REFLECTING ON HANGING WITH HASIDICS - MY DOCUMENTARY ABOUT HASIDIC BROOKLYN

I’ve filmed three documentaries with Rabbi Yoni Katz now - a Chasidic Jewish Rabbi based in Crown Heights. The first time we filmed, it was before the pandemic. I was in New York and went through Air Bnb and found this bearded man offering tours around Crown Heights - a tour inside the closed doors of Crown Heights.

I’m from London, and we have a similar area in North East London, Stamford Hill. It’s an area I would cycle through a lot - a community where parallel lives of gentiles and Chasidics cross paths but rarely mingle.

So when I saw this tour in New York I thought to my self why not ask if they wanted to make a little film.

I got a reply with in an hour “Yes! Meet me at…” and so it the date was set!

On the day, I took my video camera to Crown Heights - it was busy, a festival was happening and young Jewish men were walking around with fruits asking me “are you Jewish?” Each time my reply was long wided and I would try to explain my loosely Jewish heritage in a few sentences - they often got bored and walked on - I found out later they were asking in order to get a blessing from a fellow Jew.

It was a windy day and yarmulkes were blowing off heads everywhere. Yoni was late. But I recieved a text explaining traffic was bad. I sat and watched the busy street, as people went in and out of bakeries and as people picked up their yarmulkes off the ground.

After an hour a strong New York voice came to me and said “Marcus!” - car keys in hand. Yoni took me to his office and I placed a microphone on him and with in three hours we filmed the first “Hanging With Hasidics”. It reached around 300,000 views - (I’ve recently recoloured it as my video colouring was not to my liking - so the view count has restarted.)

Hanging With Hasidics - the first documentary on Jewish life in New York directed and edited by myself

I loved my time filming with Yoni - he took me all over the area - the most amazing part was walking down the stairs of 770 Eastern Parkway and being greeted to hundreds of worshippers in this dark brown wooden walled basement synagogue.

Back in London, I knew I wanted to make another film - one comment that kept repeating in the comments section of the video was “where are the women?” - I wanted to address this and so hoped to do a video on family life and to meet Rabbi Yoni’s wife Rivka properly.

I had my ticket booked for April 2020 - but then the pandemic happened!

So it in 2022, after much turmoil, I rebooked the trip - the bad news for me though was that it was Passover - not a good time for filming as it is a period where all tools are put down and a period of worship and reflection. However, on my last day in New York, filming would be possible, the same day as I would catch my flight!

So with all my luggage for my flight home, I went with my Sony Fx3 and met Yoni for a second time - on a sunny day. This time we filmed two videos - one on scripture restoration, and the other on family life. I took photos in 770 Eastern parkway again - it felt so familiar there the second time. I was using Portra film on my GA645 for photos. - It was dark but it somehow worked.

It was so fun meeting the family - Yoni’s mother in law hosted and the whole family gave me a warm welcome.

Documentary filmed by Marcus Hessenberg, London based filmmaker.

You can see the joy in filming this video I think - you can tell how I am just reacting to all the different situations that suddenly presented themselves.

We filmed this and the video which became part three, in around three hours. Quick!

Somehow, the view count kept creeping up when I released it - currently it is on 1.1 million views and counting.

And you know the strangest thing - seeing reaction videos to your videos. I’ve had some reaction videos to videos where I was acting as DoP but not to my own video before.

It was quite a thing to see a Youtuber called PortugesePai take time to film himself reacting to all three of my Hanging With Hasidic series. I really enjoyed watching them.

filming documentaries doesn’t have to be hard

So what did I take from this experience? Other than seeing behind closed doors, something I am so grateful for as a filmmaker as it is.

Well it confirmed my original thoughts, filming a documentary is about choosing the right subject. Once you have that, it’s then a case of reacting to it. As I say, the last two films were filmed in three hours, with a time limit to get out for a flight. The first documentary was a bout three hours too. My camera probably stayed on for most of it. Yoni was such a good host, we just went from place to place quickly.

But my job as a filmmaker is to 1. choose what to document, how to get the subject to take me to somewhere that will be interesting to the viewer, and 2. to allow for the subject to bring their personality out. Creating a space for them to get excited by what they are showing, whilst guiding them to topics that will be relevant and interesting to an audience.

I’ve been on shoots where this balance hasn’t been right - where there were too many people on set confusing the contributor and asking them to do things that made them start to close up more. The tone on set has to be right.