“It’s Not A Traditional Rock & Roll Documentary.” Interview With Directors Danny Clinch, Taryn Gould & Colleen Hennessy of ALL I CAN SAY

I was able to sit down with the three-person directing team behind All I Can Say, Danny Clinch, Taryn Gould, and Colleen Hennessy and we discussed their experience with the music of Blind Melon, their creative process and their hope for the film’s impact.

Kristy Strouse for Film Inquiry: I saw the film and loved it. It’s very heartbreaking, but also really amazing. Congratulations! Before we started I know you [Danny] said you knew Shannon personally. Can you each tell me your experience with Blind Melon, whether it be knowing them or just being a fan/when you first heard of them?

Danny Clinch: Yes, I was a young photographer, and I met the band. I started photographing them, and they were the first ones to let me into their tour bus and recording studio, and we all became friends. I spent a lot of time with them, went to Europe with them, some recording sessions – I was in New Orleans when they recorded Soup. And then sadly, when Shannon passed away from an accidental drug overdose, it pulled the rug out from everyone in our little family. It was terrible, it took a long time for us to recover, and then years later the band was looking for a new singer and I started thinking about the legacy of the band and Shannon. And we thought about making a film.

I met Colleen, and she was actually interning at my production company at the time, and she was a big Blind Melon fan, so we connected immediately. Like, “Yeah, what’s up? Why does Shannon not get any love? How come they don’t mention his name when they talk about all of the great singers? Or the ones who passed away from that era?” So, I mentioned that I was thinking about making a film about Blind Melon and we started talking, we were excited, and she was like “Count me in!” She’s a camera operator, filmmaker, and she was ready to dive in, and we did. And in the process, we were given a huge box of High 8 tapes from Lisa, Shannon’s girlfriend and the mother of his child.

There was 250 hours of video footage. We thought this would help our story, but we were conflicted all of a sudden. And then, the band’s bass player, Brad Smith, mentioned making a film out of Shannon’s footage. We started to discuss that, and we brought Taryn in. And we’ve worked together on a couple things and we are like-minded in our approach to making documentaries. We love the artfulness and the impressionistic style of visuals and storytelling, but with a real strong storyline. And we thought, “Is this possible?” These two [points to Colleen and Taryn] decided to dive in.

Taryn Gould: Yeah, and I was not a fan. Which I think was really helpful, for all of us. I was looking for inherent value in things and not whether or not there was a cut of a song I liked that wasn’t released. So, watching the footage was an amazing process, it took a really long time and I feel really grateful that we did have the time to sort through, look through every frame, and start to believe we could cut a film this way. We knew we’d have to come up with structure, though Shannon came up with a wonderful structure by the nature of the tapes.

He was incredibly thorough; it was a meticulous archive of a person’s life. Not just the highs and the low, but the moments of quiet, an empty room, a cat coming out of the grass. It was such an experience to sit and look through that footage. And we thought…if we could condense this for an audience so that they can experience this, that would be amazing. And we knew we needed guide posts, and we needed to come up with our own ideas of the acts. And the acts of Shannon’s life actually follow an almost trite story. If you were writing a script, you’d kind of roll your eyes. “A kid leaves Indiana, hangs out with Axel, get’s signed before they have songs, has super stardom- mega hits, addiction.” I mean the whole thing, we’ve heard it before, but it happened to him, and he recorded it. He recorded the things that really comprised a life, like sitting in a room training a camera on your close friend.

David Clinch: Brushing his teeth.

Colleen Hennessy: Giving his dog a bath.

Taryn Gould: The larger question we were hoping this film would speak to is “Where did this impulse come from?” This was the earliest stages of self-archiving and documentation. It’s so commonplace that it’s like the blueprint of where we are now, and it’s this very pure exploration of that. He couldn’t share it, but he still felt compelled to document it. I think it’s a really reflective film in that way, “what is this need we have?” It’s either a fear of disappearing, well…he gives us a lot of possible reasons for filming and we left them all in there. Because I think we’re asking ourselves those questions now. Most of us aren’t going to have an editor go through it.

With 250 hours, I’m sure it was quite the process. How long did it take to work through that?

