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Riley Morton’s Film Career Is Evergreen
by Don Schwartz
Filmaker Riley Morton shooting a television documentary at Machu Pichu, Peru. photo: courtesy R. MortonFILMMAKER RILEY MORTON HAS LIVED
almost his entire life in Seattle, Washington. He did have a few "stints" away, including studies at Bogazici University, in Istanbul.
Morton graduated from Western Washington University’s Fairhaven College of Arts and Sciences. Reflecting his love of the outdoors, he designed his own program called "Viewing the Outdoors through Media: Journalism, Broadcasting, and Film."
Morton’s fifth film, a documentary entitled “Evergreen: The Road to Legalization”, covers the 2012 year-long political campaign in Washington state that resulted in the legalization of recreational marijuana use.
The film was picked up by First Run Features, is being shown theatrically this summer, and will be released on home video late summer/early fall. “Evergreen” is receiving a generous amount of well-deserved press coverage, including a strong piece in Variety.
I asked Morton about his "road" to filmmaker and to “Evergreen”.
A city famous for clouds and rain and now smoke sometimes transcends all the above in Morton's new film 'Evergreen': courtesy R. MortonCineSource: What happened in your life that brought you to the place of telling stories with film?
Riley Morton: I think that it was just recognizing the power of the moving image at an early age. As I started to think about what I wanted to do with my life, it was really clear to me that films—and even television—really have a power that can’t be replicated in any other media.
I love writing, I love journalism, but, wow, to succinctly and dramatically tell a story that you feel is important, there’s nothing that trumps the moving image.
So consciously or unconsciously I started to pursue making media in high school. But really, it wasn’t until a couple years after college that I thought this was going to be my career, where I’m going to put all my efforts.
As I understand, ‘Evergreen’ is your first film as director.
Strictly, that’s not true. I made two films immediately after college about ski-bum culture. In 2001, I was on a Mt. Everest expedition, on the north side, and ended up making a film called ‘Found On Everest’. And then in 2004, I made a film called ‘The Wonderland Project’ which is about two trail runners—good friends of mine who tried to run around Mt. Rainier in 24 hours.
These films are very niche-oriented pieces designed for those specific audiences. In the case of Mr. Everest, it’s armchair mountaineers; in the case of 'The Wonderland Project, the film was basically for trail runners and people who are interested in endurance sports. These are not films geared for a mainstream audience in the same way 'Evergreen' is.
Let’s get to the absolute genesis of ‘Evergreen’.
My wife and I took some time off in 2010 and 2011. We rented our house out, and traveled through Australia and Asia for ten months. When I came back to Seattle, it was time to get to work again. We spent our savings on our travels—which was the best possible way I can imagine spending our money—and I needed to get my freelance production business back up and running.
Morton at Annapurna basecamp, 13,000 feet up in Nepal’s Himalayas. photo: courtesy R. MortonI knew this guy from DC, a recent transplant to Seattle, Nils Cowan. He was also a freelance producer making a go of it. He worked on a lot of shows in the nonfiction television world that’s based out of DC—National Geographic and Discovery being there. He was ramping up his production work here in Seattle, and was a perfect person for me to share an office with.
I need to have an office: a place to go to work every day, and to come home from at the end of the day. And Nils and I partnered on an office co-op for production professionals here in Seattle’s U-district. We got to know each other more through the process of painting the walls, ramping up this office space, working together every day.
Around that time, stories started to appear in the media about this group called New Approach Washington whose stated goal was to legalize recreational use of marijuana here in Washington. And this particular effort made me take notice.
I was interested in this group because they didn’t look like any of the marijuana activists that I’d seen in the past. Alison Holcomb, who was in charge of the campaign, was a very experienced ACLU lawyer—and she had gotten some very prominent folks on board to speak on behalf of this initiative.
The one I was most surprised with was John McKay, who is a former U.S. attorney under George Bush. He’s a very conservative guy for Seattle. He’s the one most responsible for putting Mark Emery in jail. (Emery is a long time marijuana activist and pot entrepreneur based in Vancouver.) McKay threw the book at him – and he’s now in federal U.S. Prison. To convince someone like McKay not only to support your legalization initiative, but also come out and be a face and a name on it—that’s impressive.
