[3] Having befriended many of the homeless children, Mark contacted her husband who flew to Seattle to document them on film.

[5] Bell and Mark continued to document the ongoing struggles of one homeless child, Erin "Tiny" Blackwell, throughout her life.

Following the success of Streetwise, Bell made his feature film debut with American Heart starring Jeff Bridges and Edward Furlong.

Inspired by the father-son relationship between Streetwise subject Dewayne Pomeroy and his incarcerated father,[6] the film was nominated for five Independent Spirit Awards including Best First Feature for Martin Bell and won for Best Male Lead for Jeff Bridges.

[7] Bell subsequently made two more narrative features, Hidden in America (1996) and Brotherhood of Murder (1998).