Interview: Director Ramona S. Diaz

Ramona Diaz (left) with Arnel Pineda, lead singer for Journey

Director discusses new documentary, touring with Journey, and singing into the night…

Make your way to any prom night, dinner function, ballpark, or festival, and a song from Journey will surely find your ears. Their age old sound has transcended generational barriers throughout each decade and has kept a plethora of classic rock anthems relevant and familiar. Yet after losing front man Steve Perry in the late 90s and replacement Steve Augeri until the mid 2000s, Journey faced a potential voiceless tragedy. Who would be their next lead singer?

Arnel Pineda, the heart of Ramona Diaz’s inspiring new documentary “Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey,” filled the demanding void. A small Filipino man, Pineda was plucked from obscurity by guitarist Neal Schonn, who casually happened upon Pineda’s cover of their song “Faithfully” on Youtube and called him over to audition. Truly a rags-to-riches story, the documentary follows Pineda during his immersion into the band along their first concert tour with him in 2008. This is not a pure documentary about Journey’s history, but instead a momentary glimpse of an iconic band giving someone a larger than life chance.

I talked to director Ramona Diaz about her latest venture, Arnel Pineda, life on the road, and having Journey constantly stuck in her head.

Peanuts and Popcorn: Talk about your experience from the time between the festival circuits until the film found a distributor. What was that in-between time like for you?

Ramona Diaz: The entire process of shooting and producing is a roller coaster ride, and then you deliver the film, and you’re finally premiering, and then it takes on this whole other phase. It’s like the phoenix and the flame: a lot of ups, a lot of downs. We were really lucky to partner with Cinedigm to release this because I think they really understand the film and they really understand its strengths. 

P&P: What about this story inspired you the most?

RD: Arnel, I think. In this age of superstardom and instant fame and American idol fueled stardom, there’s a lot of fakery. But I think Arnel is very genuine. I think that’s what people will respond to. As he toured with this film to various film festivals, I think they really responded to Arnel because he’s genuine. They can feel it. He’s not fake and that’s what still inspires me and draws me to this story.

P&P: He appears so humble in the film. Have you talked to him recently and is he starting to lose that as he lives in constant stardom?

RD: You know, no he hasn’t. Of course he’s now completely come into his own and completely embraced the fact that he is the lead vocal of this big American iconic rock band.  But on the other hand, his feet are still firmly planted on the ground. He told me if this had happened early in his career, like in his twenties, he would’ve gone crazy. He would’ve gone insane with everything being thrown at him. But because it came later in his life, in his forties, he’s wiser, and he knows he’s often lived a lot of his life without money.

P&P: Arnel being Filipino, did that help him open up to you on camera?

RD: I would like to think so because we could lapse into Filipino. We would go back and forth between English and Tagalog [Filipino language] and I think he was most comfortable doing that.

P&P: Arnel is Filipino and your last film “The Learning” was about Filipino women teachers coming to America. What have you taken away from these transcultural experiences?

RD: I think the themes that I tried to deal with in these certain projects are still universal. It’s still following a dream. In “The Learning,” the Filipino teacher film, the impulse was to really go after the American Dream, and the choices you have to make to have your dream come true, having to leave your family behind. So I hope that the themes are still universal.

P&P: It seems like it takes a certain openness and spontaneity to make a film like this- especially as a documentarian- because you don’t know what’s going to happen as you follow this band on the road. Is that true?

RD: Well as a documentary filmmaker that’s sort of my stock and trade. You’re following unfolding lives. You never know how it’s going to turn out and that is part of the attraction for me in making documentary films, a very immersive kind of filmmaking. In a way you’re not in control because who knows what’s going to happen. That’s why I like doing it.

P&P: Throughout the process then, what surprised you most in making this film?

RD: Usually it’s a surprise at every turn. I think what shocked me the most was how unglamorous this whole touring with the band is. You always think it’s going to be so glamorous. It isn’t. It’s such hard work. I’m not going to complain but I just had no idea how much difficult work it really is, on the road everyday. Basically what we did was travel in a mini van across the country sometimes for eight hours, get to the next city, sleep for three hours, and then do it all again and film and then get back in the minivan. Wow, this is really hard.

