The Upsetter (film)

The filmmakers got Lee Perry's approval to begin making the documentary in early 2004 when they brought him $5,000 in a paper bag, per his request, to a dinner with Perry's ex-wives and all his children in London. The film was financed by an Argentinian trucking company. Higbee and Lough flew to Switzerland where Perry was living in a small town called Einsiedeln and interviewed Perry for eight days, getting him to recount his life story.[4]

The documentary relies singularly on the interviews with Perry and eschews the normal talking-head interviews to tell the story. Lough has stated this was a specific choice he and Higbee made.

"We only wanted Lee's voice in the film; we wanted Lee to tell his story. We really felt like the history of reggae has been, in a way, hijacked by a white perspective. It comes from such a painfully colonialist perspective. We actually went and interviewed tons of these people — from Adrian Sherwood to Chris Blackwell — as research in a way. But we just had no interest in trotting out the white man to tell the story or even comment on Lee. I think that the Caribbean voice, the Afro-Caribbean voice, is often kind of forgotten in the story of Black history. So to have an opportunity to have a Jamaican man tell his story, the way that he lived it — whether it's correct or incorrect, or, you know, revisionist, or whatever — is, I think, a duty of a filmmaker. - Adam Bhala Lough in Grammy.com interview.[5]'"

Higbee and Lough crafted the film much like a collage, taking turns editing small pieces and improving on top of each other's work over the course of many years.

• The Upsetter at IMDb