John Beckham helms ‘The Diabetes Solution,’ a poignant documentary about living with type 1 diabetes that he co-wrote with Bethany McKenzie and directed himself.
The Diabetes Solution offers an intimate and real look into the lives of people and families who are impacted every day by type 1 diabetes. Through a series of interviews — both heartfelt and informative — the documentary illustrates how dietary changes and insulin strategies can make a significant difference in patients’ lives.
The documentary takes viewers into the world of current type 1 diabetes guidelines and the corruption that hides this solution from people who have diabetes. It details the difficult road of having a loved one diagnosed with diabetes and maintaining their blood sugar level while also illustrating the controversy of the American Diabetes Association’s guidelines.
The Diabetes Solution powerfully demonstrates how people with diabetes can prevent complications and live a full and healthy life. It’s an inspiring message of hope that depicts a solution and side of type 1 diabetes that has been hidden for so long.
The Knockturnal had the pleasure of talking with writer and director John Beckham about all things The Diabetes Solution.
The Knockturnal: What inspired you to create this documentary and share this very important topic in this way?
John Beckham: Bethany, my Executive Producer, created this documentary. She originally shot interviews, compiled some B-Roll shots with those families, and created a short entitled “Madness: The Cost of Carbs.” She was having problems fulfilling her vision of creating a long-form feature documentary, and my cousin, who was involved with the project, gave me a call to see if I’d be interested in picking up the project. After doing some research and having a few discussions with Bethany, I knew this was something I had to do. It’s very rare when a project can save a life, and this one could. I was compelled to take the reins.
The Knockturnal: Did you run into any challenges while creating the documentary?
John Beckham: The main challenge was a logistical one — ingesting, organizing, and working with previous footage that was captured by people not on my team. The previous footage was not intuitively organized and I spent almost two weeks just opening files, renaming, and cataloging them correctly. We didn’t have many creative challenges – Bethany was very supportive of my vision of integrating her previous personal stories with my educational and investigative aspects.
The Knockturnal: How did you select the interviewees that were featured and get them to speak so candidly about very emotional experiences of theirs?
John Beckham: I interviewed Dr. Bernstein, the Wesley Family, and Dr. Berry for the film. I focus on listening and being friendly. I’m also naturally empathetic. This usually gets people to open up. I knew we needed Bernstein – he’s a lynchpin for this film. I am very cognizant of diversity and thought we needed more in the film and flew to Nacogdoches to speak with the Wesleys. Dr. Berry provided some fire that we needed.
The Knockturnal: The tone of the documentary does an excellent job of balancing both the human side of diabetes as well as the very technical and scientific side of diabetes, how did you strike this balance and create a final product that is equally informative and evocative?
John Beckham: Thank you. The human side was already there when I came onboard. Bethany did a great job of that. The technical and scientific side was what I thought the film needed to both ground the interviews and give the viewers some background that will help them through the entire film. Whereas before the interviews were in the foreground, I took them and used them as support for our technical/scientific segments to really push our message. The balance between the technical and the human side is part of the magic.
The Knockturnal: What do you hope audiences take away from viewing The Diabetes Solution?
John Beckham: A better understanding of the disease and a better understanding of how to manage it.
The Diabetes Solution is available now on VOD.