11 MINUTES WITH JAY
I had the pleasure of speaking with Jay McCarroll in advance of the release of the film documenting the launch of his first line during Fall Fashion week 2007. If you don’t know who Jay is, he’s the winner of first season of the megahit reality series, Project Runway currently on the shelf in a dispute over ownership between Bravo and The Weinstein Company, it’s ostensible creator. After the win, Michael Selditch and Rob Tate directed and edited Project Jay for Bravo TV and when McCarrol finally got an opportunity to show at Fashion Week the team decided to follow him.
The film captures the essence of “Jay”, truly one of a kind. He’s his own man, an artist who is extremely talented, sometimes insecure, and not entirely interested in “playing the game” as in kissing up to all the right people in order to be annointed by style makers like Anna Wintour (see The Devil Wears Prada). Whereas most designers get Audi or some luxury brand to underwrite them, anti-establishment, anti-fur, McCarroll gets the Humane Society of America.
McCarroll describes himself as a small town, midwesterner who wants to make clothes for regular people and in the film he comes off as smart, saavy and a self-promoter in the best sense. And we’re with him, on his side the entire time as he navigates his way through the various personnel necessary to put on this show, this 11 Minutes of models on a catwalk in a tent, in Bryant Park, New York City, filled with a coterie of rivals, wannabes, career-makers, gossip mongers and celebrities.
The film doesn’t savage anyone but thanks to people’s own tendency to be self-important combined with some deliberate editing choices, there are some unflattering portrayals particularly of the public relations staff, who alternate between obnoxious and neurotic. There’s the mean overly serious know it all boss and her long suffering underling. This is exactly the kind of hierarchy Jay won’t easily fit into. Then for weirdly eccentric to the extreme, there’s the crazy shoe guy: a fetishist who is so meticulous and careful Jay and the models are waiting at the show when the shoes are finally delivered.
The film itself is an extremely well crafted tale that flies by in a flash, with the rapid edits and faux reality of the best “reality” shows. It was all shot on a pre-HD portable camera, beloved by documentarists and it is a testament to the skill of the editor and director that it just aesthetic justice to it’s artistic subject. It wears itself well.
Part of the irony of the title is it’s reference to both the actual time that passes during a runway show as well as the famous Warholism about everyone’s moment in the spotlight, I think it was 15 minutes. McCarroll has got it, whatever that thing is that makes people want to stop and look and listen to him: capital C charisma. He seems to have a built-in fan base that if anything, should only increase. He’s already gone well past his minutes and personally, I hope he stays there for a long, long time.
11 Minutes opens February 20, 2009.
Directed and produced by Michael Selditch and Rob Tate; edited by Rob Tate; cinematography by Alex Wolfe, Rob Tate and Michael Selditch. Released by Regent. Running Time: 103 minutes.
With: Jay McCarrol.
