Interview With ‘How Do You Measure a Year?’ (2022) Director, Jay Rosenblatt

The Rolling Tape had a conversation with filmmaker Jay Rosenblatt on his film How Do You Measure a Year? that is currently nominated for Best Documentary Short at the 95^th Academy Awards. The film follows Jay asking his daughter Ella a series of the same questions every year from age 2 to age 18. It follows their relationship over time and the many ways that Ella comes of age through this recurring ritual. The film has been picked up by HBO and will be available to stream later this year. 

We kind of had a date every year on her birthday where we would explore some things. One of the questions I asked her from the very start was, how are we doing? How’s our relationship? I don’t think that’s something you just never necessarily do when you day to day with your kids. But because this was sort of a ritual, I was able to ask her that kind of question. So, in a way, it was really nice. It was a way of checking in each year how we were getting along and what she was thinking about in terms of the father daughter relationship.

Jay Rosenblatt

Danny Jarabek: Hello. This is Danny Jarabek, host of The Rolling Tape podcast, and I’m delighted to have with me today director of How Do You Measure a Year? a short film currently nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Short, I am joined by filmmaker and director Jay Rosenblatt. Jay, welcome to the show.

Jay Rosenblatt: Well, thank you for having me.

DJ: I am super excited to have you on today because, as I said, this film is currently nominated for an Academy Award, but also because I just really enjoyed the film and I am super excited to hear a little bit more about your process behind it all. But just to kick it off, I’d love to just start the conversation by asking, what is a little bit of your story of becoming a filmmaker? What drew you into film? What was the process for you of how you got to where you are now?

JR: Sure, Danny. Well, it’s been a long process. I took a Super-8 film class way back when I was in graduate school for counseling, and I fell in love with it, and I realized there was something to it when I was spending more time on my little Super-8 film than all my other counseling classes put together. So at that point, I thought, I have to keep pursuing this on some level, so I decided to go and get another Master’s degree in filmmaking. And then I just was working in a psychiatric hospital while I was putting myself through film school and just been plugging at it for the last three plus decades and I’ve made a lot of short films. So, these last couple of years have been amazing to get recognition at this level.

DJ: Yeah, absolutely. And of course, the film that we’ll be primarily focusing on today is How Do You Measure a Year? which is a short film that sort of tracks your relationship with your daughter by asking the same questions every year from age two to age 18. And so, what was the process of deciding that you wanted to do this project? What was the story behind that? And also, could you have even imagined at the time what it would turn into today, being nominated at the Oscars?

JR: Well, I’ll answer the second question first. There’s no way I could have imagined where this film has gone, but my daughter Ella and I made several films up until she was five years old. We made four films together. Two of them were pretty successful. One got shortlisted for the Oscars, and two of them were on HBO. So, she had a little bit of a feel for us working together. When we started this one, even though we started at two, I had already been filming her from birth until around 14,15 months for the very first film we did together called I Used to Be a Filmmaker. And this one was just this ritual, this tradition we had every year on her birthday. We’d spend about an hour and a half at the most, just talking. I had a friend that was the cinematographer for the first few years and then I had to do it. He moved and I had to do everything alone. And at the very least, I thought, this is going to be a nice thing for her to have a record of all her birthdays. And at the very best, at the time, I thought, maybe this could be a nice film. But I didn’t look at the footage at all until COVID. So, I had some extra time and I said, maybe I should look and see if all of those years if the footage came out, because I was using an old camera, because I wanted it to look the same. So, I was filming with this one camera until she was 17. I switched at 18 to a newer camera because it was the last year. I thought I could justify that if it did turn into a film, but when I looked at the footage, thank God it all came out. While I was filming, sometimes the sound would cut out, I just wasn’t sure. The camera seemed to be on the blink. And I didn’t want to look at the footage because I would be just really devastated if a couple of years were just blank, or the sound wasn’t working. So, I just kind of had faith that it was going to work out in the end, and luckily it did. And then, of course, the Oscar nomination is just amazing. I think people have really just resonated with the emotions of the film and it’s kind of unique to watch someone grow up in front of your eyes in 29 minutes. So, I think it really has hit a nerve or something that people have really responded to nicely.

