The Surface Of The Everyday

WAIT, WHAT IS THIS FILM ABOUT?

Proust would say: "We only know what is new. That for which habit has not yet substituted its pale facsimiles." I’ll say: When the perfunctory can be made arresting, we are engaging in being alive.

And that’s exactly what this documentary film strives to do, to elevate our humanness beyond the unremarkable and to make us aware of our consciousness, of our beating hearts, of the fact that it is truly now. To make the ordinary world around us, new.

The documentary literally is a lyrical exploration of the textural backdrop that surrounds our quotidian experience: the undesigned, the infrastructural, the prosaic. But the film is really about us, about our day to day, our reaching as individuals towards an ineffable reckoning of our place on this earth.

It is a film about the cycle of our built world. But also, it is working to reassert the bounty of visual treasure in the everyday and to stretch the language by which we communicate image through cinema. A film that reaches to illuminate our experience and to dig into the shale of our contemporary existence and break things apart. It is a film that strives to reveal the known world as new.

WHY ARE YOU MAKING THIS FILM AND WHO IS IT FOR?

Some of you may be aware that I am currently completing my MFA at Duke University and while this film will indeed act as my thesis film, its life will extend far beyond the confines of that institution. It will be entered into film festivals around the globe, play on the sides of buildings, in auditoriums and classrooms of universities, and hopefully find a home eventually on Netflix or a similar streaming service. So it will live as a film in the world and will be for anyone who is interested in new and interesting ways of seeing the world.

AND SO WHY DO YOU NEED MONEY?

Unfortunately films inevitably cost money to make. No matter how shoe-string or efficient, some money is required. Funds raised here will be applied towards requisite production elements: travel, lodging, permits, and equipment rental (such as a car mount). And while I am doing everything I can to minimize budget, my current position of graduate student doesn't quite provide the bread to cover these fees out of pocket. And it's important to say very candidly, this film will not make anyone any money. If cinematographer (Tim Sessler) and I are successful in bringing our vision of the project to life, it may play around the world in festivals, it may even be selected for awards but whatever the return on investment may be, it won't be financial.

THE END PART WHERE I SAY THANK YOU.

This is a film I know how to make. It is a film that I feel passionately about and that if done correctly can be an extraordinary piece of cinema. Quite literally, the more money we are able to raise, the better the film will be. And if you are the type of person that is proud to have your name associated with artistic pursuits, or someone who supports filmmaking as an art, or if you just like us as people, we thank you for supporting our film. It is our life's work to make cinema that breaks conventions and challenges the expectations of the ordinary.

Thank you for helping to make this film possible. You are the new patrons of the filmic arts. An honored place to exist.