P&P: There must have been a funny story on the road. Do you remember one?

RD: I think for us it was the whole situation itself. Basically we just independently produced this film. So what we did was we had very limited resources, so we were actually in this small mini van with a crew, our producer, our luggage, and equipment trying to keep up with big twin busses singing Journey all night to keep ourselves awake until we’d get to the next city. And then we’d just laugh and say, “What are we doing? This is crazy.” By then we had no idea. The story was still unfolding. We had no idea what kind of film we were going to end up with. Everything about it was so ridiculous but we had to laugh, otherwise we would’ve given up.

P&P: Had you ever listened to Journey a lot before you took on this project?

RD: Oh yeah. I was very familiar with their songs.

P&P: How long were their songs stuck in your head going into the editing room?

 RD:[Laughing] They still are are you kidding me? They will forever be stuck in your head, because even after shooting, we edited for a whole year, so it’s still in my head.

P&P: I feel like the editing process is something people forget.

RD: Yeah, and not only music, but certain pieces of dialogue. It happens a lot.

P&P: You said in a previous interview that you were scared to do a film about a band, or one with music, because of all the copyright trouble. What else scares you as a filmmaker?

RD: Well as a filmmaker, financing is always scary, needless to say, but also because of how I work. I always say if you see a light, if you get access, if you give me the keys to the kingdom, I will find a story. But the reality is it may not translate into a cinematic experience. So that’s always to me frightening, not that I’ll ever stop, but it’s always in the back of my head whether it’s a good film or a bad film.

P&P: Does being a female filmmaker scare you at all, the challenges you face in the film world?

RD: Oh absolutely. I think in almost any field. But I try not to think about that because I think it’s debilitating. I don’t think I’ll ever move if I get consumed by that. But as a female Asian woman making a story about a rock band, [to make this film] it’s not usually the case. It’s usually a male who makes rock-docs. So, absolutely.

P&P: Ramona Diaz’s next venture for the future?

RD: It’s so funny, I was just talking to the producers about it. I started recently another documentary about reproductive justice, which couldn’t be further from Rock ’n Roll. I’m also writing a screenplay since I’ve been trying my hand at fiction, a political thriller historical piece. We’ll see where it leads.

P&P: Don’t Stop Believin’, Ramona!

RD: [Laughing] There you go, Jake, there you go!

“Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey” Opens Friday nationwide and is available 3/9 on VOD everywhere

 

Film Review: Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey

Tribeca Film Festival features one man’s unlikely road to musical glory

Tribeca–It is almost impossible to believe that a short, impoverished Filipino man could ever become the lead singer of a massive American rock band like Journey…until you hear his voice.

Arnel Pineda, now the band’s lead vocalist since his start in 2008, is the center of director Ramona Diaz’s enchantingly inspirational documentary Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey. It is a richly authentic rags to riches tale about an improbable discovery and life-changing opportunity .

The film, produced by Diaz and Joshua Green, chronicles Journey’s concert tour in 2008, Pineda’s first year with the band, and follows them on the road to witness the transformation of their age-old sound. This captivating narrative gets anchored by interspersed back-stories of the band itself, but most importantly Pineda’s growth from his low-income childhood to adult stardom.

Diaz handles these contextual additions with deft understanding of an audiences’ desire to stay in the moment, entertained and sporadically informed. Pineda speaks about his growing up in Manila, Philippines, how he would sing at funerals and street corners just to get some rations for his brothers. His mother was ill very early into his childhood, and they had to sell their house and furniture to pay for her medical bills. Pineda continued his desire though, and eventually landed a spot singing with a band called “Zoo.”

