“Minding the Gap” builds Liu’s investigations, and the personal and ethical considerations that they entail, into the film. What he discovers—and films—of his friends’ present-day lives disturbs him, and Liu grapples with his own conflicts even while filming himself grappling with them. The details of the film make for an exemplary work of reporting. Liu’s clear revelation of specific yet complex events brings out psychological causality and logical connections but doesn’t impose a narrative; rather, the drama crystallizes as the events unfold. It’s a documentary in which the very nature of investigation is established—intellectually, aesthetically, and morally—by way of the personal implication of the filmmaker in the subject, of the filmmaker’s own need to make the images, to talk with the participants, to get beyond the surfaces of the settings. “Minding the Gap” is a personal documentary of the highest sort, in which the film’s necessity to the filmmaker—and its obstacles, its resistances, its emotional and moral demands on him—are part of its very existence.

Filmmaker: I had seen part of a cut that you had about a year ago. What I remember is, there was a lot more voiceover and the structure was different. There was a scene in the first ten minutes where you’re going to meet your mom to do the interview about you being abused by your stepfather, and you’re being interviewed in the car on the way: “So how do you feel about this?” At a certain point, obviously a lot of those things changed. Documentary editing processes are inherently long and complicated, but I’d love it if you could talk about thinking through some of those changes. Liu: I didn’t begin the film wanting to be in the film. My background is, I got a camera to make videos when I was 14. I watched movies that inspired me, like Waking Life, Kids and Gummo. Some of my first shorts when I was a teen were this sort of Slacker plot where I follow people around Rockford as they interact with each other. The structure is based off of hand-offs, to give you a slice of community and the people in it. Anyway, I learned cinematography and editing through going to forums. There’s this website called Skate Perception that was kind of the Reddit for skate media makers all over the country. This was in the 2000s, when the internet was still finding its identity in many ways. It no longer exists; forums aren’t really a thing, for the most part.

NFS: How did you develop your unconventional aesthetics over time, starting from such a young age? Liu: It was a mix of just emulating other creators and films that I was watching and also just going online and learning. By the time I was 16, I had a camera that I could set exposure and color temperature and with ND filters on it. By the time I was 17, I had a 24p camera and I was building my own dollies, so it was sort of just like exploring and emulation of what was happening at the time, which was a mix of the internet connecting more people, and also the DIY-style filmmaking that was growing with the advent of DSLR shooting video. I never really saw a career in film as a viable thing. I thought making films was just what I did.

"The Glidecam was freeing because you can run down stairs when you get good enough at it, and even jump over things with the cameras."

NFS: How did you transition to realizing that you could actually do this professionally? Liu: It was when I got a job as a PA when I was 19 and I was like, “Oh, I can get paid $50 a day to like fetch coffee and carry heavy camera cases around for 14 hours.” It was less about the $50 and more about the “Oh, you can do this.” NFS: That's what we're always telling people who want to break into the business: just get on set. Liu: Yeah, I didn't go to film school, because everybody that I worked with in film was like: if you go to school. don't go to school for film, and so I went to school for literature.

“Minding the Gap” builds Liu’s investigations, and the personal and ethical considerations that they entail, into the film. What he discovers—and films—of his friends’ present-day lives disturbs him, and Liu grapples with his own conflicts even while filming himself grappling with them. The details of the film make for an exemplary work of reporting. Liu’s clear revelation of specific yet complex events brings out psychological causality and logical connections but doesn’t impose a narrative; rather, the drama crystallizes as the events unfold. It’s a documentary in which the very nature of investigation is established—intellectually, aesthetically, and morally—by way of the personal implication of the filmmaker in the subject, of the filmmaker’s own need to make the images, to talk with the participants, to get beyond the surfaces of the settings. “Minding the Gap” is a personal documentary of the highest sort, in which the film’s necessity to the filmmaker—and its obstacles, its resistances, its emotional and moral demands on him—are part of its very existence.

Filmmaker: I had seen part of a cut that you had about a year ago. What I remember is, there was a lot more voiceover and the structure was different. There was a scene in the first ten minutes where you’re going to meet your mom to do the interview about you being abused by your stepfather, and you’re being interviewed in the car on the way: “So how do you feel about this?” At a certain point, obviously a lot of those things changed. Documentary editing processes are inherently long and complicated, but I’d love it if you could talk about thinking through some of those changes. Liu: I didn’t begin the film wanting to be in the film. My background is, I got a camera to make videos when I was 14. I watched movies that inspired me, like Waking Life, Kids and Gummo. Some of my first shorts when I was a teen were this sort of Slacker plot where I follow people around Rockford as they interact with each other. The structure is based off of hand-offs, to give you a slice of community and the people in it. Anyway, I learned cinematography and editing through going to forums. There’s this website called Skate Perception that was kind of the Reddit for skate media makers all over the country. This was in the 2000s, when the internet was still finding its identity in many ways. It no longer exists; forums aren’t really a thing, for the most part.

