36 J“ * * M r t • may 21. 1999
▼
Boy, oh boy
A young Portland filmmaker helps
Cascade AIDS Project reach young men
by
C hristopher M c Q uain
y motivation for the project in the
beginning, and it still is, was to make
a space, basically, for young gay men
to express themselves on video and
then compile it, representing the differences,
and also the similarities, in how we perceive
things,” explains Doug Hopper.
Hopper, a 21 -year-old photographer and
filmmaker, is in the process of completing his
first work on video, a 30-minute documentary
called Boy, in preparation for a May 26 screen
ing to benefit the Cascade AIDS Project. He
estimates that the completed version of the
video will contain interview footage with 18
young, Portland-area queer men.
One of Hopper’s main priorities for the pro
ject was to collect as wide a range of view
points as possible. “1 believe that we all kind of
associate ourselves with people of like minds,
there are those two levels to the project,
which I think are really good.”
Hopper gleaned roughly half the subjects
for Boy from his contact with the Young
Men’s Community Project and the other half
through word of mouth, an advertisement in
Just Out, and fliers posted in places where
young gay men congregate, such as SM YRC,
Outside In and the offices of Phoenix Rising
Foundation.
“1 didn’t pressure anybody [to participate],”
he says of the process of finding people to
interview. “Some people were less enthusias
tic.... 1 certainly wasn’t going around haunt
ing people or anything, but I did want to get a
really diverse group of people. A lot of the
people 1 already knew were willing— they’re
pretty expressive, vocal, creative-oriented
people— hut I didn’t want to just have that.
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so it’s really hard to see the vast array of per
ceptions. So, 1 selected a really diverse group of
young gay men to interview,” he says.
The video was funded by Cascade AIDS
Project with a portion of the grant it receives
from Multnomah County to provide services
for young men (defined by the county as ages
18 to 26).
Geoffrey Bateman, Project Coordinator for
C A P ’s Young Men’s Community Project,
details how Hopper’s film— along with anoth
er project, a June retreat— was chosen to
receive financial support: “Two guys from the
group had ideas for a project that would help
build a community for young queer men, so
we offered them some money to do their pro
jects. Doug had an idea for a video, and we
went with that idea. It wasn’t like a formal
grant process. We had their applications and
we reviewed them, and we thought this idea
would work really well.
“I thought [the video idea] worked on a
couple of levels. One was that, in the inter
view process, it was a good way to get lots of
different young men involved who might not
he involved in the [Young Men’s] program
already. He wanted to go out and not just get
people from the group, but from all over the
community. And then once we’ve edited it
and shown it, we can get a lot of folks in to
watch it and see how they respond to it. So
The people who were more low-key or a little
more mainstream were maybe a bit harder to
nail down. But even within that group of peo
ple, there were differences.”
Boy is separated into five different sections,
each featuring interviewees expressing their
personal opinions and feelings on a different
subject of import to 20-something queer
males. The sections are “ Image," “Sexuality,”
“Discrimination,” “Social” and “Spirituality.”
“1 basically sat down with the men, posed
those issues to them, and recorded whatever
came to mind. It’s sort of a...collage of
responses about those different issues, where
young gay men are coming from," Hopper
says.
Bateman hopes the video will have a life
after the May 26 screening, an ongoing
impact beyond just the younger queer male
audience. “This first showing is really, I think,
for the young queer men’s community, and
then we’ll be showing it to another discussion
group where it’s going to be all ages, so older
men will have a chance to see it and respond
to it, and then we’re going to use it at our
retreat in June also,” he says. “Once we finish
it we’re going to show it as many times as we
can.”
■ F o r more information about B o y screenings ,
call Geoffrey Bateman at (503) 223-5907.