Meeting Ali Willis is an authored fly-on-the-wall documentary about me flying to America to meet Ali Willis and find out about ‘The murder of Bobby Kent’ from her perspective.
- Ali Willis
Background
Ali Willis is one of the 7 kids that were involved in the murder of Bobby Kent in 1993. The case was made into a book, Bully: a True Story of High School Revenge (1998) and a film, Bully (2001). She has since been released on parole and is currently under community supervision for 40 years.
Theme
The theme is fame but fame for murder, fame for a film/book about a true crime that you were involved in.
Narrative
I will spend 4 days with Ali, the first being spent being shown around her house and introduced to her family (her daughter). I will also visit her husband who she is now separated from. The second will be spent at her work place, seeing what she does day to day, meeting her colleagues and finding out how community supervision affects her life. On the third day I will sit down with Ali to talk about the murder and may visit its location if possible. The fourth and final day will consist of following Ali to a social occasion (e.g. bingo) to meet her best friends and talk about what she wants from her future.
Characters
The documentary will ultimately be about Ali, “A fierce female who has gained strength through false persecution” (taken from her MySpace page), therefore she will be the main character. I will author it (although I will only ever be heard, never seen). While getting to know Ali, we will inevitably come into contact with her husband, daughter, friends and colleagues. There is also a possibility we could speak to some of the other ‘kids’ that have been released.
Access
We would need to gain access to Ali’s house, work place, a social location that she regularly visits, a location to meet her husband and possibly the location of the murder. I am yet to confirm any access but the way Ali talks in a very opinionated way on her MySpace page, including about very personal things like the murder case, suggests that she wants to be heard and would possibly be open to a documentary. I also have to look into the extent in which she could talk about the case.
Visuals
I will follow Ali around with a camera to achieve an observational feel. The colours will be naturalistic. I will look to shoot some nicely composed establishing shots but the majority of the footage will be handheld and off the cuff.
Slot/Channel
I imagine this documentary to fit into the First Cut slot on Channel 4.
May 20, 2010 at 4:03 pm |
What can be fascinating about this type of film is the the distance between how the protagonist wants to be seen and how we actually see them. She is evidently keen on justifying herself to the rest of the world and in constructing a personality and a story for international consumption. Your job would be to probe the cracks in her mask and I am not sure that you would manage to do that in just four days. I would suggest that you plan to shoot with her over an extended period and to try to get her to truly reveal herself.
The question about access is mainly whether you have access to Ali herself, which is a basic question that needs to be addressed.
It would be hard to get someone to commission this film before you have shot anything: a trailer or some footage would be necessary to get the interest of a funder.
July 6, 2010 at 5:41 pm |
I commend you. This would make you ALOT of money and be something a wide variety of people have been waiting for. I want to commend you in particular on how spunky you are to acknowledge the fact that there are lots of people out there that would find this interesting, particularly because of the contradictions. There is SUCH controversy behind this story and this project. The American Justice episode seemed to come directly from the book which has been hit with question marks by lots of people. It seems to me it all came from their lawyer’s depositions at their APPEALS hearings, so the accounts are all going to be slanted to some degree. Now Ali might do alot of lying to you and knowing that might add to the quality of your final project. I would like to be updated if this documentary should ever come out, I would buy it and tell my hubpages readers about it for you.
July 7, 2010 at 3:37 pm |
Thanks a lot for your comments.
Can I just ask how you found this?
October 18, 2010 at 6:10 pm |
I was trying to find the American Justice episode and youtube took it down. So I googled the kids’ names and “ali willis” took me here.
December 1, 2010 at 9:09 pm |
r u having any progress and what contact did u have wit them
January 2, 2011 at 12:43 pm |
I’m not having any progress at the moment unfortunately, I’m not sure who to contact to take the project forward. I did send Ali Willis a message on myspace but she didn’t reply.
April 15, 2011 at 8:57 am |
Any progress?
April 15, 2011 at 10:39 am |
None I’m afraid, I’m pretty much in the same situation I was the last time someone asked me. Do you know anyone I could contact to progress the project? Do you think something like this could work with Louis Theroux?
December 14, 2011 at 8:14 am |
none of you will really know what happened unless you actually know the people that were involved….
i have this privlige because lisa connelly is a very close family friend of mine, everyone can talk about what they think happened but only a select few people will really know the truth, like me.
December 14, 2011 at 11:30 am |
Would anyone involved be interested in doing a documentary do you think?