Rick Steves was also on board. Of course, he is very well-known in this region and beyond. He was a great voice for this approach which was: This is not 25 year-olds who just want to get stoned all the time. These are professional people, very smart people that we can respect, that think this policy [of criminalization] is misguided.
Alison, and the team behind i502 [initiative 502] were basically making all the right political moves to move this legalization effort in a way that I’d never seen cannabis activists accomplish before.
Seeing this, and the media coverage of it, Nils and I started talking about the idea. These guys, we thought, might actually have a chance to succeed. As you start to understand American politics better, and how important money is, and connections in that world, you realize that the usual legalization advocates—as noble as their intentions may be—the reality is they don’t have much of a chance of succeeding on anything of scale.
At the Evergreen Premiere, many of the film’s stars and filmmakers look on while Doug Hiatt, a defense lawyer who appears in the film, passes Producer Jason Reid a joint. photo: courtesy R. MortonI’m always looking for stories happening around me that might have a national, or even international impact. This initiative definitely fit the bill.
Nils and I realized that i502 might succeed in ways that other legalization efforts haven’t—especially with this idea of recreational marijuana, as opposed to medical. At this stage Nils and I explored the idea of making a documentary about this group, this ‘new approach,’ with the narrative arc being this particular initiative in the state of Washington, and the climax being the election.
Over the course of a couple months in the late summer/early fall of 2011, after gaining a lot of trust from Alison and Tonia Winchester who was second in command at New Approach, we got good access to the campaign. We told them straight-up ‘we’re two independent documentary filmmakers, we think this is an interesting story, we would like to document it for posterity.’
At this time, Nils and I had most of our success with television: making documentaries for TV. Since this was kind of a newsier piece, we imagined it as a television doc, and started shooting it as such. Over the course of the next six months we created a five-minute ‘tease’ to sell this one-hour documentary about i502.
We didn’t have much luck. We got nibbles from HBO, Showtime and others. They liked where we were going with it, but at the end of the day they don’t have very many slots for funding, and it’s very rare that they would fund a documentary up front, before they’ve seen the results, without having worked with those filmmakers before.
But the story kept getting more and more interesting. Turns out the major opposition to 502 that emerged was not one that was saying, ‘This is going to lead to death and destruction, and what about the kids, and this is a slippery slope.’ The main opposition was a group of people who agreed that pot should be legalized, but they didn’t like the way this particular initiative was structured—and feared it would lead to a step backwards.
And that was just fascinating to us. The argument wasn’t whether or not we should legalize marijuana, but how.
So even though Nils and I weren’t having any luck preselling our film to television—and yes, we are freelancers and business people and entrepreneurs, and our instincts were saying we should shut this production down because we’re not getting paid—the other side, our filmmaker side, decided to keep following the story, at an increased level, with more and more production days. It was just too good.
And then, sure enough, when it did eventually pass, November 6 of 2012, we were more committed than ever to getting this story out. We transitioned our vision to making this a feature film, and getting it out through more traditional distribution models.
And your next step?
The next step was the edit. The climax of the film happens on election day, November 6, and the end of the film is one month later, December 6, 2012, when it became legal to enjoy marijuana in Washington state without fear of being thrown in jail for such. Through November, December, and all winter and spring we were in the editing studio fulltime. It was at this stage we brought on a few other filmmakers to help with the post.
One of the rare moments Morton can be found looking into the camera and smiling, near Mt Rainier. photo: courtesy R. MortonSo, really, there’s five of us who are the core ‘Evergreen’ team—myself and Nils, and we added three really valuable members, Jason Reid, Darren Lund, and Adam Brown. These are the folks who were behind a film called ‘Sonicsgate’ from a few years ago here in Seattle. It tracks the loss of the Seattle Supersonics to Oklahoma City. I don’t really care about basketball too much, but I did see this film because I’m interested in all Seattle issues. And wow, this documentary is just an amazing story, full of all kinds of political backroom deals. So I was more than convinced of their talent as filmmakers.
