DO
Dir. Betsy Nagler

Documentary, USA, 2004, Digital, 46 min.

SYNOPSIS
'do is a documentary about people and their hair, from mousse to gel, from the perm to the buzz. It's about your favorite product, the worst cut you've ever had, and how much time, effort and cash a person will spend to create a look.
But what does that look mean? What assumptions do we make when we meet a black man with a shaved head and two earrings, or a white man with a mullet? What is a woman with her dark hair cut short like a boy trying to tell us about what she does for a living or what she considers attractive verses one who wears her blond hair in long, unruly curls?

Hair is the lens 'do uses to look more closely at the complex relationship between appearance and identity. Following a diverse group of five New Yorkers through five years and fourteen hairstyles, the film looks at how the changes they go through on the outside reflect inner transformations and choices about who they would like to be.

CAST
Joannie Chen, Teresa Southern, Doug Stewart, Peggy Sutton and Kirby Woote

CREW
Producer, Director and Cinematographer: Betsy Nagler and Charles Moss; Editor: Keli Meyer and Betsy Nagler; Co-Producer: Sydra Mallery; Music Supervisor Mike Meurin

BIOS
Betsy Nagler (Producer, Director & Videographer)
'do is the first documentary Betsy Nagler has directed. For its completion, she received a grant from the New York State Council on the Arts through the Brooklyn Arts Council 2004 Community Arts Regrant Program. Previously, as a student in the Graduate Film Program at New York University's Tisch School of the Arts, Ms. Nagler wrote, produced, directed and edited the narrative shorts Dinosaurs are Different, which was selected for the Seattle and Philadelphia International Film Festivals in 1993, and Fear of Dogs, which received the Student Film Silver Plaque at the Chicago International Film Festival in 1995. Since receiving her MFA in 1995, she has directed video letter segments for the popular Nickelodeon television show Blue's Clues in addition to earning her living doing location sound for feature films, commercials and television shows. Her credits include The Daytrippers, Walking and Talking, Law & Order, and The Sopranos, as well as the documentaries Family Name, Questioning Faith, documentaries on women's gymnastics and women's professional football, and video exhibits for the Dallas Women's Museum. Ms. Nagler, who received her undergraduate degree from Stanford University in 1990, has also taught filmmaking to children in grades K through 2 at Hunter College Elementary School (1992-2000) and location sound recording to undergraduates at New York University (1997-1998). She is currently at work on a feature screenplay.

Keli Meyer (Editor) began her editing career in Los Angeles in 1994 and has since edited a number of documentaries that have aired on PBS, Discovery Channel, TNN and Pax. Among her credits, she has worked with Walter Cronkite on an epic four-hour oral history of World War II, with Roger Moore on a visual history of Christianity in the Middle East, and cut the trailer for the award-winning documentary Collateral Damages. Ms. Meyer has also produced numerous experimental films and videos, among them Box Canyon, that have screened in various festivals internationally. She received her BA in film and video production from the University of Wisconsin, Madison in 1992.

Sydra Mallery (Co-Producer) received her BA in 1993 from Brandeis University and her MA from New York University's Creative Writing Program in 1995. She spent two years in Editorial and Marketing at Henry Holt & Co. before becoming a Training Specialist at the New York City School Volunteer Program, where she traveled throughout the five boroughs, training parents of children in public schools to volunteer as tutors of reading, writing, math and English as a Second Language. She completed her MA in education at Hunter College in 2002 and now spends most of her time and energy teaching public school in Brooklyn. Ms. Mallery continues to write poetry and is currently at work on her first children's book. 'do is her first film.

Website: www.dofilms.com