Alison Tavel is a documentary filmmaker whose feature-length directorial debut, Resynator, won the audience award for documentary feature at SXSW and is now available on digital. She has directed numerous shorts and music videos for the Tom Petty estate, including Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers: The Fillmore House Band 1997, Tom Petty’s Drivin’ Down To Georgia and Wildflowers: Come Find All The Rest. Additionally, she was instrumental in the making of the 2021 feature documentary Tom Petty: Somewhere You Feel Free as the archival producer. Alison serves as the estate’s sole archivist and in her role has curated exhibits at the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and the Grammy Museum. In her past life, Alison was a touring crew member and studio support for musicians Grace Potter, Beck and Jenny Lewis.
In 2014, I began filming a documentary on the resurrection of the Resynator, a synthesizer from the ’70s that my late father had invented. My father, Don Tavel, died in a car crash when I was only 10 weeks old, so I never knew him. By making the film, though, I got to go on a parallel journey with my dad, 36 years on from his death. I learned a lot about him and, in turn, a lot about myself, too. I discovered that we were alike in a lot of ways, and really different in some big ways. One of the things we differed most on was our perception of success and failure.
My dad was four years into his Resynator project when he abandoned it altogether. It was 1982, and he had lined up a big demo with Paul McCartney, but wasn’t able to go through with it because the Resynator broke the night before. He came back to the States defeated; I’m sure he had to move mountains to get that meeting and it wasn’t likely he would get a second chance. He abandoned the Resynator project on that day. He never even bothered to pick up the extra parts and the other working unit from a manufacturing company he was working with in Indiana. In 2016, when I was working with Mike Beigel, my dad’s engineer on the Resynator, I asked Mike why the project was abandoned, to which he replied, “I think the non-production of the Resynator avoided the question of success or failure.” He also said, “A lot of family dynamics went into a lot of parts of Don’s life.”
While making the film, I found a therapy letter my dad wrote to his parents the year he died, while he was in marriage counseling with my mom. In it, he explained how he felt like he was in competition with his three other brothers to get his parents’ love, but because he felt unable to gain their love, he instead sought recognition and awards. “You were proud of me, but you couldn’t love me.” This was devastating for me to read. Of course his parents loved him, but it was obviously not in a way he could understand.
After reading that letter, it made so much sense to me that he would be afraid of failure – but also that he would define failure as “not getting awards.” Because from my perspective, I never once saw his Resynator project as a failure. I was absolutely crushed when I heard about the Paul McCartney demo, but how could that be a failure? That meeting would have never been set up in the first place had the Resynator not been worthy. My dad got to meet so many of his musical heroes because of his invention: Peter Gabriel, Stevie Wonder, the Average White Band, Yes, etc. – the list goes on! He invented something that felt inspired and was unique for its time (and even now!). He worked incredibly hard on it for years and spoke so passionately about it. I found a photo of him beaming at a NAMM (National Association of Music Merchants) show, where he debuted the Resynator. You could tell he loved his invention. Wasn’t that a success? I wish he could have seen it that way.
Although I have a different definition of success than my dad, it doesn’t mean that rejection or losing or not getting accepted into something doesn’t sting, because it does. I worked on my documentary Resynator for 10 years. I got my Sundance rejection letter as I was mailing out checks to my lawyer and my composer, because I was still paying for the whole thing myself. I remember a wave of nausea as I put stamps on the envelopes and said goodbye to thousands of dollars, while wondering if this film would ever get seen. I was so sad. I was also kind of embarrassed, because I’d made a big announcement about submitting to Sundance. That wasn’t the first time I’d gotten rejected with this film, and it wouldn’t be the last, either. Even when I got into SXSW, no sales agents we approached would take my film. In the years I spent making the film, I got turned down or just flat out ignored by managers, artists, producers, film financiers – you name it. I had a guy tell me he was going to Paypal me $10,000 for a film shoot, and then never heard from him again. Another potential investor told me he was going to donate $300,000 if I got a fiscal sponsor, but then when I came back to him to let him know I’d set one up, he never responded to me again. I had a guy tell me he didn’t see me as a “lead,” but with the new MeToo movement, I might find an audience. I got absolutely slammed on a bunch of synth forums for trying to promote my film and raise some money.
I never once thought I was a failure, though. I love my film and even though it’s been extremely hard to get through the bullshit at times, it has brought so much to my life. I would have been very sad if Resynator had never found an audience, but I am happy with the film, so what else matters? When I started to look into why I might feel this way, and then thought about my dad’s letter, I realized it was because no matter the fate of the film, I knew my mom would be there, cheering me on and loving me unconditionally. She never held anything over my head, or compared me to my sister, or projected any expectations on to me about what she wanted me to do with my life. She was always there to listen and never judged me. Even when I put red stripes in my hair in high school, or dropped out of college, she just let me be me, and loved me for it.
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I really struggled with turning 36, because my dad died when he was 36, and I had this weird fear I would suffer the same fate. The more I talked to people who had also lost parents at young ages, the more I realized it was a common fear. As a way to resolve some of these birthday anxieties, I decided to cover a Leon Russell song as a tribute to my dad, because I found out he used to sing it to me. I’m not a musician, so after I recorded the song, I thought about just keeping it to myself, because I was afraid of getting judged for my singing. I was also scared that no one would listen, because everything these days is measured in likes. But it didn’t take me long to remember that I was doing this for myself and for my dad, and that if not one person listened to it, it had still helped me through a tough time, and that was the point … so why not share it with others? Outside validation such as awards and likes are so fun and I will always be excited when I get them, but they don’t define success.
