Allowing people to exclusively speak for themselves with Stebs Schinnerer
Documentary Filmmaker & Co-Founder of Crews for a Cause
Stebs Schinnerer observes the world around him in epic detail. In an uncommon way, he seeks the presence of novel settings, persons, and phenomena with the curiosity of a small child becoming aware of a body part for the first time. Every movement and interaction with the world is mesmerizing.
Since before his eighth birthday, Stebs was drawn to film and filmmaking. His arms would outreach for the nearest camcorder and direct its wielder to frame a photo or shoot a scene. At fifteen, he saved up two hundred dollars to buy a Sony Handycam and spent countless hours capturing the spectacles of his childhood and adventures with his friends. He would zoom in on the juxtapositions of daily life - action, stillness, textures, and sounds - and be fascinated when a narrative naturally emerged from his gestures. In the language of cinematography, one might categorize these early attempts as cinéma vérité - a style that captures reality as it unfolds - or the subgenres of observational filmmaking or direct cinema. Whatever they were called, Stebs had no idea. But he never stopped shouting “Take One, Action!” into the camera.
Today, Stebs’ reputation and art precedes him. In addition to being a full-time filmmaker with a diverse repertoire spanning cities, countrysides, and movements all across the globe (stebs.co), he is one of the founding minds behind Crews for Cause, a nonprofit that connects and enables volunteer media professionals to produce beautiful films that amplify important causes for organizations in need.
At his most basic level, Stebs is a guerilla creator with a deftness for storytelling. Whether it be uncovering artifacts like an anthropologist in an artist’s disguise, or devising space for creatives, he is inspired by his surroundings - everywhere.
“I value allowing people to speak exclusively for themselves,” he says, giving me a slight nod. Stebs utters these words with an ease that suggests he speaks them often, and that they are his truth.
With every segment of our conversation, I learn more about Steb’s existential theories, passions, fascinations with art and life, concerns for the coming generations, and motivations for telling stories. In our time together, Stebs shares his thoughts on the future of virtual reality, the seeming impossibility of civil discourse in our communities, the rarity and significance of truly being listened to, and the qualities of outstanding observational documentaries including “American Factory” and “Crip Camp”. Through the twists and turns of these anecdotes - like a constantly expanding mind map - one thing is clear: Stebs sees value in everyone and everything, and especially the potential for individuals’ lived experiences to be uplifted into art. In the words of his wife, Elissa Polls, “Stebs approaches his work the way he sees the world - completely open minded and without judgment. [His] kind and genuine way of connecting with others allows people to be vulnerable and open to hard conversations.”
We are halfway through our coffees and quiches. He sets his fork down, and says: “I constantly ask myself ‘What am I using my art for’?”
"I value allowing people to speak exclusively for themselves.”
Stebs Schinnerer
So, I prod: What are you using your art for now? And, how has that changed over time?
In his teens, Stebs’ main subjects were him and his friends. They would race downcountry mountain bikes (and later BMX bikes) in the streets, woods and skate parks of coastal New England; exhilarated by it all, he would capture their unstoppable tomfoolery on his Sony Handycam. After filming their endless hours on dirt trails in the woods, Stebs would edit the footage on a friend’s old laptop using a late 90's version of Apple Final Cut. Looking back, these formative years encoded biking and filmmaking into Stebs’ DNA.
At home, his parents acknowledged and supported his interests in the visual arts. “We were a working class household,” he says. “But, while we were not wealthy, we had a wealth of emotional support.” In many ways, his closeness to his family sparked a lifelong pursuit of deep relationships and connections, and an active commitment to his community. Fondly, Stebs remembers that his mom paid for him to take a college photography class while he was still in high school. She believed in his dreams just as much as he did.
After high school, Stebs left his hometown of Marblehead, MA and moved south towards Central Massachusetts to pursue a degree in Communications Media at Fitchburg State University. In school, he continued to make films. During his last semester, he packed up his things and drove cross-country to Vancouver, Canada to work at a video production company making films about extreme sports. By way of unexpected events, though, Stebs landed back in Marblehead ten months later, marking the start of a new chapter that would be defined mostly by one word: hustling.
For the next few years, Stebs worked a lot. He worked hard to improve his craft - yes - but also took on jobs in the service industry to sustain living in the city of Boston.
