Dr. Martens are currently in the middle of their second annual Dr. Martens Presents Music and Film Series, focusing on creators in New York and LA.
The series has given LA filmmaker Ali Roberto and New York’s Gabriel Gomez the reins, to create short films for a vast array of artists about their art and their cities.
Confirmed artists are: Blimes and Gab, Cautious Clay, duendita, Frankie & The Witch Fingers, Lauren Ruth Ward, NEZ, Orion Sun, The Regrettes, Rosehardt, Stuyedeyed, Sunflower Bean, and Tolliver.
You can check out the first three episodes on the Dr. Martens site—videos introducing the filmmakers, and Ali Roberto’s first project, Lauren Ruth Ward – along with a teaser for Gabriel Gomez’s first film, Rosehardt.
Ali Roberto is an award-winning Director/Creative Director hybrid who specializes in original short-form content, concept through post. She started her career at MTV, in New York City, where she worked for over a decade and became Art Director. Her recent work for Netflix’s Glow won 3 Promax awards (including the GOLD for ‘Best Comedy’) and The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina received a ton of organic press.
Ali focuses on original short-form content, social campaigns, commercials, music videos, and narrative work, partnering creatively with clients as a Director and Creative Director, seeing the project from start to finish. She also mentors young students at The Ghetto Film School and works with Free The Work for women and underrepresented talent to be seen and given a voice.
Here, Ali talks about how she got involved with the Dr. Martens Presents project, what it’s like to be a woman in the filmmaking industry, and what the future holds.
How did you get involved with the Dr. Martens Presents: Music & Film Series?
I got involved because I work with a lot of artists and I do a lot of music videos. I do a lot of work with Netflix as well. I actually did this music video for The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina with the cast. That and some of my other music projects. Collide, the marketing agency found me on Instagram funnily enough and asked me to be part of this.
Music has been my life, so I was so excited. And Dr. Martens has been one of my favorite brands for a long time. So I’m super excited to be asked to be part of it.
In your video, you talk about the project being all about grit, authenticity, hard work, and passion. How do you make sure those elements are evident in your films?
It’s the approach and the tone you choose to take in your film. It’s your camera choices, it’s your perspective choices. I use a lot of in-camera effects. I’m a huge fan of 90s music videos and doing things in-camera, so I always use a lot of practical effects: textures, prisms, just really fun stuff to incorporate.
But then also the interview is a huge piece of it, right? Because that’s what I’m building these episodes around. It’s this performance because part of it was bringing performances back to people because we haven’t been able to do that. And then the other part is really directing the interview and where we’re going in our conversation. My interviews are done very conversationally, just like how you and I are talking. That’s how all the interviews have been feeling. That’s how you get real answers out of people. When they’re kind of just chatting with you and forgetting the cameras are there.
And, you know, it’s been a hard year for a lot of people and a lot of artists who haven’t been able to tour and do what they love. So to be able to talk about those things, and talk about the hard things. We’re also dealing with so many other issues in our country. As the rest of the world knows, racial equality and Black Lives Matter. All of these artists have been greatly affected by all of that. So to be able to sit down and have a real conversation about where we are in the world and what’s happening, and also what have been some innovative, creative things that have come out of it. Just to talk about how hard it’s been, but also to celebrate it.
I think a lot of the grit comes from these artists because they’re all doing it themselves, making it happen on their own. They’re all in various stages of their come up. And a lot of them have taken it into their own hands to find ways to break through and be successful. And that in itself is a Dr. Martens way, it’s like pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. It’s that Do It Yourself attitude. So part of it is the way I see it, and the way I present these people, and how I talk with them. But a lot of it comes from them, and just their toughness, and their grit, and what they’re doing to be so innovative right now.
I love how in your video you talk about pop music and how you couldn’t really relate to it. I’ve always felt like that, and even now approaching 30, I still feel like that. There’s just so much more realness in rock and punk and metal.
