In 2020, our friends Ivan & Alyosha (Tim W, Ryan, Pete, Tim K, and Cole) and their manager at the time, Gaby (who I call the Hermoine Granger of the music world) asked Hand Crank Films to potential film a live show at Benaroya Hall with the Seattle Symphony. We quickly learned that the Symphony does not allow that kind of thing, so we pivoted.
I love music documentaries, my favorite being Wilco’s I Am Trying to Break Your Heart, because we get to see the creative process and the challenges of working towards a goal, and the pitfalls along the way. Also, the music is amazing!
I pitched a similar type of film: our crew would follow the band as they go through the rehearsing and planning for the show. We had hoped to follow the band from the early rehearsals at the studio to the moment they walked on stage and played that first note. That was our original vision for the project, but we knew permissions would be a challenge. Luckily, Gaby got us a yes, with certain conditions. We were pumped!
Then the Delta variant surged, and everything shut down. The show got moved, and we reset. During this period, the project grew, we decided to make a feature documentary about a band trying to make it during a pandemic. We looked at the beginning of the band, the hiatious, the challneges, and what ulitmately brought them back together. We talked about what success looks like for each of the band members. We also planned to film their first show back after things opened up again. The expansion of the story was good in theory, but in the end was not making the film better.
We had everything in the can, and started the editing process. We struggled to find a thread that led us through the film and kept an emotional focus. There were too many chapters, too many shows films, and too many ideas. We were still moving forward but close to being stuck.
Then we had to pivot again. Tim and the band wanted to release the film with the live record (something that did not quite happen, but we got close) – which we had two months to get done. So we pivoted back to our original vision for the film, and everything just came together quickly.
Within a week, we had an assembly of the film, and from there, it was minor adjustments to get to the final film. We did not get our feature film, but we get to make a much stronger and shorter film about a band we love playing a once in a lifetime show and the long road it took to get there.
Watch the film here.
Thank you Tim, Ryan, TK, Cole and Pete, for trusting us to make something cool. Thank you, Gaby for making it all happen and being super funny through it all! Paige, Dinah and the Seattle Symphony team, thank you for working with us and giving us access (and being super cool about it all). And thank you to the HCF crew for shooting non stop to get everything captured as it happened.
CREW
Producer | Caleb Young and Micah Bobbink
Associate Producer | Alyssa Von K
Director | Caleb Young and Dave Richards
Writer | Caleb Young
Cinematographer | Cameron Currier
Operators | Cameron Currier, Jarod Langdon, Caleb Young and Pat McDonnell
Editor | Tor Jakubcin
Location Sound and Mix/Master | Dave Richards and Dept. of Sound and Magic
Songs Mix/Master | Ryan Carbary