In 2011, Stebs got together with a group of artists and shakers (i.e., a photographer, architect, web designer, bike builder, brewer, and letterpress printer) to co-design the Fringe Union. Fringe Union (2011-2019) was a co-working space fashioned in a musty four-thousand square foot warehouse in Union Square, Somerville that once housed a woodworking shop. Almost overnight (and with a ton of do-it-yourself projects), this space was transformed. If you had stepped just inside its front doors, you would have found a wide open space with temporary walls and a number of cardboard boxes scattered around like rock formations; the space was divided into fifteen independent “shops”, and you would see makers and craftspeople ideating, creating, and generally having a great time less than five from each other. Not only did the Fringe become one of the most highly regarded creative spaces in Boston at the time, but it was a one-stop-shop for a wide range of clients, organically attracting some of the brightest minds and well-connected personalities in the city. In particular, the collective at Fringe Union would host two annual parties with amazing music, free drinks, and delicious food that were the talk of the town - attracting more than seven-hundred people every time.
According to Justin Keena, one of Stebs’ best friends and a fellow Fringie, “some nights we just slept [at the Fringe].” “Each one of us was trying to figure out how to make our creative passions our real careers and lives, and doing it altogether felt like family.” By the end of the Fringe’s lifetime, over a thousand people had circulated through the space and made their marks.
As for Stebs, he will be hard-pressed to ever forget the eighteen to twenty hour-long days he spent there; he writes in a 2016 Medium article, “there was an energy inside those walls that was hard to describe..It was the kind of energy that made the dust and grime of the old warehouse fade into the background, leaving only the sheen of dedicated artists and craftsmen….For me, [this energy] is what drove me to hustle as hard as I did for so many years, [and] planted a seed deep inside me to tackle each and every task with fervor.”
That hustle landed him exciting projects, and also made him aware of the rich opportunities in his surrounding community to use, apply, and share his art in potentially life-changing ways...
“It was the kind of energy that made the dust and grime of the old warehouse fade into the background, leaving only the sheen of dedicated artists and craftsmen.”
Stebs Schinnerer
With that mindset, Stebs started offering pro-bono services to people and organizations whose missions he could get behind. He would walk into mom-and-pop shops, call up small businesses owners, and cold-email entrepreneurs to offer to film content for them. The spirit of some of this aspiration led him abroad too, where he spent time in Uganda with Project Hello World. The unexpected part of this was that his fellow creators would constantly ask him: “how do you do that?”
A little bewildered, he would respond: “I just ask!”
Despite his constant fielding of this question with what he assumed was a pretty simple answer, the inquiries on the subject persisted. He thought to himself: Might there be a need here? What if I could build a platform to connect visual storytellers to stories in need of telling?
With a draft idea and plan, and the stars aligning in 2017 in Los Angeles with Max Rosenfeld and Steve Kaufman (the two individuals who would eventually become his co-founders at Crews for a Cause), Stebs was able to bring his solution to life: a platform that helps pair organizations with professional media artists who are excited to tell their stories. Today, Crews for a Cause has hundreds of volunteer media professionals across all seven continents and fifteen countries (and counting). Every project that they take on is challenging and exciting in its own way, and is emotionally fulfilling for all parties involved. “I honestly just love working with my co-founders and the people we serve,” Steb says with a huge smile.
And, his co-founder Max Rosenfeld had nothing but the same sentiment to share: “Stebs’ endless talent and always positive attitude have made him the best possible person to work with for the past six years…He always takes a personal, passionate, and professional approach to whatever he’s doing creatively…[and] that’s something I see in his work and life, outside and within Crews for a Cause.”
At this point, I want to ask Stebs about every single project he has ever worked on (in and outside of Crews for a Cause) - about the moments that he will never forget and all the people who have let him glimpse into their lives - but we both realize that our conversation has gone on for two hours as it is. A little ashamed of my own timekeeping skills, I squeeze in one last question before we part ways. What are you excited about right now and into the near-future?
Stebs does not think for long. “Well, I have been trying to work more on an independent project that I have been ideating on for over six years. It involves purely observing the lives of people and telling their stories without the use of any interviews, and conveying the fabric of people’s lives through their environments, sounds, objects, and the like.” He also recently said “yes” to a couple huge opportunities in his career, one involving a large video production company and the other a continuation of his engagement with the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation’s annual Goalkeeper’s event.
As for Crews for a Cause, the organization is working on bringing more people and voices into the fold - both in terms of volunteers and causes to support - as well as increasing their social media presence (@crewsforacause). This is all in pursuit of their goal of bringing together “passionate and empowered entertainment professionals to produce, film, and edit videos benefitting good causes and people in need - at little or no cost to them” - and reaching as many corners of the world as they possibly can.
And with that, I want to express my sincere gratitude for the opportunity to learn about the impact of films and filmmaking in our human experience. Stebs, thank you for the stories you tell, and the space you hold for entire communities of creatives.
If you are new to Stebs’ work, please take the opportunity to visit his massive collection at stebs.co and indulge in some beautiful storytelling. And, if you are a filmmaker or a leader of an organization doing good in your local community, check out Crews for a Cause. Thanks for reading, and happy community building!