ABOUT:

Ten years ago I was in Times Square filming Robert Fitzpatrick as he awaited an apocalypse that would never arrive. This footage ended up becoming my short documentary We Will Forget and it was my first foray into serious documentary filmmaking. I followed Robert for a few weeks leading up to May 21st, 2011 and also filmed several other believers who I didn’t end up including in the film.

One shoot was with a Bible study group of four men. I spent an evening with them as they wrestled with their beliefs and shared their favorite bible passages. I thought the footage was wonderful but couldn’t see how to fit in Robert’s story so it lived on a hard drive in a closet for a while.

Then in 2017 I decided to take a look at what I had shot, and was surprised by how alive and relevant it felt. I decided to start cutting it, not sure what I would end up with. As I worked away it became clear the film needed to be longer than a typical short. In the end I drew a lot of inspiration from Leigh Ledare’s The Task, and decided to let the conversation unfold in a natural and lengthy manner.

The intermittent editing process spanned 2017-2021, by far the longest I’ve ever worked on something. The film was shot on a DVX200 and a Sony Z1 HDV camera. Ironically, one of the other people I interviewed about May 21st was an NYPD detective who months later came to my office after we reported that the Sony Z1 had been stolen. I developed my own grain and noise pattern to overlay over the film.

Bible Study in Brooklyn is presented here for free for the weekend of May 21st, 2021 in honor of the tenth anniversary of the subject’s doomsday prophecy. It will be available in other forms after that.