By Joanna Chadwick
Telling the story of Kennedy Brown, the former star at Derby where she was named a McDonald’s All-American and won a Class 6A title, made sense for fellow Panther Brett Jones when he was tasked with a major project for the film school at Arizona, where he is set to graduate.
Jones released his documentary, “Something to Fear” on YouTube in January after taking it to film festivals, including Tallgrass in Wichita and Doc Sunback in Mulvane, where he received an achievement award for the best student film. It also played at the Orpheum in Wichita.
He had filmed Brown, a 6-foot-6 forward now at Duke, extensively in high school and had created the video that revealed Brown’s announcement that she was signing with Oregon State.
But this film was different than any hype video.
“I felt so much had been written and talked about her from a sports perspective that I always thought because of that, other parts of her life must have been fascinating,” Jones said. “She’s someone who was so elevated in a smaller community, and I thought it would be interesting to look at the pressure she’d have to deal with.
“In our film program here, you spend one of your summers making a documentary film. I took that opportunity to do it with her.”
It was a massive project, though, so he applied and received a grant that paid for his travel and hotel for when he drove up from Arizona to Oregon State. They also did a lot of Zoom calls for interviews.
“The movie is very visually based,” said Jones, who made an hour-long documentary on the Derby football team in 2019. “It does a lot of artistic stuff, poetic documentary. It’s not straightforward. This is who I am and what I do. It’s more artistic.
“… The general idea is tracking her and how she felt being somewhat of an outcast. When she was young, she felt like an outcast because of her size. She was so much bigger, so she didn’t really fit in.
“Later in life, physically she was pretty unique, but then it becomes about athletic ability, expecting her to be great and excel constantly. It made her feel outcasted, too.
“It made her feel pressure. She has to be a success. It kind of wraps up, shows how she’s overcome that.”
Jones is proud of the film.
“We took a lot of risks with it. Going into that really artistic style, all the money and time and travel — I do think it paid off,” he said. “… I think we accomplished what Kennedy and I set out to do.”
He wanted her to be part of the process from the beginning.
“We set out to make a movie that we thought if someone would watch this, if parents would watch this, if people in the community would watch this, maybe people would be treated better,” Jones said.
Jones and Brown set out to make a difference.
“If there’s one tall girl at Derby who would have an easier time because of the success of this film, that’s what I want to make sure I do,” Jones said. “I want to make a tiny difference in our community.”
