The devastating ripple effects of suicide on the families left behind have largely been left unexplored on screen. The new documentary, ‘Saving 4 Seconds,’ changes that by showcasing the stories of those forever changed by these tragedies.

Filmmaker Rachel Klein directed and produced the feature. As a mother of 12-year-old twins, she has described the experience of making the movie as profoundly personal and life-changing. It has reshaped her perspective on motherhood, the fragility of life and the importance of cherishing every moment with loved ones.

‘Saving 4 Seconds’ follows 18-year-old Kyle Gamboa as he searched on his computer on September 20, 2013 to learn how to commit suicide. At 11:30am that day, Kyle pulled his car over in the middle of the Golden Gate Bridge, hopped over the roadside railing, crossed the sidewalk and leaped the four seconds to his death in the waters below.

After his death, Kyle’s parents embarked on a tireless journey of advocacy to install a barrier on the Golden Gate Bridge. They chose this path to save other families the immense pain they had lived through.

Kyle’s parents partnered with employees of the Bridge, who encounter suicide and death daily, and suicide advocates from around the world. They launched a campaign to change the perception of one of the world’s most notorious suicide locations.

‘Saving 4 Seconds’ had its World Premiere last Saturday, October 31 at St. David’s Church’s Bethel Hall in Austin during the Austin Film Festival. The documentary will have its second screening at the Texas-based festival this Thursday, November 5 at 4:30pm CT at Galaxy Theaters Austin.

Klein generously took the time recently to talk about helming and producing ‘Saving 4 Seconds’ during an interview over Zoom. Among other things, the filmmaker discussed discusses the six-year journey behind the project, exploring the history of suicide on the Golden Gate Bridge and the deeply personal stories of families fighting for change. She also reflected on the challenges of researching, filming and editing the documentary, her creative approach to portraying the bridge as a character, and the importance of bringing previously untold stories to audiences.

Film Factual (FF): You co-wrote the new documentary, ‘Saving 4 Seconds,’ with Kimberly A. Austin. What was the initial idea and inspiration for the film, and how did the project come about?

Rachel Klein (RK): The process of making our film was kind of backwards because the producers were looking for filmmakers to tell the bridge’s story. When they started looking, we threw our hat in the ring.

We told them that we wanted to show the story, warts and all, rather than present a glorified version of what had been accomplished. We wanted to show how the bridge itself was not always as accommodating as the families would have liked.

So it was more of a collaboration from the beginning, rather than us banging on doors and asking to make the film.

FF: After signing on to work on the movie, you also became the director. Once production began, how did you approach helming the feature?

RK: When you have 80-plus years of material to go through, it makes the production difficult. We could have made a 26-hour film because there was so much great stuff to show.

Our initial approach was to understand that we wanted the bridge itself to be a character. People in the Bay Area love that bridge, and it’s known around the world. It has its own feel. When you’re on the bridge, it has her own sounds and weather system. There’s so much to take in.

When we met the families, we knew we were going to be telling their stories and not our version of those stories. I’m a New Yorker, so I knew nothing about the Golden Gate Bridge in terms of suicide. But my producing partner’s father actually took his life off the bridge. So we had very different perspectives.

We discussed what was the norm and what everybody knew in that area, compared with what was the norm for people who didn’t live there. It was a multipronged approach to bring something new to the people of the San Francisco Bay Area while thoroughly telling the story and covering the history.

FF: What was the research process like, and how did you figure out what history to include in the film’s final version?

RK: Everything was shocking to me. People in the San Francisco Bay Area were like, “Whatever, we’ve heard it.” They grew up with it and understood the arguments from people saying, “It’s aesthetics. Let’s not touch the bridge because it’s pretty.”

But as you hear in the film, people who lost loved ones off the bridge don’t think it’s pretty or aesthetically pleasing. It’s just a structure to them.

It took us six years to put the film together. During those six years, I went through more than 80 years of history, including the highs and lows, what was almost successful, what was almost a failure and the epic failures.

It was a roller coaster for me, coming to the project with no knowledge of what was going on in the San Francisco Bay Area regarding the bridge. I wasn’t even aware that the Golden Gate Bridge had become the site of more suicides than anywhere else in the world. The bridge has long been associated with this heartbreaking reality, but learning the full extent of it was still deeply sobering to me.

FF: How did you decide who you wanted to speak with, and what was the experience of collaborating with the families like during production?

RK: We had a lot of help from the bridge employees themselves in identifying who was really involved in the latest campaign for the barrier.

We watched other pieces that were already out there, including short films, feature-length films and news coverage. We wanted to share something different.

When we spoke with the Gamboas and the other people in the film, we wanted to tell stories that hadn’t already been told. The Gamboa family’s story hadn’t really been told from beginning to end in terms of their involvement.

The Bridge Rail Foundation was also monumental in this process, and its evolution hadn’t really been told. We tried to find people and stories that wouldn’t repeat what was already out there.

FF: Cliff Traiman served as the cinematographer on ‘Saving 4 Seconds.’ How did you collaborate to establish the documentary’s visual style?

RK: Cliff, my cinematographer, is the best. Everybody says that, but I’m going to say it anyway. He’s a trooper. We took fall protection training with the bridge staff and learned how to climb the Golden Gate Bridge. He was just like, “Let’s do it.”

A lot of the shots in the film look like they’re from a drone, but they’re not. The shots were actually captured by Cliff and me. He’s spectacular. His footage is beautiful.

The bridge itself needed to be its own character. It’s a gorgeous monument to what people can do, and we wanted to make sure it looked that way. Between his cinematography and the color correction, we wanted it to resemble as closely as possible what it feels like to be standing on the bridge.