Absolutely. I’m well into my 30s and I have to say that it still feels that way to me. It doesn’t go away. It really doesn’t. There’s certain types of people that gravitate to heavy music, and there’s reasons why, you know. But yeah rock always resonated with me as a kid. Just going through the shit that I went through, anyone who’s been through a traumatic childhood will tell you that they learn a lot from it. Rock was this place for all my friends that were from fucked up families, we all love rock music. It’s such a universal language, the anguish and the anger and the real lyrics. Just not being afraid to talk about real shit.
I never resonated with pop music. I still don’t. But then again I also really liked 90s hip hop and R&B too, because that shit was gritty and real as well. Missy Elliott was just fucking telling it how it is, and Lauryn Hill. I loved that music too. Because there was such realness, and I think there was such beauty. Especially like En Vogue and Salt N Pepa. I remember Salt N Pepa unapologetically talking about sex. That was the first time I had seen women do that in that way. They were really just like this is how it is. I feel like black women led that charge, being really real in lyrics for the first time at that time.
I feel like rock and metal and all of that stuff speaks to the anger and the emotions. But there’s also a beauty to the women that have been involved in rock and metal and hip hop. And I really kind of look towards them, I’m inspired by them. Because it’s a hard world for women. The music industry and the film industry are very, very sexist, and very difficult to navigate. So I’ve always looked to strong women, and there’s strong women in rock, and there’s strong women in those genres.
Pop was always fabricated, and it was making women be vulnerable in ways that they didn’t have to be because they were being produced by these male execs to fit this type of genre in this type of need. But all it was was perpetuating stereotypes of women being weak and vulnerable. I didn’t feel that way. And I still don’t feel that way. I feel really strong. I turned down a lot of pop music videos, I don’t do them. Especially when it’s a fabricated talent, and it’s fake. And I’m supposed to make them look good. I have no desire to partake in any of that. Especially after this year, I mean, fuck, if we’re not using our talents for good then what are we doing?
How much impact has the pandemic had on the project?
Well, the pandemic has really shaped the project, to be honest. You know, I think last year Dr. Martens did something very similar with live performances. This year obviously, it was a much bigger challenge. It started off as being part of the story and then really became the focus of the story. Because that’s what everyone’s year has been like. And it’s hard to get around that, you have to talk about it.
I had already started doing this kind of acoustic backyard series with musician and artist friends of mine, because I was like, fuck, how can I help them right now? They’re struggling, they can’t tour, they can’t be seen, they can’t get themselves out there. So I started doing this on my own. And that was another piece that Dr. Martens had seen, and really loved that I was doing these backyard performances with artists in their living rooms, or their yards, or in their homes.
It was an interview and a live performance. And I’m like, this could be a great series, I just need the right partner. Then DMs and I met up and it became this beautiful union. Something that’s really important to me in my series regardless of whether the other filmmaker decides to do this or not – because I know this is a huge undertaking – I want to have a live performance. It means everything to me, going to concerts, seeing music has been everything to me in my life, and not being able to do that, it’s heartbreaking.
So I kind of feel like it was selfish now because I just wanted to see live music and made this happen. I was like you’re gonna come over and you’re gonna play the song. But all the bands were so into it. And the musicians and the artists, everybody was so into it and wanted to do it. They’re like, yes, we want to perform. And so they opened their doors and let us into their homes, or their studios. And that is the most exciting part, getting to give people live music again. Letting them see a live performance. That to me is everything.
I think this series would have been more difficult with bands touring all over the place, I think they wouldn’t have been as apt to do a live performance with their schedules being busier. I think it’s given them time to reflect. Everyone universally is writing music, and writing music in ways that maybe they hadn’t thought of before because they have a lot more time on their hands.
I remember when we were talking to The Regrettes, Lydia was like, I’m never home this much. I’m literally never home, I’ve never been home this much. She couldn’t even tell me in how many years because she’s been touring since she was 15. But then at the same time, she’s writing with all of these collaborators, and she’s finding different ways to be creative and educate herself on what’s happening in the world. A lot of these artists are taking social action, and finding ways to. Frankie and The Witch Fingers, they put up all this merch for sale and were donating the money to the ACL and BLM and all these different organizations.