Danny Clinch: You mean after she dumped another 200 hours of answering machine recordings on us? [Laughs]

Colleen & Taryn: Yes! We kept getting more footage.

And I loved that by the way, the mixture of the recordings and video. The editing was amazing.

Danny Clinch: [Points to Colleen and Taryn] Tag team editors right here. It’s incredible. I think, while we’re on the subject, we hope that people recognize the uniqueness of this film. The way it was cut, and told, it’s not a traditional rock documentary. In fact, it’s way different. It’s very unexpected, and I’m not sure I’ve seen a film that’s autobiographical like this, told by the subject.

I hadn’t either, and I think that aspect is why it is so special.

Taryn Gould: Shannon’s vision.

Danny Clinch: You keep thinking a talking head is going to come on. And then Shannon starts talking right to the camera.

Taryn Gould: It’s very much a documentary because a lot of it is told in past tense. Sometimes you get lucky and tape something as it happens, but generally you’re trying to put the pieces together of what’s already happened. We had this rare opportunity, because this person documented SO extensively, to try and tell story in present tense as he was experiencing. Why the hell wouldn’t we? And there were moments I worried that we were not going to be able to represent this part of it because Shannon didn’t tell us about it. Every time those moments would come up, we would realize that it’s worth it. You’re experiencing this with this person, as he felt it, as he saw it, as he recorded it. There are things happening around the frame that you are not going to see. The answer was always: it’s worth it.

Danny Clinch: Yeah, and it is taking a chance to hope, to know really, that your audience is smart enough to draw their own parallels. But also, it’s almost like when you write a song, and someone asks you to explain it. And you don’t want to, because often times you want them to take their own life experiences and read into the song. I think people can do that with this film too. I hope this film will be a conversation starter. Like afterwards, people will sit and talk about what they thought of certain things. Addiction and mental health is important as ever right now and the loss that we’ve had in the creative community. Creative people are much more susceptible to addiction and depression. The fact is that people need to recognize that and be supportive of others, and those having issues out there need to know there are people who want to help them. We’ve partnered up with Music Cares, to help educate and find ways to help people. That’s one of the goals as well.

Terrific! And I know you mentioned they edited, but how did you sort of split the work between you three?

Danny Clinch: I feel like I was sort of overseeing the project. My relationship with the band and the family and my history. We all discussed our overall vision once it came into focus. These guys, Taryn started broad stroking the story, Colleen was sort of like the grounding archivist, knowing where all the stories were. They were collaborating and supporting each other. Taryn was going in and making sense of the story. It was a great opportunity to surround myself with people who were smarter than me. [Laughs] It was such a process. They would come to me and say “We’re thinking of this,” or “What do you think of that?” This is working, this isn’t working.

Colleen Hennessy: Is this even a film?

Taryn Gould: A lot of self-consciousness. Are we going to be torturing people? [Laughs] Colleen and I, actually she lives in Puerto Rico for part of the year, and I got to go watch clips in Puerto Rico which is probably one of the best periods of my life. I got to experience this stuff in a beautiful place and had the space to think. I’m wondering, how did you respond to the time mechanism?

I thought it worked great.

Taryn Gould: That ended up being the way that we knew we could infuse a tension into the film. So those were all really exciting moments. We don’t have people sitting down orienting you, we have Shannon and the date. You’re not aware of it all the time. So that infuses a tension and gives you a sense of time of where you are in the film and the finiteness of it, how long he has and what he got to accomplish during his time that he was with us.

Danny Clinch: What did you think about the opening and knowing that you are looking at the very last tape?

I thought that it was perfect because it gave you that sort of gut-punch in the beginning, and that doesn’t go away as things progress.

Danny Clinch: How did you discover Blind Melon?

I’ve been listening to them since I was a teenager, the 90’s in general is one of my favorite musical eras.

Danny Clinch: I think it’ll be interesting, those who love 90’s, how they experience it. Because the 90’s culture is in there, O.J, Tanya Harding, Rodney King.

Taryn Gould: To give you a base.

I love that too, you get to see his reactions to those events as they happen.

Danny Clinch: Yes, it’s great.

We want to thank Danny Clinch, Taryn Gould, Colleen Hennessy for speaking with us. All I Can Say premiered at Tribeca Film Festival.