So I consider the ‘Evergreen’ team a five-person one; I do end up getting the director credit, but I don’t feel like I deserve it, in a way. It really was the five of us finding the story, in that room, ourselves. In documentary, so much happens in the edit room. We all deserve equal credit for creating a piece that we’re all really proud of.
I would say my reaction to the film’s story is typical. I was surprised that the opponents of 502 were supporters of marijuana legalization, but then when I heard their arguments, I thought their points were valid—an age limit of 21, minute amounts of THC in the blood while driving, that could lead to just as many arrests, if not more. What’s happening now? Are these concerns being realized?
It’s been one and a-half years since legalization day. We’re in kind of a grey period right now. The stores are currently being licensed, and will start to open this summer. Right now, marijuana is more accessible than ever, but there’s no one store that you can go to and buy for the first time.
Basically, many of the naysayers' fears appear to be not ungrounded, but right now we’re not seeing a rash of we call ‘green DUIs.’ There has been an uptick, but it hasn’t become a big issue. I did read a piece about Colorado in today’s ‘New York Times’. It’s anecdotal evidence, but they were reporting various sheriffs are saying there’s many more stoned drivers out there. But, the numbers I’ve seen in Washington don’t bear that out.
It has basically gone mostly smoothly, slower than anticipated, and a lot of people have complaints about how the liquor control board is proceeding, giving away licenses for production, distribution, and retailing.
I will say, Don, besides the two concerns that you brought up, another main concern is home-grow. The Colorado law allows up to six plants for personal use, whereas the Washington law has no such provision. It is illegal to grow your own, or to do a kind of backroom deal with a grower. You could argue that that insures not necessarily a corporate overseeing of the marijuana industry, but one that’s business oriented.
The way the law is written, it’s not simply to decrease harm, it’s also to increase revenue—‘We want you to buy through these channels so we can tax it, we can insure the quality, make it safe, and no, you’re not allowed to grow it on your own.’ The legitimacy of this point the no-on-502 people bring up still stands in my opinion.
How did you get distribution through First Run?
We premiered at a few festivals last year [2013], we were looking for a distribution partner, and sent them screeners. We met with them in the fall, we were also talking with a couple of other distributors, and First Run felt like the best group to go with. When I was in college I was the one responsible for booking the films that were run on campus, and we worked with First Run Features then.
I’ve had a long standing appreciation for their ability to sustainably distribute niche films. That’s not an easy job, not an easy industry to be in, and they do it quite well—and while retaining their ethics and treating their partners well.
Does First Run’s distribution include Canada?
Yes. North America. But I don’t imagine that this will be too... well, it will be interesting to see if Canadians pick up on this. In many ways marijuana legalization is absolutely a theme north of the border, and for a lot of our history, British Columbia has had a very liberal approach to marijuana. But, I view ‘Evergreen’ as a story about American politics, the initiative system, drug policy. Yeah, I absolutely hope that Canada liberalizes these policies.
When do you anticipate releasing the DVD?
It’s gonna be in September. Our hope has always been to have this out on home video in advance of elections in 2014. I think that there will be marijuana-related initiatives in a handful of states.
Can you say anything about how the principal characters have responded to the film?
I’m glad you brought that up because one of my biggest feelings of accomplishment from this film is because that every one of them—with one possible exception—all really liked the film, and how they were represented. They feel like their message was not muddied or misinterpreted in any way. And so I feel really proud that we released this film which is engaging and moves, has a lot of very real emotion, and yet the main characters are all in support of how they are represented in the film.
How are you feeling, having already experienced a strong measure of success by being picked up for distribution?
(laughs) Feels like finishing a marathon. It’s such a long process, and we poured our hearts and souls into this for 18 months, and to come out at the other side, it feels really good. I’m waiting with baited breath for the theatrical run. It will be interesting to see what happens in June, in New York, Denver, and Seattle. Right now it just feels very satisfying.
What are you thinking about your future?
I’ve got some projects in the works. But to me this story gets even more interesting—in Washington and beyond. The mechanics of how the legalization process is going to roll out in Washington are interesting. Will it have the effects that the framers imagined? What surprises are we going to learn about? What’s different?