It fucked up everyone’s tours and caused a lot of delays of albums. And in March it kind of was like, fuck, this is ruining our year. But now coming out the other side of this year I feel like all the artists are grateful for the time that they’ve had. And they’re really excited to see how their new albums after this are going to be different because of how they’ve been created.
I think it’s been crazy for all of us, I think we’ve all figured out ways to be innovative and be creative. That’s the saving grace, getting to do this work, getting to work with music, getting to work with artists. Getting to find a way to be innovative during this time, still continuing to work and make things. Music hasn’t stopped. That’s the one area. The commercial world shut down, the TV world shut down, the movie world shut down, everything shut down for such a long time. But the one thing I kept getting hit up for was music videos: small crew, COVID safe music videos, and small docu-series with musicians. Music is always going to be the way through and it’s always going to be the innovator in times when content needs to be created. So I feel like that again, at this time in my life, was another saving grace because it kind of pushed us through and gave us creativity, it gave us work.
And we got to come up with some really cool innovations during it too. Because all my shoots at first were remote, and that was wild. I did a few big Netflix shoots that were all over Zoom just like I’m talking to you, and that was insane. We had to make up stuff because we didn’t know what we were doing. We figured out a way to hack into this app that parents use to monitor their kids’ phones and use it as a monitor so that way I could see what everyone was seeing. And we just figured out all these kind of crazy, cool ways to still work.
Then when we were allowed to work in small crews, music videos and docu-series came back. It’s so cool to be able to have these artists still perform and still be seen and talk about how they’re being creatively innovative. Because again, it’s going to be music and art that’s going to be innovative, and that’s going to help everyone else get through it.
What different approaches do you take to projects like Dr. Martens Presents, compared with big production stuff like the Netflix shows?
It’s wildly different. I don’t know if a lot of directors do both, to be honest, it’s very siloed. You’ve got your big commercial directors, then your music directors, and your TV and film directors. They don’t always cross-pollinate. But, I love what I do more than anything.
I started on huge sets and huge productions, so I started very spoiled. My Sabrina music video, or the things I do for Glow, or 13 Reasons Why or any of those shows, I walk on to a 200 person set, and I have full art teams and I have full hair and makeup. And I have talent wranglers, I have multiple producers, and I have multiple camera teams, and lots of big equipment and big studios. It is grand, and it is over the top and it is so much fun.
But then to get to be in this tiny little team, I have this wonderful documentary team that’s these very hybrid creatives like me, that do multiple things. They edit, they light, they shoot. We all know how to do everything. And I’ve kind of constructed this hybrid team that’s been working on all the documentary work with me, because there’s this docu-series with Dr. Martens, and I did one with Vice.
Then we have four music videos released at the end of last month. So this little team has really taken on a lot. There’s an intimacy that you can’t get on a huge set. When I’m standing like 200 feet away from my talent it’s hard to get into it with them. But with docu-series, I’m sitting across from that person or that band, sitting on their floor with the monitor in my hands and getting to know them on a deeper level and more personally. You get deeper storytelling, you get more personal things revealed, you get a greater story and a greater sense of who these people are. It’s beautiful, and it’s so wildly different. They’re such different beasts.
Quarantine has given me the opportunity to really love and appreciate this doc-style work. Because it’s real people, it’s real stories, it’s real emotion. I’m not selling a product like I would be in a normal commercial, where it’s kind of shoved down your throat or it’s very fabricated. This is all very real. And Dr. Martens really cared so much about these artists to want to highlight them in some way, especially during this time. To highlight stories of resilience, because our news here is always so negative every day, and all the shit that you see in your social media feed, it’s just people tearing each other apart most days, so it’s great to show stories of resilience and positivity.
Do you have a background in playing music?