Enter the power of social media. Late one night Neal Schon, lead guitarist for Journey, is scouring the web, looking for a potential new lead singer to join the band. Then he happens upon Zoo’s cover of “Faithfully” on YouTube and he’s blown away. Schon, together with Jonathon Cain, keyboardist and guitarist, send an email to Pineda, inviting him to audition, with a note of comic emphasis that “This is Real!”

“I clicked on the link, the same one Neal Schon saw, and I saw Arnel singing Faithfully and my hair stood,” said director Ramona Diaz in an interview. “Oh my goodness someone has to make this film.”

“Ten years ago this story would not have been possible, ten years ago there is no YouTubeSome obscure singer in the Philippines singing in marginal bands can be plucked from obscurity, brought to the US, audition, and get this gig, that’s a modern story,” she said.

Pineda gets his visa, and the film captures his tryout process in front of Schon and Cain, who provide insightful musical commentary.

Arnel Pineda, the new lead singer of Journey

By the third day he is wailing out classics like “Separate Ways” and “Lights” and the entire band can feel the goose-bumps.

So can the fans. They line up young and old to fill the 20,000 seat venues all over the country. It is at first surreal for Pineda, who can clear as day recall his scrapping for meals, and who now gets catered to daily. Pre-show you can’t catch him without herbal tea and throat spray, sometimes even oxygen masks and masseuses. It could appear that this film is another representation of American dream idealism, but it’s more an ode to the internet, music, and their potential life-changing combination. Even with the emotional gravitas of his story, Pineda’s progression into becoming the lead singer is at times just as comical. Here’s a band full of old, white dudes trying to keep up with their new energetic Filipino on stage and on tour, along with tons of new fans.

“It’s obviously really great to see new fans,” said Schon. “They’re very energized because they haven’t seen us for thirty years in a row. They’ve been so supportive of all the changes we’ve ever gone through and I think the songs and the music really prevail.”

The film has a similar feel to Rattle and Hum in terms of capturing intimate performances and adrenaline-filled crowds. It gives brief synopses of Journey’s past and its collective members, including those outlandish 70s blow-dried dos, but the spotlight is on Pineda and rightfully so. We see his perspective, feel his pressure, enjoy his ecstasy, and Diaz stylizes the camera to mimic his fluctuating emotion. We also document his increasingly growing, and sometimes burdensome, musical stock, and the excessive fan culture that his ethnicity and talent have garnered.

If there is any doubt Journey is not a universal band, let the hordes of Filipino fans prove you wrong. In one scene they gather before a concert outside selling T-Shirts of hand drawn faces of band members and signs with Pineda puns, a la Jeremy Lin.

“Even without me a lot of Filipinos are really big fans of journey,” said Pineda modestly. “We rekindled, we helped re-burn a fire that’s inside them, longing for Journey’s songs to be heard again; we have revived it.”

Pineda’s humility is what defines him, and Journey’s openness is what gave him a chance.

“I lived in his bubble for the first year when everyone tells you you’re the most fantastic thing since sliced bread,” recalled Diaz. “The fact that he’s able to understand the process and step away from it and still be humble is incredible.”

The film is at its best when it peeks in on music being taught, written and performed- behind the scenes encounters that break down the public barriers. These clips reassure us that these men are not clichéd rock gods, but mortal musicians, constantly fine-tuning and creatively juicing, making hard work seem second nature. It only appears trite because Journey’s generic song titles embody in a couple ways the “journey” of Arnel Pineda.

“We hopefully become an inspiration and a catalyst for all those hopeless dreamers out there who have given up their dreams,” said Pineda

It’s hard not to be. Besides re-asserting the splendor of cyberspace, Diaz illustrates the impact Pineda’s gifts have had on the band and the unique symbiosis of musical talent that spreads as a result. It’s not Steve Perry, but it doesn’t need to be, and it’s this understanding that transcends the pop-icon culture, and it’s this kind of story that validates music’s universal theme.

“It’s larger than just one individual as we‘ve proven,” said Schon. “I think we got it right a long time ago, and I think we’re still getting it right and it’s the reason we’re enjoying the longevity of success.”

5/5