All these questions to me are fascinating. Will we decrease the black market to next to nothing? I would love to continue to cover this story, but sorry to say, I cannot figure out the business model of how to do it. Wouldn’t it be great if I could be hired as a stringer to cover this issue for a year or two? You have any connections with major news organizations?”
Speaking of news organizations, Riley informed me that ongoing coverage of Washington state’s liberalization of marijuana laws can be found at a “Seattle Times” blog called, of course, Evergreen.
Don Schwartz is an actor, writer and blogger on all things documentary, and can be seen here or reached . Posted on Aug 12, 2014 - 10:10 PM
by Don Schwartz
Filmaker Riley Morton shooting a television documentary at Machu Pichu, Peru. photo: courtesy R. Mortonalmost his entire life in Seattle, Washington. He did have a few "stints" away, including studies at Bogazici University, in Istanbul.
Morton graduated from Western Washington University’s Fairhaven College of Arts and Sciences. Reflecting his love of the outdoors, he designed his own program called "Viewing the Outdoors through Media: Journalism, Broadcasting, and Film."
Morton’s fifth film, a documentary entitled “Evergreen: The Road to Legalization”, covers the 2012 year-long political campaign in Washington state that resulted in the legalization of recreational marijuana use.
The film was picked up by First Run Features, is being shown theatrically this summer, and will be released on home video late summer/early fall. “Evergreen” is receiving a generous amount of well-deserved press coverage, including a strong piece in Variety.
I asked Morton about his "road" to filmmaker and to “Evergreen”.
A city famous for clouds and rain and now smoke sometimes transcends all the above in Morton's new film 'Evergreen': courtesy R. MortonRiley Morton: I think that it was just recognizing the power of the moving image at an early age. As I started to think about what I wanted to do with my life, it was really clear to me that films—and even television—really have a power that can’t be replicated in any other media.
I love writing, I love journalism, but, wow, to succinctly and dramatically tell a story that you feel is important, there’s nothing that trumps the moving image.
So consciously or unconsciously I started to pursue making media in high school. But really, it wasn’t until a couple years after college that I thought this was going to be my career, where I’m going to put all my efforts.
As I understand, ‘Evergreen’ is your first film as director.
Strictly, that’s not true. I made two films immediately after college about ski-bum culture. In 2001, I was on a Mt. Everest expedition, on the north side, and ended up making a film called ‘Found On Everest’. And then in 2004, I made a film called ‘The Wonderland Project’ which is about two trail runners—good friends of mine who tried to run around Mt. Rainier in 24 hours.
These films are very niche-oriented pieces designed for those specific audiences. In the case of Mr. Everest, it’s armchair mountaineers; in the case of 'The Wonderland Project, the film was basically for trail runners and people who are interested in endurance sports. These are not films geared for a mainstream audience in the same way 'Evergreen' is.
Let’s get to the absolute genesis of ‘Evergreen’.
My wife and I took some time off in 2010 and 2011. We rented our house out, and traveled through Australia and Asia for ten months. When I came back to Seattle, it was time to get to work again. We spent our savings on our travels—which was the best possible way I can imagine spending our money—and I needed to get my freelance production business back up and running.
Morton at Annapurna basecamp, 13,000 feet up in Nepal’s Himalayas. photo: courtesy R. MortonI need to have an office: a place to go to work every day, and to come home from at the end of the day. And Nils and I partnered on an office co-op for production professionals here in Seattle’s U-district. We got to know each other more through the process of painting the walls, ramping up this office space, working together every day.
Around that time, stories started to appear in the media about this group called New Approach Washington whose stated goal was to legalize recreational use of marijuana here in Washington. And this particular effort made me take notice.
I was interested in this group because they didn’t look like any of the marijuana activists that I’d seen in the past. Alison Holcomb, who was in charge of the campaign, was a very experienced ACLU lawyer—and she had gotten some very prominent folks on board to speak on behalf of this initiative.
The one I was most surprised with was John McKay, who is a former U.S. attorney under George Bush. He’s a very conservative guy for Seattle. He’s the one most responsible for putting Mark Emery in jail. (Emery is a long time marijuana activist and pot entrepreneur based in Vancouver.) McKay threw the book at him – and he’s now in federal U.S. Prison. To convince someone like McKay not only to support your legalization initiative, but also come out and be a face and a name on it—that’s impressive.