I played the violin when I was really little, and I was a dancer, and I play guitar. I always loved rock music. I got a guitar to learn Nirvana songs, and then that was one of my greatest loves.
But I found that the visual side of things was really super exciting to me. I went to the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan, and I took a CD packaging or album design class. And that’s all I wanted to do, design album packages and work with bands.
Then after I graduated, I started working for MTV, and I was there for quite a while in New York, working with artists, working on the VMAs, doing lots of different creative things within the design teams there. That kind of solidified it for me. Music and creativity have always been hand in hand. For me, music was such a savior in my youth that I always wanted it to be part of my life.
Then, somewhere during my career, I kind of got away from it. I was working on Netflix and bigger commercials, but my true love was always music. So I feel like this year has given me the opportunity to embrace it and go back to my roots and be like this is what I love to do and want to do more of. So I’m pretty grateful for this year to show me that.
You can create really beautiful meaningful things that can be created on a smaller scale. And this year is definitely showing me that too. It’s like that love was always there. And then you find it again. And it’s like, okay, I feel like I know my place in the world, what I’m supposed to do.
I used to do a lot of photography too, I shot a lot of shows and bands, and then I got into interviewing them, and then I got into directing. It was always because of music. That was always the common denominator.
Can you recall your very first project that combined music and film or photography?
Right after school, I got hired by MTV, before I graduated college, so it was pretty immediate. I started working for MTV and was immediately thrown into all the big Video Music Awards projects and shooting or art directing. MTV was the place where I learned how to do everything. They were kind of their own creative studio within the network. Everything was done in the building in Times Square in New York. We had floors of creatives that did everything from the on-air graphics, to designing the wrappers for the trophies for the Movie Awards, to alley advertising. I would direct photoshoots, video shoots, and promo shoots. Immediately I was thrown into this world, and MTV was very much like you sink or swim, they throw you in, and you figure it out. So you get to do a lot of different things, and that’s where being a hybrid creative started because they didn’t limit you to just doing this one job. They really let you try to do many different things. That’s where the excitement grew, from working on these big projects and working with music in so many different capacities.
Being based in LA, but originally from New York, do you feel an inspirational difference between the two cities when creating films?
I do. I lived in New York for so long. It’s my absolute love, I love it more than anything. LA is newer to me, I’ve only been here for about five years. It’s been fantastic during the pandemic, because of all the space out here I have, to be honest. If I was in New York in my little apartment, I’d probably be feeling a lot different.
But creative wise, my very last shoot before shut down in March was a Maybelline commercial in New York, and it’s so much more my home. That’s where I learned I could do all this stuff, going to school there and starting at MTV. That’s what fueled my fire. I was a kid that never came from any of this and never had a single family member in this business. My grandparents are Italian immigrants, it was a very blue-collar working-class family, I was the first one to go to college, I was the first one to be in this industry, and it’s not easy to break into.
I feel like having a good work ethic and working really hard is what New York taught me. Then I brought that to LA, and that has really changed everything because you’re free. If you have that New York hustle, you’ll be successful anywhere. It’s not just a line in a song, if you can make it here, you can make it anywhere, it’s true. New York will try you and test you and break you down. And if you can survive that, you’ll be able to go anywhere else.
I feel that just people are a lot different, and New York is gritty and real and people are in your face and aren’t afraid to tell you how they feel about things. I feel like people are more sensitive out here, I have to be more cautious and not be so New York to them.
The city was always inspiring for me. It’s the grids, the texture, it’s the life. There’s just such an amazing energy here. But then you come out to LA and you have the landscapes and the mountains, and it’s stunning. And you have the city and the overlooks and the hikes, and it’s a completely different thing.
That affords you a completely different view of the world. If you asked me a couple of years into being in LA, I probably would have been much more pro New York, but now I’ve been here long enough where there’s such beautiful things to appreciate about out here. You have gorgeous scenery, gorgeous backdrops, gorgeous everything. All different types of landscapes. We can be in the mountains or the snow in an hour and a half. We could be at the beach in 20 minutes.