DJ: Yeah, absolutely. And going off that, what were maybe some of your goals when you started the project? Was it something that you were thinking about as just sort of a document between you and your daughter and your family? Or were you looking at trying to explore more universal themes surrounding family and coming of age and then how did that sort of develop over the years and maybe change and adapt along the way?

JR: Yeah, I mean, some of the questions remain the same throughout the years. And as she got a little older, I would add a question here and there that I thought she could answer. Like there’s one question I ask, I say, how would your eleven-year-old self speak to your 25-year-old self if you were to see this? I wasn’t going to ask her that when she was very young because it’s too difficult to concept. So, I would add a few things. Like I said earlier, at the very least, it was going to be, for her, just a personal document. But once I looked at the footage, I saw that there was definitely a film there. And then through editing, I kind of sculpted it into something that was structured, and you could tell it wasn’t just a home movie because it has a lot of purpose and intent.

DJ: So not even maybe as a filmmaker, but also as a father, what did this project mean to you over the years? Ella speaks of it as a tradition and a ritual that she was fond of, but what did it mean to have that with your daughter year in and year out?

JR: Well, I think it was a great thing, even though you hope to communicate with your kid as they’re growing up. We kind of had a date every year on her birthday where we would explore some things. One of the questions I asked her from the very start was, how are we doing? How’s our relationship? I don’t think that’s something you just never necessarily do when you day to day with your kids. But because this was sort of a ritual, I was able to ask her that kind of question. So, in a way, it was really nice. It was a way of checking in each year how we were getting along and what she was thinking about in terms of the father daughter relationship. I think as she became a teenager later, like 16, 17, 18, I think she really started realizing how much she appreciated the whole process. But up until that point, it wasn’t necessarily like that. There were some years where she said, do we have to do it? And I said, it’s up to you, but I think we should continue it and she was a trooper. I mean, even there was a couple of difficult years, she still showed up. Emotionally she might have not been totally willing to open up, but that’s part of growing up. I think it reflected the things a lot of teenagers go through. 

DJ: Yeah, absolutely. And that’s a little bit of what I wanted to ask about, too, is maybe from Ella’s perspective, how her reception to this project changed over time. Because, of course, when she’s much younger, she’s very bubbly and she has that sort of kid energy about having that attention, being on camera and everything. And then when she gets older, into her teenage years, of course, there’s a couple of moments, 14 especially, when you can tell the energy has shifted and things have happened that she’s dealing with that affect her emotional availability, with being able to do this and so from her perception, what did it mean to her?

JR: Well, I can’t answer that exactly for her, but my sense is that we did it long enough, plus we made those other films so, she knew that there was a commitment I had to the work, and she was willing to meet that even in the difficult years, she never flat out refused. At age 14, you’re right, it was more of a struggle, but I think the film is stronger for that because it shows, honestly, what kids go through growing up. Thankfully, she got out of that. She was just a moody kid, like many kids are. But the years that followed, she was, again, more reengaged in a different way. I mean, she’s getting older. She has her own way of seeing the world, and I find that to be very interesting. Earlier on, you’re right, she’s more performative and playful and kind of really young. She’s just very funny. There’s a lot of humor in the film, which I think is a strength.

DJ: One thing that struck me really powerfully when I was watching it was there’s a couple of moments where I think you start to get a sense on camera of some of her value systems and passions and how her identity surrounding that is starting to take shape. And there’s one moment, she’s still very young, and she talks about being vegan and having these experiences and I’m actually someone who’s vegetarian, not fully vegan, like Ella, and I didn’t come to that until much later in life. So, I’m very curious how you reacted to witnessing and you, of course, see it every day, we see one day, but how you reacted to seeing her change and develop those value systems for herself.

JR: Yeah, that’s a great question. Well, for her, it was a process. She very young, became a vegetarian, even younger than when she decided to be a vegan. She had taken an SPCA class for a summer. She went to a summer camp, and they showed them some really, I think, disturbing images of how animals are treated. She was very young, impressionable, too. I think that had an enormous impact on her. And when she was around 12, 13-ish, she decided, I can’t eat meat anymore. She didn’t even want to be a vegetarian at this point. She was aware of factory farming. She was aware of how animals are treated, and it’s become, you know, a very strong part of her identity. And, you know, I thought as a parent, it was challenging because, you know, I felt like she was doing something that was really difficult. Her friends were going out for pizza, and she couldn’t join them in that. But she was committed, and she has a lot of discipline, and I was very proud of her to be able to have that kind of commitment at that young age. And it influenced her whole life. It’s influenced what she majors in, in college. It’s influenced how she leads her life. So, it’s had a very lasting effect.