Rick Steves was also on board. Of course, he is very well-known in this region and beyond. He was a great voice for this approach which was: This is not 25 year-olds who just want to get stoned all the time. These are professional people, very smart people that we can respect, that think this policy [of criminalization] is misguided.
Alison, and the team behind i502 [initiative 502] were basically making all the right political moves to move this legalization effort in a way that I’d never seen cannabis activists accomplish before.
Seeing this, and the media coverage of it, Nils and I started talking about the idea. These guys, we thought, might actually have a chance to succeed. As you start to understand American politics better, and how important money is, and connections in that world, you realize that the usual legalization advocates—as noble as their intentions may be—the reality is they don’t have much of a chance of succeeding on anything of scale.
At the Evergreen Premiere, many of the film’s stars and filmmakers look on while Doug Hiatt, a defense lawyer who appears in the film, passes Producer Jason Reid a joint. photo: courtesy R. MortonNils and I realized that i502 might succeed in ways that other legalization efforts haven’t—especially with this idea of recreational marijuana, as opposed to medical. At this stage Nils and I explored the idea of making a documentary about this group, this ‘new approach,’ with the narrative arc being this particular initiative in the state of Washington, and the climax being the election.
Over the course of a couple months in the late summer/early fall of 2011, after gaining a lot of trust from Alison and Tonia Winchester who was second in command at New Approach, we got good access to the campaign. We told them straight-up ‘we’re two independent documentary filmmakers, we think this is an interesting story, we would like to document it for posterity.’
At this time, Nils and I had most of our success with television: making documentaries for TV. Since this was kind of a newsier piece, we imagined it as a television doc, and started shooting it as such. Over the course of the next six months we created a five-minute ‘tease’ to sell this one-hour documentary about i502.
We didn’t have much luck. We got nibbles from HBO, Showtime and others. They liked where we were going with it, but at the end of the day they don’t have very many slots for funding, and it’s very rare that they would fund a documentary up front, before they’ve seen the results, without having worked with those filmmakers before.
But the story kept getting more and more interesting. Turns out the major opposition to 502 that emerged was not one that was saying, ‘This is going to lead to death and destruction, and what about the kids, and this is a slippery slope.’ The main opposition was a group of people who agreed that pot should be legalized, but they didn’t like the way this particular initiative was structured—and feared it would lead to a step backwards.
And that was just fascinating to us. The argument wasn’t whether or not we should legalize marijuana, but how.
So even though Nils and I weren’t having any luck preselling our film to television—and yes, we are freelancers and business people and entrepreneurs, and our instincts were saying we should shut this production down because we’re not getting paid—the other side, our filmmaker side, decided to keep following the story, at an increased level, with more and more production days. It was just too good.
And then, sure enough, when it did eventually pass, November 6 of 2012, we were more committed than ever to getting this story out. We transitioned our vision to making this a feature film, and getting it out through more traditional distribution models.
And your next step?
The next step was the edit. The climax of the film happens on election day, November 6, and the end of the film is one month later, December 6, 2012, when it became legal to enjoy marijuana in Washington state without fear of being thrown in jail for such. Through November, December, and all winter and spring we were in the editing studio fulltime. It was at this stage we brought on a few other filmmakers to help with the post.
One of the rare moments Morton can be found looking into the camera and smiling, near Mt Rainier. photo: courtesy R. MortonSo I consider the ‘Evergreen’ team a five-person one; I do end up getting the director credit, but I don’t feel like I deserve it, in a way. It really was the five of us finding the story, in that room, ourselves. In documentary, so much happens in the edit room. We all deserve equal credit for creating a piece that we’re all really proud of.
I would say my reaction to the film’s story is typical. I was surprised that the opponents of 502 were supporters of marijuana legalization, but then when I heard their arguments, I thought their points were valid—an age limit of 21, minute amounts of THC in the blood while driving, that could lead to just as many arrests, if not more. What’s happening now? Are these concerns being realized?