What challenges have you faced as a female filmmaker, and what advice you would give to young women who want to get into filmmaking?
Gosh, so many challenges. It’s so hard to break all of it down. I’ve experienced everything you could imagine from being the only woman in the room, being the only female on the team, being the only female creative director, the only female at that level. That’s been most of my career. It’s changed a lot now, which is amazing. But when I first started, it was intimidating. I was constantly being told by male peers that women weren’t as good at anything. Because I was the only woman, I was purposely being made to feel uncomfortable, or purposely being made to feel like my sex wasn’t good enough. I definitely went through a lot of that.
As I got older, I would experience male bosses that would take credit for your work or be inappropriate, and you couldn’t say anything about it, because that would have been the end of your career. I’ve gone through it all. And I’ve come out the other side of it much stronger. It fueled my fire to work for myself and to be independent, I couldn’t work for anyone anymore.
After going through a lot of those things, it fueled my fire to prove to everyone that I could do it, no matter if all the odds were against me. It just made me fight harder and work harder. Now I look back and I successfully am an independent director. I’ve done a ton of amazing work. I continue to be booked non stop during a national pandemic and even now going into the holidays. It’s a true testament of the hard work, and it’s a true testament of perseverance. I have ‘Perseveranza’ tattooed across my arm for a reason, it means perseverance in Italian and in Spanish.
This is not for the weak at heart, you have to fight. You have to be told no a million times, and you have to fail a million times. You have to build up that grit that we keep talking about. You have to build up that armor around yourself because it is so hard. And then to be a woman, I think the percentages are still pretty daunting. 7% of women are directors. And if we get down to talking about black women, or women of color, it’s even smaller.
Free the Work is an organization I work with a lot that helps women and underrepresented talent. They’re always putting out these numbers, and I think the last one I saw was about 7% of directors are women. We get a very, very tiny sliver. Then if you’re a black woman or a woman of color, you get an even tinier little piece of that. So yeah, it’s still very sexist. It’s still very hard to break through. I get put on a lot of bids for commercials just because I’m the token female. It’s like oh look, we gave you someone who’s different. That still happens to me a lot.
I have a few mentees, from the Ghetto Film School. We just did a music video together, I had them as my crew. They were so excited and so wonderful. They’re all minority women, young girls from high school to college-age, that participate in this program called Ghetto Film School. They get to experience working on sets, and working in teams and crews, and making videos. And this year was such a challenge for them, because if you’re someone coming out of school, and you’re new to all this, and then you’ve got the deck stacked against you, you’re like, why do I even try? Because this industry is so much about relationships and who you know, and the experience you have is why you get hired for things. If you’re not able to build that experience, you’re dead in the water, how do you move forward?
I created this music video project with an artist I work with on Atlantic Records. Her name is PJ, she was part of the Dr. Martens film series last year funnily enough, but she and I met on another project and became friends. I had this idea to involve the students and she loved it, so we made it happen. When you looked around, the set was almost all female, and they were all young working women that were trying to make a name for themselves.
That’s part of it, you have to figure out how to create opportunities, you have to mentor. I didn’t have any of that coming into this, so if I can provide it for someone else, if what I went through could provide an easier time and help someone else out, that’s the beauty of what I get out of this. Seeing them go on to succeed and have more room for women at the table than there’s ever been. The only way to do it is if people mentor these young people, if they take the time out of their schedules to have Zoom calls with them or find projects to have them be a part of. We all have something to give, it could be time, it could be knowledge, it could be experience, but we all have something to give at this time, and we have to remember that it’s not just giving monetarily, it’s also giving your time to someone who may need some help or some experience.
It wasn’t just the men in my life that were difficult. I also had really difficult female bosses that made things really hard for me unnecessarily. They knew we only had a few seats at that table, and it was going to be them or me. It was fiercely competitive between women when I was coming up, and I just knew there had to be a better way. I just knew there had to be a better way, so I’m like well, I’m just going to do the opposite. I’m going to help these kids, I’m going to find people to mentor, I’m going to bring women into this industry, I’m going to give them an opportunity.