DJ: That’s really beautiful to see how it’s become an important part of her life now and how you can sort of now you have this document to see the seeds of those early ideas, of those things developing. And yeah, one thing I want to talk about on the filmmaking side, and you talked about this a little bit at the beginning is this wasn’t something that you, I guess, edited gradually at all. Correct me if I’m wrong, but you stored all the footage and then eventually decided to look at it just recently during COVID. So what was it like just going back and seeing how all of these things turned out? There’s probably footage from over a decade ago that you were watching for the first time.

JR: Yeah, I mean, the really early footage I hadn’t watched for 17 years, and each year was less time, but I hadn’t looked at any of it. And it was eye opening, and it was very moving. The thing about this film, as opposed to a lot of the other films I’ve made, is it was so enjoyable to edit because I totally love and am in love with the subject, and even the outtakes were fun to watch. So, it wasn’t like slogging through how it can sometimes be with a film. We only shot one tape a year, so it was about 45 minutes of footage per year, times 17 years. Maybe it was about 15 hours to go through, but it was all delightful. It brought back a lot of memories. There’s a part of the film where I let her speak to the camera without me in the room, and I didn’t know what she had said until I watched it. And it was very moving. It was like a gift from her to me. So, it was yeah, it kind of it was a weird way to go about I never would do that, necessarily, with other films, to not look at the footage at all. But I don’t know what it was, I just wanted to save it. And like I said, in case it didn’t come out, I didn’t want to let that stop me from continuing it because if a couple of years didn’t come out, I might have dropped the project. So, I was taking my chances, but it was okay if it didn’t come out, we still had what we had. It did come out, and now look where we’re at.

DJ: Of course. Were there moments that a lot of things that you had forgotten about when you were going back through the footage? And also, was it difficult deciding what aspects of that footage you wanted to make public in the film? And then were there things that maybe you kept that you wanted to just be for you and Ella?

JR: Yeah, that’s a great question. It wasn’t that difficult to decide what ended up in the film. I think I included everything that was kind of interesting, that was little gems throughout the film. The challenge for me was in the editing, to make it keep going forward, even though I have those intertitles that keep moving forward in terms of chronological year, I wanted the editing to also move it forward. So, where I cut in and out of a year was very important. When Ella was home because it was COVID she wasn’t at college I was able to show her different iterations of the rough cuts that I had and get her consent and approval. She was a little bit embarrassed by a couple of things, but I said, just think about it and she always came back and said, It’s okay, go ahead, so there’s nothing that I didn’t put in that I wanted to put in. There’s some things that are not in it that I think are too personal in the sense that an audience wouldn’t know who those people were. There are some nice moments, like with her friends show up and things like that, but I felt like it took away from the trajectory of the film. So, it was actually easier to edit than most other films. Usually, my films take years to edit, and this one took months. So, it was just delightful all around.

DJ:  And I’m sure it was very impactful and meant a lot to you, too, to be able to go back through that footage as well.

JR: It was amazing. Yeah, because, like a lot of parents, you take home movies. Right? And I did that, too, usually with it, but not a professional grade camera. Like a cheaper camera, always having it. And as the years went on, she did not want that. Like the first, let’s say eight years of her life. I have so many tapes per year just filming everything. And then as it goes on towards the tween and teen years, I have, like, maybe one tape for two years. She just didn’t want the camera out there. Maybe it’s because we’ve done those previous films, but this at least, I had one tape per year. So, I was very grateful to have that.

DJ: Yeah, that’s amazing. And something that was really interesting for me watching the film, because I’m of Ella’s generation and probably more or less about the same age, and so I was putting myself sort of in her shoes while I was watching it and thinking, like, how would I respond to these questions? How would I have reacted if my dad had come to me with this project over the years? And so, yeah, for me, it was an experience of just thinking through her perspective. But I’m curious, in the reactions you’ve heard to the film, how different people may respond differently. I’d imagine parents would probably be thinking about from your perspective and how they would have that relationship with their child. And so, yeah, just how do you think this film has resonated with maybe different audiences? And what have you heard about how it’s affected people?

