I set out from Iowa on my 11-hour drive to Colorado Springs unsure if one of the main subjects of our documentary would actually appear in our film.
Daniel Giffin was 15 years old, after all, a time in most boys’ lives where grunting can be the default conversation. Even the “just be polite to grandma” voice has a quick expiration date for teenagers.
In Daniel’s defense, I’m not sure anyone would love to sit in front of a camera and go over, in detail, a time when he was bullied — no matter how triumphantly the story ends. He’d been unsure during our pre-interviews if he wanted to revisit this particular part of his past…