A Conversation with Nick Quested
Nick Quested is executive director of Goldcrest Films as well as an acclaimed director and producer. His many credits include The Fire that Took Her, a 2023 Emmy Award winner for Outstanding Crime and Justice Documentary, and Restrepo, a 2011 Emmy winner for Outstanding Continuing Coverage of a News Story (Long Form). His most recent directing project is Hell of a Cruise, a feature-length documentary about the Diamond Princess, a luxury cruise ship that, in January 2020, became a floating nightmare when its passengers and crew were exposed to the deadly novel coronavirus.
Nick Quested recently spoke with Goldcrest Post about his career, documentary filmmaking and the future of post-production.
Goldcrest Post: Tell us about your latest project?
Nick Quested: We’re working on a film about the 64 days between the U.S. election in November 2020 and January 6th seen through the eyes of the Proud Boys. It’s a film about division in America. In the summer of 2020, COVID shut down the country, and I, like many people, was forced to stay home. I started to look at the United States through the lens that I’d viewed other cultures as they descended into civil war. That year, we witnessed the George Floyd riots. There were disruptions to the food supply chain. There were protests and counter protests. It was the same iconography, the same messaging and the same conflicts that I’d seen elsewhere, only now it was happening at home.
In making this film, we covered some of the rallies in DC and ended up on the steps of the Capitol on January 6. Later, we interviewed key players from the Stop the Steal movement and people directly opposed to them. We spoke with Clint Hickman of the Maricopa County Board of Supervisors, Arizona State Representative Rusty Bowers, Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger and many others. We want to contextualize how the Proud Boys nearly ended the American political experiment.
Goldcrest Post: What’s the status of the film?
Nick Quested: We’re nearly finished. Then, we’ll look for a distributor.
Goldcrest Post: What first attracted you to documentary filmmaking?
Nick Quested: When I was in college, I made a film called Voice of a Nation. It was a documentary about hip hop. Then I went off and made a bunch of music videos. But the thing about music videos is that you are putting pretty pictures to someone else’s art. You’re not the genesis of the project. The music drives it. I wanted to be involved in projects from beginning to end. Independent filmmaking was a possibility, but the process of financing is fraught. That’s not the case with documentaries. You can do it yourself.
In a documentary, there's an implicit trust between the filmmaker and the audience. They understand that what they are watching is true. So, you can be very emotionally provocative, which is one of the key factors that define cinema as an art. A documentary turns truth into art. It’s real. I find that fascinating. If someone dies in one of my films, they're not coming to the press conference to talk about it.
Goldcrest Post: What makes a good documentary?
Nick Quested: It transports the audience to a place where they wouldn't normally go. It looks at something on both a micro and macro level and explains each facet. Ultimately, a good documentary is fundamentally about its characters. You’ve got to empathize with them, sympathize with them, root for them.
Goldcrest Post: Do you have a favorite film?
Nick Quested: No. I love them all. I don’t have any ugly children.
Goldcrest Post: How does Goldcrest Post fit with your other filmmaking activities?
Nick Quested: Goldcrest supports the production community in New York, both episodics and nonfiction filmmaking. We are a boutique company that caters to filmmakers. Incredible filmmakers come through here every day, and we help them make their films. It’s exciting and rewarding.
Goldcrest Post: How do you see the future of post-production?
Nick Quested: Post production is becoming decentralized. It’s evolving into a hub and spoke model. People can offline wherever they like while tunneling into our shared storage. The same concept can be applied to conform and color. Filmmakers can come to the building, or they can digitally commute. Today, you can work from your home office, your living room or even your kitchen table and be as productive or perhaps more productive than you were before. Or you can come into our facility when proximity is important. It’s wonderful. The way we work has changed, but our mission hasn’t. We still need to understand our market and provide best in class services, only now, we’re doing it better.