JR: Yeah, that’s a great question. I’m curious how your answer to that when you were putting yourself into it. What were you thinking in terms of your dad and stuff like that?

DJ: It’s funny because my parents aren’t into film in the same way that I am, I guess. But I was always a more shy, reserved kid. And so, I don’t know if I would have the expressiveness that she showed. A lot of times I was just thinking through my own personality and reaction to being on camera. And I did one project. I didn’t do it, but I was, like, part of it, where one of my friends did this while we studied abroad. He filmed our reactions to everything and turned it into a documentary the whole time. So, I was reflecting on that experience and just like, the idea of being in front of a camera and everything and how that could have made me more aware of my presence on camera, I guess. So that’s what I was kind of sifting through in my head while I was watching it.

JR: Yeah, I think that Ella was used to the camera, like I said, because of the earlier films. And I think there was a certain comfortability that she had in the early years because she had gone through that. In terms of audiences, I think the strongest reactions I’ve heard are from parents, especially parents that have kids in that age range. Some parents have written to me and said how helpful it was. They actually watched it with their kids.

DJ: Wow.

JR: I got a lot of responses from filmmakers that said, you know, I watched it with my family and the kids really got something out of it, too. And a couple of people have said, you know, that difficult year that Ella goes through and to see her come out of it in the film was very helpful for them to know that there’s kind of a light at the end of the tunnel, so to speak. So, I think most of the reactions I’ve heard, most of the strongest reactions, I’ll say are from people that are parents at some level, or I have also heard from people that are about to become parents. And another reaction I’ve heard a lot is from filmmakers who say, that’s a project that I always thought of doing, but I never got to it. And they were kind of thanking me for sticking with it because it was something that they wish they had done. So, I haven’t heard from a lot of people your age. Part of it is I don’t think that, you know, the film just got picked up by HBO. It hasn’t really been available. It’s been theatrically running with the other documentary nominee shorts. Yeah, but that’s limited to how many people could see it. So, I’ll be curious to see how people your age respond to it. I’m glad you’ve had the response.

DJ: Yeah, absolutely. Just a couple of final questions before we wrap up. I’m sure you talk about sure. There was like a level of perseverance between both you and your daughter to commit to this every year. Is there anything, we obviously can’t go back, but is there anything, maybe a question or something different you would have asked if you were to do it again looking back on it now? 

JR: Yeah, it’s a really good question, and I’ve asked myself that a lot. I feel really good about how it turned out, but even in the film, if you remember, I do say to her at one point, I’m not thrilled with the questions I’ve asked, and if I had to do it again, I might have asked a question about God or spirituality. I would have liked to have heard her answer to that when she was really young and as she got older. Other than that, there’s no real questions that I wish I asked. I think the questions aren’t as important as actually watching her grow up. So, her answers, I’m not saying they couldn’t be to any questions, but the actual questions are not the focus. It’s really seeing that development and how she expresses herself and how she goes from being really performative and excited and funny to being like you’re describing yourself, more reserved, shy, which is how she is as an adult now. She’s definitely more reserved. So, it’s kind of amazing to watch someone change through the years. Stay the same in many ways, but also change. So, I’m curious how she’ll continue to change.

DJ: And that’s the amazing quality that drew me into the film immediately, was just seeing that [change]. So, just to wrap up here, thank you so much for your time, Jay. I really appreciate it. And just a close out question, something we like to do at the end of every single podcast is who is someone that you would recommend to have on the show and who would be someone that you would love to maybe hear a fascinating conversation with similar to what we’ve done today?

JR: Well, one of my favorite filmmakers is a friend of mine. His name is Alan Berliner. He’s a New York filmmaker. He’s an incredible filmmaker, and I’m sure he’d be a great conversation.

DJ: Awesome. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate it. I know you have to run, and I’m sure you have a busy weekend ahead. As of time of recording, we’re just a few days out from the Oscars, of course. And so, I wish you the best of luck this weekend and congratulations to you and your daughter, and  this incredible film. Thank you so much for sharing it and for speaking with me today.

JR: Thank you, Danny. My pleasure.

DJ: Appreciate it.

JR: Okay, take care.