As a kid growing up in Rockport, Massachusetts, David Wittkower remembers driving down along the Gloucester waterfront and being greeted by the sight of the expansive Gloucester fishing fleet at port and the scent of fish, either being cooked or unloaded.
That memory stayed with the 55-year-old filmmaker when he returned to visit his parents, Andrew and Mary, about a year-and-a-half ago, especially after what he observed in subsequent nostalgic drives along East Main and Rogers streets.
“Every single day, I would drive down there and think, ‘Well, the entire fleet can’t all be out at once,’” Wittkower said. “I thought, ‘Where are all the boats?’”
That singular thought became the seed for Wittkower’s newest documentary film project on the demise of the once-mighty Gloucester fishing fleet. The working title is “Dead in the Water.”
Working with New York-based writer Ken Carlton, who was Wittkower’s roommate back in the day at film school the American Film Institute in Los Angeles and who also lived in Rockport for a spell, the two are piecing together the complex tale of what led to the current commercial fishing crisis and its impact on both the fishermen and the community.
“It’s been a shock, more than anything else, to see how a fleet of 400 boats has shrunk to a couple of dozen,” Wittkower said.
He decided he needed to find out exactly how the Gloucester commercial fishing industry devolved into its current state. His first stop was Angela Sanfilippo, the president of the Gloucester Fishermen’s Wives Association and a longtime and prominent fishing advocate.
“David came to me and said he wanted to learn about what happened to the fishermen,” Sanfilippo said. “I never turn anyone away who might be interested in our cause, because you never know how they might be able to help. And I think this film might be able to help us. I support it, because I feel very strongly that this is something we need to document.”
Wittkower, a 1979 graduate of Rockport High School, now lives in Los Angeles, where he runs his own production company. He also is an accomplished cameraman, particularly within the discipline of long-lens shooting, and has worked on several full-length features.
That’s his day job. His passion, however, is producing documentaries on subjects that intellectually and aesthetically draw him near.
Wittkower is a veteran, award-winning filmmaker, serving as producer, director and editor on a number of documentaries.
His credits include “Mt. Washington: The Second Greatest Show on Earth,” which explores the severe and extreme weather conditions on New England’s tallest peak; “Guardians of the Gate: The Surfboats,” which delves into the operation of the U.S. Coast Guard rescue boats; “Firefight: Stories From the Front Line,” which looks at the heroism of firefighters who combat forest fires; “Rodeo Combat: Inside the World of Professional Bullfighters,” which goes behind the scenes of the professional rodeo circuit; and another rodeo-themed documentary, “Turn & Burn: A Behind the Scenes Look at Professional Barrel Racers.”
“Most of the films I’ve done in the past have been danger-oriented,” Wittkower said. “I usually look for a subject matter where I can learn something while making the film and hope that the viewers learn about it with me. I look at it as something I’d like to see.”
On one level, working on the fishing documentary so close to his hometown has presented a good reason to visit his folks more often from the Left Coast.
Wittkower only works on the project when he’s back on Cape Ann. But as he’s immersed himself more deeply into the subject, Wittkower has come to feel the urgency of telling the story against the backdrop of an industry whose time may be running short.
“David knows that films can make a difference to people,” Carlton said. “He’s looking to provide a tight, well-balanced view of the fishermen, using Gloucester as the focal point and perhaps scaling it out to the whole East Coast. If the film is done properly — and knowing David and his work, it will be — it can call attention to all the problems the industry is suffering.”
Following his conversation with Sanfilippo, Wittkower spread a wide net for on-camera interview subjects, including fishermen, NOAA regulators and scientists, politicians and other government officials, hoping to bring scope and clarity to the fishing disaster.
He believes he has about one-third of the film already shot. But this is filmmaking and nothing comes easily — especially money. Inspiration might be the lifeblood of filmmaking, but financing finishes a close second.
Wittkower, like almost all documentary filmmakers, is used to the struggle. He first thought he could bring the film in for about $200,000 and then, when his initial sources of financing evaporated, settled on raising $100,000.
“Now it looks like it’s going to be out-of-pocket,” he said.
The only way he can do it on that thin a budget is as a crew-of-one, leaving Wittkower to multi-task on all his on-camera interviews and shoots, serving as line producer, sound man, director of photography, interviewer and all-around sherpa.
“I’m a one-man show,” he said.
It is a difficult, exhausting method for making a film and really only the first step in the process that includes editing, scoring all the other intricacies that go into filmmaking. On some of those, he’s already enlisted some help.
Wittkower said he has secured an Oscar-winning actor to narrate the film, though he declined for now to say who that is. He also convinced the Portland, Maine-based Gather Rounders bluegrass and folk band to provide much of the score that also might include an original song from a prominent country artist (again unnamed for now) with whom Wittkower is friendly.
“I’ve gotten more than enough people to help out with those elements, but what I really need is money,” he said.
About a year ago, Wittkower thought the whole enterprise might be too much for him to do alone, that he had bitten off far more than he could chew.
Then he had a conversation with a local fisherman.
“I told him that it had become such a difficult project that I didn’t think I could do it anymore,” Wittkower said. “He looked at me and said, ‘You cannot quit. You have to keep going. You are our voice. Without you, we don’t have a voice.’ It was a good reason to keep going.”
Wittkower said officials at NOAA Fisheries have told him that his “Dead in the Water” is one of four documentary films currently in the works on the American fishing industry. At least one other — “Fish & Men” by New Hampshire filmmakers Darby Duffin and Adam Jones — also uses Gloucester in a prominent role while tracing the demise of the New England cod fishing industry against the rise of the global seafood industry.
“I understand that those other films are broader, looking not only at the fishing industry, but really at where we get our fish from,” Wittkower said. “I decided I’m going to do my film on the fishermen. We need to educate people so they understand this industry and these jobs are going away unless something changes.”
Distributed by Tribune Content Agency LLC.