Will People Come, Ray? An Assault on the Collective Ennui

James Earl Jones, the patron saint of all who dare face the collective ennui.

Danielle and I were walking back to her classroom Thursday afternoon after having done a walk-through of the Provo High auditorium to figure out some of the technical logistics, when Danielle asked me the question that has vexed arts organization since I suppose Og opened his first gallery of finger paintings in a cave:

Will they come?

Danielle is a faculty advisor to Provo High’s new Best Buddies chapter, an organization that seeks to create opportunities for one-on-one friendships for kids with developmental challenges with mainstream kids. Great cause.

My intrepid leader, Danielle.

Danielle pitched to me the idea of doing a concert as a fundraiser a few weeks ago. I try to be a good parent who is supportive of his children’s dreams, but I’m sure my eyebrows went up in that way that conveys in the way that only eyebrows can, Are you sure you want to try to assail that beast? Not talking the logistical beast, although that is a formidable beast. We’re talking making an assault on the collective ennui. That mass of humanity that we all belong to that is tied up with so many things already and money is tight enough and don’t forget we’re just plain exhausted after a hard week of work, and you arts people want me to come out of my comfy home and spend my money on what? Yeah, that beast. That is one scary beast. That beast makes most art projects cower under their pianos or behind their scripts and never ever put themselves out there.

It takes a certain amount of boldness tinged with naivete and optimism mixed with street smarts to dare to tackle the beast. And an important enough cause. So Danielle and her team began to go down that road.

They’ve worked to put together the best show they possibly could. In fact, it will have two great acts. The Whits, featuring the amazing vocal talents of Amy Whitcomb, who regularly knocked the judges out of their seats and onto their feet in NBC’s The Sing-Off. Also coming is Allred, an artist I first heard about from my daughter, Katie, who discovered him while she was living in New York City. We were pleasantly surprised to discover that he is a local artist.

Both acts graciously consented to become part of the show. Lining them up took quite a bit of doing, but lining up the auditorium and sound and posters and ticketing arrangements and ushers and lighting and where is the green room going to be and half a gazillion other details were still all swirling through our minds when Danielle asked her question. Will they come?

I’m sure she wished I gave her the pat (or should I say James Earl Jones) answer: People will most definitely come, Ray. But all I could offer her was that she has entered that noble fraternity of art organizations who fret about that very question up until show time (and sometimes after), and that all you can do is all you can do. The rest is up to the collective ennui. You make your appeal to the collective and hope that it strikes a chord with enough of them that they will make a break that night from all that binds them to the collective and enjoy a night of great music for a great cause.

Last week, I was asking the same question. We were set to have our second meeting of filmmakers exploring the concept of forming a collective (merely a world-changing concept I want to address in a later post) on a Saturday, and by Friday morning, nobody had RSVP’d yes. The collective ennui strikes again, or so I thought. And I was slammed with a gazillion different things and was sort of coveting getting my full Saturday back (hey, I have collective ennui, too), so I emailed Sally Meyer, the screenwriter who was organizing the event and floated to her the idea of canceling it, a move that I suspected would upset no one. But Sally told me that if I did, people were going to be upset. She had been contacting people privately and they had given her verbal commitments.

So I quickly quelled my excitement of getting my full Saturday back and tried to transfer it over to the excitement of meeting with like-minded filmmakers. I arrived early to set up and was alone up until a couple of minutes before the start. Over the next 10 minutes, I was pleasantly surprised to see the room get pretty full of filmmakers. People most definitely came, Ray. Over the next two hours, we engaged in an exchange of ideas about the turmoil that is going on in the independent film world and how, rather than lament our sad state of affairs, brainstorm what we could be doing now to position ourselves well for the changes that are occurring. Again, more about this later. (But it’s pretty cool.)

John Carter

This collective ennui concept also hit me with two recent movies that came out. One was John Carter, which was largely shot here in Utah, so has had a lot of local support. But despite its huge budget and Hollywood taking its best swing at marketing it, failed to make enough of a dent in the collective ennui to spare it from apparently becoming one of the costliest box office failures of all time. (By the way, I had seen the commercials, which did nothing for me. But then I saw a fan’s version of a trailer, and was amazed at how much more inclined that made me to see it. Indeed, it had nearly persuaded to pull me from the collective ennui. There are suspicions that the new regime and Disney weren’t that interested in seeing John Carter, which had been greenlighted by the previous regime, succeed.)

