming election, and started tuning in to the Democratic debates. I saw Mike on the debate stage, and was fascinated with him. I learned about his role during the Vietnam war, as well as his connection with the Pentagon Papers – he was the only elected official to read the Pentagon Papers and read them into the public record in the Senate, so that interested me, too, as an alternative version of how the U.S. got into the Vietnam war.

I followed Mike from afar over the years; I would Google him periodically to see what he was up to. Then in 2019, I read an article in Rolling Stone about these teens tweeting on Mike’s behalf and looked at his Twitter. It was wild – it was clearly Mike’s beliefs, but in the voice of the kids; Mike really wasn’t attuned to Twitter. I found that this group of kids was running him for President and I thought this would be a cool, fun way to use my filmmaking skills. I contacted Mike and he was open to the idea of making a documentary, I was able to raise some seed money to get started, and it all just kind of took off from there.

How has your Park Tudor education benefitted you in your career as a filmmaker?

My Park Tudor education prepared me for filmmaking in many ways. I learned so much at PT about research, which is crucial to both documentaries and fiction films. If I’m writing a script about a character who is different from me, there’s a massive amount of research involved to be able to understand their mindset and motivation.

In the Global Scholars program, I developed my skills in writing and editing and fully forming an argument, in addition to the two years of research that went into my final project. For “American Gadfly,” these skills were essential, because I had to clearly explain some complicated ideas like the primary process, polling thresholds and fundraising regulations to the audience.

AP World History was also an incredible class for me, studying different cultures, religions, conflicts and just understanding the diversity of our world and our country. I also developed resilience at Park Tudor; there is so much academic rigor and there were certainly times that were a bit of a struggle, but I learned to be persistent and keep going. Filmmaking is such a difficult field to get into and I’ve had challenging times where I considered giving up on this career, but I found that there is so much that you can do if you just keep going and learn from your mistakes and failures. I don’t think I would be able to be a filmmaker without the lessons I learned at Park Tudor.

What’s next for you?

I’m working on an environmental documentary project about water contamination; it’s a project I began several years ago that I’m revisiting now with the experience and lessons learned from making “American Gadfly.” I also have a fiction project that I’m writing at the moment as a graphic novel (with the intention of eventually making it into a film) – I’m equally passionate about both documentaries and fiction films.

How can people follow along with “American Gadfly” and learn about release dates and other news about the film?

You can visit our website, americangadflymovie.com and sign up for updates; we’re also on social media: Instagram: @americangadflymovie Twitter: @gadflymovie Facebook: @americangadfly

Lisa Muloma ’13 graduated from Stanford Law School in 2020. She was honored to have been elected by her classmates to give an address at Commencement, and following her graduation she moved to Houston, Texas to work as a Law Clerk for a Federal Judge. Despite her busy career, Lisa has found time to work on a new documentary film about Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs).

Tell me about this documentary.

I first became involved with the team in February 2020. Initially, there was no plan to make a documentary. The idea started as a “radical listening” project in early 2018, in which the team traveled around from HBCU to HBCU with a giant grey couch. Students were invited to sit on the couch and share their stories and thoughts about their HBCU experience, and a camera crew was along to document the stories. We realized

that this project could be turned into a great documentary, especially since we noticed there was a bit of a vacuum in documentary films about HBCUs. A previous PBS documentary had taken a 10,000-foot view of HBCUs, from their initial inception to the present. Our film gives us the opportunity to delve deeply into the personal stories of three or four interview subjects, using their lives as a focused lens through which to explore these incredible institutions and how they do what they do. HBCUs are responsible for the existence of the Black middle class, as well as 80% of Black federal judges, and a disproportionate percent of Black PhDs, doctors, lawyers, and executives.

How did you become involved in the project?

I have always been interested in storytelling; when I was an undergrad at Vanderbilt University, I majored in English with a focus in creative writing. I was brought in by the documentary team as a writer, to help shape the story and move the narrative beyond the wide array of footage that was shot during the couch interviews. I was intrigued by the opportunity, especially because of the timing; the summer of 2020 brought about a so-called racial awakening that began to expand the ways our society understands our racial history and our racial present. There were a lot of discussions about various systems that need to be changed or even torn down. I saw our study of HBCUs as a way of urging one another forward, past deconstruction, towards a creative imagination. In studying these institutions, which were built to protect and nurture Black dreams, maybe we could take some lessons to inform our national project.

Where are you in the process of making the documentary?

We are still in the filming process, after three film trips. So we’re in the dynamic process of editing as well as expanding our footage and adapting our story as we learn more. I am hopeful that it will be released in the next year or so. We’re still waiting for an official title to emerge.

In the meantime, you are working full-time as a Law Clerk for a Federal Judge. How do you balance the two?

I have a pretty tight schedule and plan out my mornings so that I have extended time to write three times a week; I typically work on the documentary during the weekends. I am fortunate to work for a very holistic judge, who encourages us to develop other parts of ourselves.

What are your career plans? Do you see yourself continuing to pursue a legal career, or are there more films in your future?

For now and at least for the next several years, I’m focused on my legal career. I’m currently applying for jobs as a Federal Public Defender, representing people in Federal courts who can’t afford to hire their own lawyer. I look forward to using my storytelling skills to show judges and juries that my clients are more than the sum of their mistakes. I do think I will always have creative pursuits - that is very important to me. Who knows - maybe one day I will pursue an M.F.A in creative writing after I pay off these law school loans. One of my English professors at Vanderbilt always said that it’s better to actually write than to be a writer. Which is to say, as long as I protect space for my art and creativity, it doesn’t really matter whether my poems are paying the bills.

How did your Park Tudor education prepare you for what you are doing now?

I was very lucky to have teachers who encouraged me to pursue writing very early on. I started at Park Tudor in 8th grade, and I was shy and quiet - just trying to figure out a new school. I loved English class, and Dr. (Shants) Hart gave me the English award that year; that meant a lot to me as someone who felt a little invisible.

In Upper School, Dr. (Jan) Guffin really invested in me. He invited me to his office and showed interest in my moody little poems; he critiqued them and insisted on submitting them to the Scholastic Art and Writing Competition. Dr. Dubie encouraged me, as well. I remember him being very intentional about letting me know the sky was the limit for me. I loved all my English teachers: Drs. Hamer and Sharpless, Therese Glassmeyer; their classes were always my favorite hour of the day. I also have Park Tudor to thank for many of my oldest and deepest friendships; we did a lot of growing up here, didn’t we?

How can people learn more about the HBCU documentary and follow the progress?

We’re on Instagram: @hbcudocumentary and we also have our website, hbcu-couch.com. We are still in the process of raising funds for the film, so anyone who is interested in supporting us can donate at paypal.me/HBCUdocumentary.