We also wanted to show things people hadn’t seen. (Images of) the bridge (are) in every hotel in San Francisco. It’s on television all the time when anything has to do with San Francisco. We wanted to show the inside, underneath, the pillars and the towers. There was a lot of discussion about how to show the bridge as a living, breathing character.

FF: How important was it to actually climb the bridge and capture that point of view, rather than relying on drone footage?

RK: It was incredibly important to have our own perspective of the bridge. We used barely any of the bridge’s older footage, except at the beginning when we go back to when it was built. We didn’t want to show people what they had already seen, like the familiar distant shots looking over the roadway.

We shot everything. We shot birds, and we joked about how much bird footage we had at the end of the shoot. Six years later, there was so much of it. It was really important to show our perspective of the bridge rather than just insert generic bridge footage.

Oddly enough, we ran out of footage. We kept shooting the bridge because we kept running out of bridge footage, which you wouldn’t expect for a 90-minute film.

FF: Besides the imagery, how important was it to record sound while filming? How did you incorporate the score into the movie?

RK: As a director, I’m hyper-focused on music. I think sound design and music can make or break a film.

While we were editing, there were certain things I would hear, like the (San Francisco politician-activist) Tom Mamiano section. It has a great groove because he’s a groovy dude. He’s such a cool guy, accomplished, smart and wonderful to be around. He had a certain feel to him.

We didn’t want to score the movie from beginning to end. We didn’t want to make it feel monotonous because there were so many different aspects of the film. There was building the bridge, fighting for the money, trying to get people to pay attention and exploring the history.

When choosing music, I would sit in a room and start playing and listening. Then I would fall in love with the music and say, “That’s the one.”

Six years later, it’s still the one. I still love the music in the film. It brings so much to a scene that, if it’s missing or done incorrectly, it can completely undermine the movie. Kudos to everybody in sound design. They’re the best.

FF: Jeffrey Elmont served as the editor on ‘Saving 4 Seconds.’ How did you work together to shape the documentary’s final cut?

RK: This movie was an editing mess. We shot over six years, and we had 80 years of archival footage and 80 years of archival news footage. Jeffrey is a master.

For example, at the beginning of the movie, we got CCTV footage that had never been seen before. I told him I wanted the audience to sit in absolute silence and experience what it’s like to save another human being.

He said, “I got you.” He went away and came back with the scene sound-designed using the bridge’s sounds. The bridge makes very different sounds depending on where you’re sitting or standing. He used the sounds from underneath the bridge, where a car passing overhead makes a very deep clunk. I watched it, and it was so much better than I had anticipated.

Jeffrey said, “Plus, Rachel, if you let the audience sit in silence, they will think the sound isn’t on.” I had never thought of that. I wanted to capture that emotion, and he knew exactly how to translate my vision into the right moment. He helped create a scene that allows the audience to feel the intensity of the effort to save a man on the bridge.

It’s a real collaboration. About five years into the movie, one of the producers’ wives had a baby, and he went away for a little bit. Everybody thought we would have a couple of months off. I tore the film apart and started from scratch. It wasn’t really coming together or flowing the way we wanted it to.

There was so much information in the film that we worried certain parts would become boring. Talking about lobbying Congress, for example, could potentially have been a snoozefest.

So I went back in and tightened everything up. When he came back and the producers watched it, they said, “It works.”

The six-year timeline ultimately worked in our favor. The extra time was valuable.

FF: What was the process of finding and incorporating archival footage during post-production?

RK: I would have done anything for an archive producer. We asked for access to the Golden Gate Bridge District’s archives. We didn’t know there was a tractor-trailer full of literal tapes somewhere about an hour outside San Francisco.

We brought a generator and several playback devices, including VHS players, to review the footage. We spent the middle of summer watching it inside a tractor-trailer, sitting in the heat and sunlight.

We found incredible things. All the footage at the beginning came from the bridge. They documented it themselves. The archival process was like being a kid in a candy store. I’d say, “This is all yours?” and they’d say, “Yeah, we own that.”

We were spoiled with riches on this one. Sometimes you look for archival footage and find only one shot to use in an entire film. This time, we had an entire tractor-trailer full of untapped footage. It was amazing.

FF: You also served as a producer on ‘Saving 4 Seconds.’ How did you balance your producing and directorial duties throughout the production?

RK: There were always running jokes that producer Rachel was going to get mad at director Rachel, especially during the edit, or vice versa.

I’m a very pragmatic producer. I came up through production. I know what things cost and how to change things to make them work within a budget.

I think that makes me a nimble director because I completely understand when somebody says, “That wasn’t in the budget.” I’m like, “All right, I get that. Let’s figure out how to make it work within the budget, or it’s just not on the table.”

It also creates some interesting challenges, where I have to make the most of limited resources as a producer. That often allows me to get what I need creatively as a director.

FF: ‘Saving 4 Seconds’ is having its world premiere at the Austin Film Festival. What does it mean to you to share the documentary with audiences at the festival and hear their feedback?

RK: I’ve never made a film that wasn’t commissioned for a sale, usually by a network or a streamer. So the festival circuit has been a very new and interesting experience for me.

Austin is tremendous. I’m so excited that we got into Austin. It’s a writers’ festival, and the people there are terrific. Austin itself is terrific, so we’re very excited.

I didn’t realize the festival circuit involved so much work. I understood that you had to provide deliverables because the film would be shown somewhere. But I hadn’t really considered how much work it takes to get into a festival, promote yourself, and make people aware that your film is there.

Austin was our top pick because it’s such a great conference and the writers are there. We’re excited that the film is being looked at from a storytelling perspective. That’s monumental. We’re super excited about Austin.