I did a shoot with Mindy Kaling not too long ago for a brand, and she asked for an all-female crew. I was like, yep, cool, got it, I know females in all key positions. But if you were to ask any other director, male or female, then 90% of the answer would be no, they don’t know women in all key positions, because they haven’t taken the time to find those people. It’s very easy to say I’ve got a guy that does this, I’ve been working with him for 20 years. It’s harder to go out of your way to find up and coming women in this industry that are doing amazing things. But you have to go out of your way and you have to do the research and that’s on all of us to do, and I take responsibility for that too.
For as progressive as we think we are, some of these industries that are very old school male-dominated are moving or changing very slowly. Last year, every single set I walked on to, I would be told, you’re the first woman I’ve ever worked with, you’re the first female director. And that was always after I was either directed to hair and makeup or the talent room because they didn’t think I was actually part of the crew. I haven’t heard that as much this year, which shows progress.
What are your plans for the future?
I’ve written and I’m shopping around a television series. That’s the next exciting thing to happen, getting the series sold. We’re talking with a few different companies now, but we’ll see what happens. I’m doing more documentary work. Doing a lot more music documentary work is where I want to go. And also directing TV series. That’s the stuff that makes me feel like I’m contributing to the world positively, and putting out fun content.
Is there anything else you’d like to talk about or add?
Just that I hope that the end of this year and into next year will bring peace of mind to people. I hope that in the little bit of what we’re doing, bringing back live performances, I hope it gives people some inspiration and some creative ingenuity. Just to hear the stories and see how other people are coping, and being creative from it.
I hope that I can contribute to more of this type of work to help others because I think this year has shown us that helping other people is really our purpose as humans. It’s finding the things we’re good at, but it’s also finding the ways that we can be helpful to others, and be of service to others. So I just hope that people will be kinder to one another and that we can get through all this together and come out the other side still getting to do what we all love.
This year has been really inspiring. The past couple of years have shown me I can do this on my own, and that’s something I want other girls to know too. You don’t have to wait for permission, that’s not how you get it done. You go after it, and you make it happen. Everyone that tells you, no, you can’t do it or you’re not good enough, just fucking haters, ignore them.
I want other people to be inspired by my story, by the other artists’ stories, that we didn’t just wait for someone to tell us we were good enough. We did it with all of our heart and without a backup plan, because we believed in it, and believed in ourselves, and believed this is what we were supposed to do. I feel that a lot of people live in fear. And they don’t get to see their full potential. And they don’t get to go after their dreams for many different reasons or life circumstances or fear in their lives, whatever it might be.
But if I can give anyone peace of mind, if you take the leap and jump, the ground will be underneath you when you land. I am a perfect example of that, I did not know I’d be able to do this on my own, I had many attempts of trying to break off on my own before it worked. And there are days that are tough. There are days when you are like, why can’t I just have a normal nine to five job where I get a paycheck and everything works out because there’s so much unpredictability in living a creative life. But the benefits and the rewards of getting that freedom and getting to do what you love every day is worth it.
Oh, and read. Read Big Magic. Elizabeth Gilbert who wrote Eat, Pray, Love, wrote this book called Big Magic. It’s all about creative living without fear or learning to deal with your fear, to push through to live a creative life. I just read it recently, and it was really good.
Life is too fucking short. If you want something in your life, you need to go for it. Don’t expect anyone to tell you that it’s your time or you’re ready, you just fucking go for it. No regrets.
Check out our interview with Gabriel Gomez here. Check out the Dr. Martens Presents: Filmmaker Series Lauran Ruth Ward video below, and stay tuned to the Dr. Martens Instagram for future Dr. Martens Presents: Filmmaker Series videos.
Images courtesy of Dr. Martens and Ali Roberto. Featured image by Emma Cole.