The Hunger Games

The second example is The Hunger Games, which apparently had long lines for midnight screens the night before its real opening. I confess I have not read the books, but from what I know of the books and the films, I cannot for the life of me figure out the appeal. That said, all I’ve ever heard from everyone who’s ever read the books is how amazing they are. So I figure it is just me. And someday, after I get through my stack of reading, I’ll get to it. And if I do, it will largely be because I am fascinated by how somethings can not only break a few people away from the collective ennui, but enough people to make $20 million at the box office in one night of midnight screenings.

In the meantime, back to the Best Buddies concert. Danielle and her team are doing what they can. I’m on Team Danielle, too, so I spent a whole Saturday cutting together promo videos for each of the artists.

Here’s the one I did for The Whits.

And here’s the one I did for Allred.

But that’s just a start. People are putting up posters. People are posting on facebook. People (okay, so maybe that’s just me) are blogging about it, hoping that all four now five! of their readers will come. We know there are a gazillion reasons why not to come, but we hope you will break free anyway. (By the way, you can buy your tickets, which start at a very friendly $5, conveniently online right here.)

Sometimes, maybe even this time, that James Earl Jones fellow can be right.

The Missing Chapter: McKay Stevens

In my effort to recapture the missing chapter of my life that I first wrote about here, I’d like to use my considerable clout to introduce all three four! of my readers to some amazingly talented, yet remarkably good-hearted artists you’ll want to keep an eye on, because I suspect they’re going places.

Last week, I confessed one of  my many deep character flaws: I struggle with country music. While I’m in the confession mode, here’s another: I just can’t get on the hip-hop bandwagon. I’ve tried to ease into it via hip-hop for beginners, when they slip a hip-hop break into the middle of a pop song, but it seldom clicks for me.

Then when we were doing our online video auditions for StarBiz, we got a link to a dimly lit video of these guys standing in a cave of some sort taking advantage of the cool acoustics to do an original hip-hop song. It wasn’t angry. It wasn’t in your face. It just had this cool vibe that I couldn’t take my ears off of.

But I wasn’t sure if it would fly on BYUtv. We were doing a singing show for solo acts, and this was a group where the only singing, which was minimal, happened during the chorus and wasn’t even done by the lead guy. And did I mention the show was on BYUtv? Which is not exactly synonymous with hip-hop?

But Aaron and David dug it, so we reached out to the non-singing lead singer. His name was McKay Stevens, and it turns out that our non-singing lead singer was, by day, a professor at UVU. In fact, when I mentioned him at home, one of my daughters perked up and said she had taken a class from him, and that he was totally cool and all the girls had crushes on him. McKay, if you’re reading this, please don’t take this wrong, but I wondered if we were talking about the same guy. Because the guy in the video didn’t look like your typical heartthrob professor.

But after working with him for a few days on the set, I could totally get it. The guy is smart, perceptive, articulate, and nice.

He’s a self-confessed non-singer, but the lyrics he writes have this way of engulfing my mind so that while I’m processing what I just heard and being delighted by that, he’s already delivered the next thing for my mind to be delighted at, and my mind doesn’t catch up until somewhere in the middle of the pleasing chorus, “my life can’t get much better than this.”

I don’t think it gets much better than this.

He grew up on welfare in some of Southern California’s tougher neighborhoods, lost some family members along the way, and developed an affinity for skateboarding, urban art and urban music. The kind of life that can drag some people down. But in people like McKay, it seems to give them a perspective and an appreciation that is a good reminder. Thanks for the reminder, McKay.

Here’s a more produced video of the same song he submitted for his audition, 79th and Flight, named for one of his old stomping grounds in SoCal.

Right now, his band, The Vibrant Sound, is touring. You can catch up with where they are here. If they’re in your neighborhood, you should check them out. Enjoy, tell a friend, and keep an eye on McKay Stevens.

The Missing Chapter: Ellee Duke

In my effort to recapture the missing chapter of my life that I first wrote about here, I’d like to use my considerable clout to introduce both all three of my readers to some amazingly talented, yet remarkably good-hearted artists you’ll want to keep an eye on, because I suspect they’re going places.

Among my many deep character flaws is the fact that I struggle with most country music. Occasionally, a song from that realm will reach out and get me, but most of the time, I push skip before the singer can hit the second stanza.

Not the case with Ellee Duke’s M.I.S.S.I.N.G. There was something about the video that she sent for her audition. After the first play, it sneaked into my brain and stayed in there for days. That almost never happens on first play for me. At least not in a good way. (Side story: I wasn’t the only one this happened to. Another contestant on the show, looking to tweak her song based on feedback from our panel of coaches, subconsciously incorporated M.I.S.S.I.N.G.’s hook into her reworked song. After performing the new version in front of our studio audience, Aaron noticed and called her on it it. Jaw-dropping awkward moment of the season award that made for some compelling television that will never see the light of day. Sadness. But in a way, its own cool tribute to Ellee’s song.)

