With the release of the first-ever documentary film about growing up with the military, CHELSEA J. CARTER takes a look at the film and the unorthodox methods it took to make and market 'Brats: Our Journey Home.'
For military brats, home is a state of mind. (AP Photo/HO/Courtesy of Donna Musil)
Donna Musil wanted to find a place to belong.
As the daughter of an Army soldier, she had spent most of her childhood bouncing from one military base to another, from one far off country to another. But when her father died when she was 16, she left that life behind and tried to settle into life in the United States.
Over the years, though, she never felt like she fit in, never quite felt like she knew who she was.
So she picked up a camera to tell her story -- the story of the child of an American service member. What she ended up making was "Brats: Our Journey Home," the first documentary about the life of military brats.
To get the story told, she had enlist help from other brats and use an oddly appropriate marketing method: a road trip.
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A BRAT'S JOURNEY
Nobody knows for sure where the term military brat originated. But as the story goes they have been part of the makeup of the American military since the Civil War, when families began moving to follow a father in the military. There are no statistics for the exact number of former and current military brats, but about five percent of the current U.S. population is believed to been a "brat" at one time.
Although many military brats grow up exclusively in the United States, Musil's film focuses primarily on those who moved from one country to another every two to three years.
Through their stories, the film looks at what it is like to grow up on guarded military bases, to assimilate as a child to foreign cultures and to suffer and overcome "culture shock" when returning to the United States.
But the primary focus of the film is on how a military brat views the notion of home, since many do not have a traditional hometown.
It's a question Musil says she could never answer. Did she tell people about where she was born? Or where she went to high school? And if so, which one? She went to three schools in three countries in three years. Or was it where she lived shortly after her father died? Or is it where she went to college?
She didn't have an answer until 1997, when she was on the Internet and decided to see if she could find out anything about her former classmates. What she found was a group she went to school with in South Korea. A short time later, she attended an impromptu reunion of the group in Washington D.C.
"I hadn't seen these people in years, and yet I felt closer to them then people I had gone to college with," she said. "I realized at that reunion that I actually belonged to something."
It wasn't a place, she said. It was a group.
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MAKING A MOVIE
Musil, 46, had no experience making a feature-length film when she started working on the documentary. Years earlier, she had walked away from a career as a lawyer to become a writer, a dream since childhood.
Her biggest obstacle, she realized, would be finding military brats -- who are scattered across the nation -- to tell their story. Musil said she turned to the Internet again, creating a Web site and posting a questionnaire. She got more than 500 responses.
Now that she had the material, she had to find a way to fund it. She wrote grants, made pitches and even approached Georgia Public Television about a partnership.
"I got really mixed reaction," Musil said. "People really didn't understand what I was talking about."
So she turned to brats themselves to get the movie made and organized a nonprofit, "Brats Without Borders."
"This film was made with $10 to $100 donations," she said.
She also tapped famous former military brats to help. First, she reached out to singer Kris Kristofferson, whose father was an Army general. He volunteered his music and his voice to narrate the film. Then she turned to the military's most famous military brat, General H. Norman Schwarzkopf.
"I tell people I was born in New Jersey but I was raised in the Army," Schwarzkopf says in the film.
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TAKING IT TO BRATS
Because the film is made for a niche audience, albeit a large niche audience, Musil says she's struggled to find a way to traditionally distribute the film.
So she again turned to brats, themselves, to solve the problem.
Musil is taking the film on the road. But rather than stopping in traditional movie hotspots, Musil is focusing on locations where large populations of former and current military brats can be found -- near military bases.
Timothy Wurtz, who worked as a producer on the film, said traditional distribution was not really an option.
"Unlike most films, this film already has a built-in audience," he said. "Traditionally, you make a movie and the audience comes to it. We have to flip that, we have to take the movie to the audience."
Wurtz, also a brat, said screenings of the movies are free as long as its not associated with a film festival.
Sometimes Musil shows the movie in a base theater. Other times, she shows in libraries.
"We are showing it wherever we can," she said.
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Find out more: http://www.bratsourjourneyhome.com
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Chelsea J. Carter, who heads up asap's Los Angeles operation, grew up on military bases in Europe.
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