NFS: How did you develop your unconventional aesthetics over time, starting from such a young age? Liu: It was a mix of just emulating other creators and films that I was watching and also just going online and learning. By the time I was 16, I had a camera that I could set exposure and color temperature and with ND filters on it. By the time I was 17, I had a 24p camera and I was building my own dollies, so it was sort of just like exploring and emulation of what was happening at the time, which was a mix of the internet connecting more people, and also the DIY-style filmmaking that was growing with the advent of DSLR shooting video. I never really saw a career in film as a viable thing. I thought making films was just what I did.

"The Glidecam was freeing because you can run down stairs when you get good enough at it, and even jump over things with the cameras."

NFS: How did you transition to realizing that you could actually do this professionally? Liu: It was when I got a job as a PA when I was 19 and I was like, “Oh, I can get paid $50 a day to like fetch coffee and carry heavy camera cases around for 14 hours.” It was less about the $50 and more about the “Oh, you can do this.” NFS: That's what we're always telling people who want to break into the business: just get on set. Liu: Yeah, I didn't go to film school, because everybody that I worked with in film was like: if you go to school. don't go to school for film, and so I went to school for literature.

“Minding the Gap” builds Liu’s investigations, and the personal and ethical considerations that they entail, into the film. What he discovers—and films—of his friends’ present-day lives disturbs him, and Liu grapples with his own conflicts even while filming himself grappling with them. The details of the film make for an exemplary work of reporting. Liu’s clear revelation of specific yet complex events brings out psychological causality and logical connections but doesn’t impose a narrative; rather, the drama crystallizes as the events unfold. It’s a documentary in which the very nature of investigation is established—intellectually, aesthetically, and morally—by way of the personal implication of the filmmaker in the subject, of the filmmaker’s own need to make the images, to talk with the participants, to get beyond the surfaces of the settings. “Minding the Gap” is a personal documentary of the highest sort, in which the film’s necessity to the filmmaker—and its obstacles, its resistances, its emotional and moral demands on him—are part of its very existence.

Filmmaker: I had seen part of a cut that you had about a year ago. What I remember is, there was a lot more voiceover and the structure was different. There was a scene in the first ten minutes where you’re going to meet your mom to do the interview about you being abused by your stepfather, and you’re being interviewed in the car on the way: “So how do you feel about this?” At a certain point, obviously a lot of those things changed. Documentary editing processes are inherently long and complicated, but I’d love it if you could talk about thinking through some of those changes. Liu: I didn’t begin the film wanting to be in the film. My background is, I got a camera to make videos when I was 14. I watched movies that inspired me, like Waking Life, Kids and Gummo. Some of my first shorts when I was a teen were this sort of Slacker plot where I follow people around Rockford as they interact with each other. The structure is based off of hand-offs, to give you a slice of community and the people in it. Anyway, I learned cinematography and editing through going to forums. There’s this website called Skate Perception that was kind of the Reddit for skate media makers all over the country. This was in the 2000s, when the internet was still finding its identity in many ways. It no longer exists; forums aren’t really a thing, for the most part.

NFS: How did you develop your unconventional aesthetics over time, starting from such a young age? Liu: It was a mix of just emulating other creators and films that I was watching and also just going online and learning. By the time I was 16, I had a camera that I could set exposure and color temperature and with ND filters on it. By the time I was 17, I had a 24p camera and I was building my own dollies, so it was sort of just like exploring and emulation of what was happening at the time, which was a mix of the internet connecting more people, and also the DIY-style filmmaking that was growing with the advent of DSLR shooting video. I never really saw a career in film as a viable thing. I thought making films was just what I did.

"The Glidecam was freeing because you can run down stairs when you get good enough at it, and even jump over things with the cameras."

NFS: How did you transition to realizing that you could actually do this professionally? Liu: It was when I got a job as a PA when I was 19 and I was like, “Oh, I can get paid $50 a day to like fetch coffee and carry heavy camera cases around for 14 hours.” It was less about the $50 and more about the “Oh, you can do this.” NFS: That's what we're always telling people who want to break into the business: just get on set. Liu: Yeah, I didn't go to film school, because everybody that I worked with in film was like: if you go to school. don't go to school for film, and so I went to school for literature.