rakontur

Billy Corben’s Cocaine Cowboys

WHAT IS THIS FILM ABOUT?

In the 1980s, ruthless Colombian cocaine barons invaded Miami with a brand of violence unseen in this country since Prohibition-era Chicago - and it put the city on the map. “Cocaine Cowboys” is the true story of how Miami became the drug, murder and cash capital of the United States, told by the people who made it all happen.

WHY DID YOU FEEL COMPELLED TO MAKE THE MOVIE?

We are Miami boys, born and bred. It’s a pretty young city, so our history is well known, but when you scratch beneath the surface, you find cocaine. We were born in 78 – my producing partner and I – so in the early 80s, I have some vague memories of people doing very well. This is in the midst of a nationwide recession, and no one was hurting for money. I most distinctly remember the affluence. What I didn’t remember all the violence. I remember watching the TV news, but I wasn’t cognizant that we were the murder capital of the country. I became hyper-aware of it researching this project.

HOW LONG HAVE YOU BEEN PLANNING THE FILM?

For all 12 years that we had our production company, this idea has been germinating. We incorporated and always wanted to do something about this era in Miami. Alfred had read all of the books, and it had always been in the back of our minds. When we did Raw Deal – A ImageQuestion of Consent – we became the documentary guys. We wanted to do the real Miami Vice and the real Scarface. We knew that nonfiction was the way to go. That was born out of the access. It was the fact that we heard from somebody about John Roberts – that was the starting point.

HOW DID YOU AMASS THE ARCHIVE OF MATERIALS THAT YOU USED?

We knew about the existence of an archive which has been decades in the collecting of Florida new footage, tourism films and videos, and private collections. We knew that we were going to tap that resource – 44 minutes and over 1200 clips from the Wolfson Florida Moving Image Archive. We shot 160 hours of interviews, 700 photographs and crime scene photographs, and we had 12 hours of archival footage to sort Imagethrough. I wanted to shoot all of the interviews with two cameras. I brought three cameras into a prison. I knew that it was going to be about excess – of imagery and music. That was early on the vision. It was always about whittling it down – what was going to make the cut and what wasn’t. There’s no cutting room floor anymore – you save it for later. We’ve got over a half-hour of extra scenes.

HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO ASSEMBLE EVERYTHING INTO A FILM?

It was over a year in post. It was brutal. One of the biggest challenges from a technical perspective was assembling all of these elements. We shot on 24p DV. We shot on 35, 16 and super 8. Not to mention all of the different archives. Some were film, some were video. There were all sorts of issues that we had. We met a cameraman in Miami who remembers the summer of 79 were he was making the transition from film to video. You’ll see some glitches in the movie on the master tapes. I feel good about having preserved a lot of that material in the time capsule that is the movie.

HOW DID YOU CREATE THE NARRATIVE DRIVE OF THE FILM?

Well, our production company is called Rakontur - it all comes down to storytelling with as many anecdotes and little details about the business as we could. We also needed to move the story forward and link the three acts together: the business – the money – and the violence. We had early cuts that were four-hours long. Does this move the story forward? NO? It’s gone. Ultimately, things cut out will go onto the DVD. We needed to get it to under two hours or as close as we could get.

WHAT IS THE KEY TO DIRECTING A GOOD DOCUMENTARY FILM?

Access is the key to making a good documentary. Look no further than Deep Throat in Watergate. That was the difference here – why does this transcend a one-hour TV doc on this era. You can always find a journalist who will talk, but to get the scoop from the cowboy’s mouth – that’s what makes it unique and rare and a worthy documentary.