It’s been one and a-half years since legalization day. We’re in kind of a grey period right now. The stores are currently being licensed, and will start to open this summer. Right now, marijuana is more accessible than ever, but there’s no one store that you can go to and buy for the first time.
Basically, many of the naysayers' fears appear to be not ungrounded, but right now we’re not seeing a rash of we call ‘green DUIs.’ There has been an uptick, but it hasn’t become a big issue. I did read a piece about Colorado in today’s ‘New York Times’. It’s anecdotal evidence, but they were reporting various sheriffs are saying there’s many more stoned drivers out there. But, the numbers I’ve seen in Washington don’t bear that out.
It has basically gone mostly smoothly, slower than anticipated, and a lot of people have complaints about how the liquor control board is proceeding, giving away licenses for production, distribution, and retailing.
I will say, Don, besides the two concerns that you brought up, another main concern is home-grow. The Colorado law allows up to six plants for personal use, whereas the Washington law has no such provision. It is illegal to grow your own, or to do a kind of backroom deal with a grower. You could argue that that insures not necessarily a corporate overseeing of the marijuana industry, but one that’s business oriented.
The way the law is written, it’s not simply to decrease harm, it’s also to increase revenue—‘We want you to buy through these channels so we can tax it, we can insure the quality, make it safe, and no, you’re not allowed to grow it on your own.’ The legitimacy of this point the no-on-502 people bring up still stands in my opinion.
How did you get distribution through First Run?
We premiered at a few festivals last year [2013], we were looking for a distribution partner, and sent them screeners. We met with them in the fall, we were also talking with a couple of other distributors, and First Run felt like the best group to go with. When I was in college I was the one responsible for booking the films that were run on campus, and we worked with First Run Features then.
I’ve had a long standing appreciation for their ability to sustainably distribute niche films. That’s not an easy job, not an easy industry to be in, and they do it quite well—and while retaining their ethics and treating their partners well.
Does First Run’s distribution include Canada?
Yes. North America. But I don’t imagine that this will be too... well, it will be interesting to see if Canadians pick up on this. In many ways marijuana legalization is absolutely a theme north of the border, and for a lot of our history, British Columbia has had a very liberal approach to marijuana. But, I view ‘Evergreen’ as a story about American politics, the initiative system, drug policy. Yeah, I absolutely hope that Canada liberalizes these policies.
When do you anticipate releasing the DVD?
It’s gonna be in September. Our hope has always been to have this out on home video in advance of elections in 2014. I think that there will be marijuana-related initiatives in a handful of states.
Can you say anything about how the principal characters have responded to the film?
I’m glad you brought that up because one of my biggest feelings of accomplishment from this film is because that every one of them—with one possible exception—all really liked the film, and how they were represented. They feel like their message was not muddied or misinterpreted in any way. And so I feel really proud that we released this film which is engaging and moves, has a lot of very real emotion, and yet the main characters are all in support of how they are represented in the film.
How are you feeling, having already experienced a strong measure of success by being picked up for distribution?
(laughs) Feels like finishing a marathon. It’s such a long process, and we poured our hearts and souls into this for 18 months, and to come out at the other side, it feels really good. I’m waiting with baited breath for the theatrical run. It will be interesting to see what happens in June, in New York, Denver, and Seattle. Right now it just feels very satisfying.
What are you thinking about your future?
I’ve got some projects in the works. But to me this story gets even more interesting—in Washington and beyond. The mechanics of how the legalization process is going to roll out in Washington are interesting. Will it have the effects that the framers imagined? What surprises are we going to learn about? What’s different?
All these questions to me are fascinating. Will we decrease the black market to next to nothing? I would love to continue to cover this story, but sorry to say, I cannot figure out the business model of how to do it. Wouldn’t it be great if I could be hired as a stringer to cover this issue for a year or two? You have any connections with major news organizations?”
Speaking of news organizations, Riley informed me that ongoing coverage of Washington state’s liberalization of marijuana laws can be found at a “Seattle Times” blog called, of course, Evergreen.
Don Schwartz is an actor, writer and blogger on all things documentary, and can be seen here or reached . Posted on Aug 12, 2014 - 10:10 PM
