Dear Friends,
I’m thrilled share a short film with you that I started working on a few months ago. Enjoy!
Presenting "The Evolution"
This is a milestone for me. I have loved film for as long as I can remember, but I haven’t tried making one until now.
The project began with a single sentence—“The Evolution will not be televised”—that came to me in May. I was inspired by the ways people were tuning back into their environments in response to a global trauma. I was, and remain, convinced that it will be the small changes—so small that you actually have to look for them—that will add up to the big shift in consciousness that humanity must undergo. In other words, not a revolution, but an evolution.
That sentence grew into a piece of writing. Then it kept growing. I am very fortunate to have lived since March in a household of five freelance artist friends. Our skill sets and areas of interest are distinct but overlapping. This purgatorial slumber party known as "the Pandemic" has offered a unique opportunity to collaborate.
I wanted to bring the team together to make a multimedia project that none of us could make on our own. Robby Seager, whose acting career you may have heard about, performed the narration. Nicholas Bond applied his visual genius as our Director of Photography. I got to play student sound engineer, recording my loosely composed score with abundant virtual help from Jesse Field (who also mixed and co-produced my album Driving Home). Jesse not only lent me a bunch of equipment for this project but also patiently walked me through the basics of recording and mixing. Robby played drums and I played keys to start; then our housemate Darian Asplund added saxophone, and I added bass. Erin Slomski-Pritz served as a project consultant and, along with Robby and me, appears in the film.
More than anything, this was a learning project. It was a way to benefit from the knowledge and talents of friends. It was a crash course in the technical aspects of music and film production. It was practice being captain of a creative team. It was an opportunity to experiment and expand, to test out my instincts in a new medium. In all these ways it was a great success. I can only hope that it also succeeds in meaning something to those who watch it.
I would love to hear your thoughts about this piece. And if you know someone who you think might enjoy it, please share it with them. That kind of support goes a long way.
So does financial support, especially in these lean times. I’ve been cryptically hinting at “lots of projects” that “I can’t wait to share with you.” This is one of them; there are many others coming. If you enjoy the work that I make and want to help ensure that it keeps getting bigger and better, consider becoming a patron for as little as $1/month.
Finally, please feel free to share whatever you’ve been working on with me. Even if it's just an idea, a vision, a seed. We need creativity more than we ever have. Don’t be shy! Let’s help each other spread what matters.