Billy Corben & Alfred Spellman discuss the genesis of COCAINE COWBOYS, which began when Billy was introduced to former cocaine trafficker Jon Roberts
Billy: Ever since Sundance Film Festival in 2001 people routinely approach Alfred and I with what they think are ‘great ideas’ for documentary subjects. Family, friends and strangers routinely introduce us to ‘interesting people.’ Well, one day I was actually introduced to a really interesting person – Jon Pernell Roberts a former cocaine trafficker and distributor of over £2 billion worth of cocaine for the Medellin Cartel.
I called Alfred and asked if that name meant anything to him. He instantly rattled off the guy’s entire life story to me – Alfred knew all about this guy!
Alfred: Growing up in South Florida, I’d read every book written about Miami in this era. Billy and I had discussed for many years what kind of piece we could do and it finally seemed we were onto something.
Billy: Once we had access to Jon, we set the wheels in motion Corben adds. We were introduced to Mickey Munday shortly thereafter, they both agreed to speak on camera and Alfred struck a pen pal relationship with some of the more colourful incarcerated characters from the era who turned up in our research.
The key for us was to have access to crucial players who could relay their firsthand experience in each of our areas of focus Corben observes. Not only the cops, lawyers and journalists who lived through it, but also the people who actually made it all happen. We needed to talk to the guys who smuggled tons of cocaine, made and spent hundreds of millions of dollars and also the guys who pulled the triggers on the MAC-11s.
I think Jon and Mickey were willing to talk because they understand the historical significance of their contribution to this era of Miami’s history explains Corben. Trafficking and smuggling were large and very important parts of their lives, for which they both paid a dear price. But I don’t think that they’re ‘proud’ of what they did per se. But Mickey, for example, is proud of his accomplishments as the engineer and architect who revolutionised the drug smuggling business. His audacious and creative strategies and equipment forever changed the way law enforcement dealt with traffickers.
We have an outstanding resource in South Florida called the Wolfson Florida Moving Image Archive says Corben, a collection of decades of local news packages, tourism films, private home movies and every other piece of film and video about Florida they can find. The archival footage in COCAINE COWBOYS comes primarily from the Archives. Everyone at the Moving Image Archive was extremely supportive of the project.
For decades, audiences have had a fascination with all things Miami – particularly material inspired by our most notorious years. Oliver Stone spent a lot of time down here researching his screenplay for SCARFACE, which not only faithfully adapted the Howard Hughes original, but ingeniously incorporated an abundance of historical facts into his otherwise fictional American Dream story. COCAINE COWBOYS puts all of that into context and proves how true to life those works of fiction actually are.
On editing Cocaine Cowboys
Billy: Co-editor David Cypkin and I set out to devise an editing style that would best serve the story
The first thing we were faced with was an abundance of material – 160 hours of interview footage, 50 hours of archival footage, 1000 still photographs. The challenge was packing all this incredible information and these fascinating stories into something under two hours. Fast cuts, loud music, lots of white (no fades to black – only white) all seemed to work best. As we shaved the movie down, the pace began to quicken to the point where people would say ‘Wow, it feels like you’re on cocaine watching this movie!
On the Cocaine Cowboys musical score
Alfred Spellman with securing Jan Hammer for the score.
Billy: Alfred called up Jan’s manager and sent him some info on the project and a copy of RAW DEAL, and the response was extremely positive. So Alfred and I went up to Jan’s farm in upstate New York and screened about 45 minutes of rough footage from Cocaine Cowboys for him and that settled it – he was in!
After that, we worked entirely by phone. We sent Jan videotapes, had hours-long spotting sessions on the phone, and he would email music files or ship down CDs. He wrote the theme music about halfway through post-production so that we could edit the main title sequence to his music.
I’ll never forget the first time I heard it, that twanging electric guitar put the ‘cowboy’ into COCAINE COWBOYS. And the rest of the score is just as amazing – as good, if not better than his best Miami Vice material. Jan writes the best driving-in-Miami-at-night-with-the-top-down music!