Billy Mai Brooks

“Mattu Put Me On”, is a film documentary made for the TV Production module.

I chose to focus specifically on the rights of the LGBTQ+ community in the hope that my documentary would help to erode stereotypes surrounding queer people in the music industry.
I realised that there was a purpose and an audience for this topic in the documentary genre because of Louis Theroux’s 2015 episode Transgender Kids. In an interview for Vice, Theroux said, “You hear a lot about sexuality and… the spectrum is acknowledged. But that is equally the case with gender. I wanted to create a documentary similarly to Theroux that teaches it’s viewers that musicians who are gay or trans shouldn’t be considered as ‘gay/trans musicians;’ they deserve to be treated simply as musicians in their own right, without constantly having to fit to a label.
In preparation for the shooting days, I developed my vision from watching documentaries such as The Social Dilemma and Amanda Knox. I was also inspired heavily by comedic documentary genres such as Tiger King, and Don’t F**k With Cats, all of which contained lots of ‘fly on the wall’ footage. This consists of techniques including extreme close-ups, over-the-shoulder shots, hand-held footage and poor focus. I adopted the wacky humour from these shows by including random archive footage and comedic scenes, editing in a way that accentuated this content. Appearing on the screen myself showcases Bill Nichols’ Participatory characteristics.

My interviews were with young, queer musicians in Manchester who established their feelings clearly and maturely. Marcus said, “I’m not the kind of person who would put my sexuality as ‘that’s me, I’m my sexuality’… That’s part of us, [but] being pansexual is just another part of me, like making music is, being mixed race, just like everything else that makes up me.” This is exactly the message I wanted to share and so I’m really proud that I gave these queer musicians the chance to be heard.