After listening to the lyrics performed by this statuesque blonde (Ellee’s a mere 5’11″), I couldn’t help but do a double take on her submission sheet. She’s 15? I have suits that are older. (Pretty sure leisure suits in powder-blue polyester will be in style again soon. Holding out.) The song showed a depth that seemed beyond what I figured most 15-year-olds were thinking about, and those kind of reminders are encouraging to me.

Below is another version of the song she did last month with Trevor Price backing her on guitar and vocals. Here’s a cover she did of “Fast Car” that is, dare I say, better than the original. I understand from her facebook page that she’s working on an album. I hope so. It would be the first and only country album in my collection. Thereby removing one of my many character flaws. Thank you, Ellee.

Enjoy, tell a friend, and keep an eye on Ellee Duke.

The Missing Chapter: Steven Stucki

In my effort to recapture the missing chapter of my life that I first wrote about here, I’d like to use my considerable clout to introduce both all three of my readers to some amazingly talented, yet remarkably good-hearted artists you’ll want to keep an eye on, because I suspect they’re going places.

I remember as a kid poking my head up through an attic access panel and discovering that there was a whole ‘nother world up there that I didn’t even know existed. Whoa.

I sometimes think that while we regular mortals spend all our time in this world, some artists are able to poke their heads up into this other realm of existence where communication happens in its purest form — via the language of music — and they have the gift of being able to channel it back to the rest of us so that we can catch a glimpse of it.

I suspect Steven Stucki is one of those. In fact, when he’s performing, I think Steven actually slips into this other realm and channels the music back for us. His body and voice are still down here (mostly), but those of us listening and watching down here can only marvel as his eyes take in all the swirling energy that’s up there, and the veins in his neck nearly pop as his voice channels whatever it is he’s tapped into.

When the song is over, it’s like he’s waking back up from his trance, a little disoriented. I almost want to say, “Welcome back, Steven. Thanks for the glimpse. How was your trip?”

His songs are unlike any other artist I can think of. Steven’s his own genre.

The nicest guy, too. I watched him in his group songwriting competition. He was the most patient facilitator, making sure each group member had the opportunity to get in their input and contribute to the effort. With Steven, you could trust that any idea, no matter how out there, would be fully entertained, rather than shot down.

For his solo number, he came to the show with a new song he had written that had as its refrain “cuckoo,” repeated several times. Not your standard pop song, in other words. But he so fully committed to the song that he gave us a glimpse to his other world and made us grateful for the ride. Whoa.

I wish I could have found it online, but no such luck, sadly.

However, he has a number of other songs online. Here’s a fun one, “Move Your Body.” Most the time, I have no idea what he’s saying, but it’s almost like Steven is saying don’t let the words get in the way of message. Enjoy, tell a friend, and keep an eye on Steven Stucki.

The Charting of Uncharted Waters

The intrepid filmmakers huddle in their windblown tent on a snowy mountain in Utah.

Eight filmmakers climbed the mountain on a Friday afternoon in February, then huddled together at the top to try to figure something out. Granted, the mountain climbing was done in comfy vehicles. And the huddling was done in a toasty warm condo overlooking a heated, outdoor swimming pool where young aprés-skiers could work on their cannonballs.

So yeah, the circumstances were a little on the cushy side. But the “figuring out” part? Now that was the challenge.

In an era when the cineplexes are becoming more and more exclusively the domain of big, “event” movies, and in an era when DVD sales that indies counted on are plummeting, how do the stories that independent filmmakers feel that they were put here on this earth to tell happen? The small stories, the ones where maybe nothing explodes and nobody has superhuman powers, but that make us feel connected as humans.

There is an emerging platform (the one you’re using to read this post) that seems like it could hold some of the answers. But small, indie movies can get lost in the internet like a bottle in the Pacific. And let’s face it, paying for movies on the internet isn’t quite to the point that it is for music. Or even books. But it looks like it might get there. Especially for movies that are a good fit.

And the question those indie filmmakers are trying to figure out is what can we be doing now to position ourselves wisely for when that time comes?

A big question for a small group of filmmakers huddled in their condo high up in the mountains of Utah. Some good ideas came from that meeting. The beginning of a map. A pretty cool map. A map to a place where maybe these beautiful, small, human stories can not only happen, but where maybe they can even thrive. Good things can come from the internet.

We’ll be meeting again soon (plans are for once in Utah County and once in Salt Lake County in the next few weeks) and inviting like-minded tellers of the stories to join us.

Wanna come?

The Missing Chapter: Tessa Barton

In my effort to recapture the missing chapter of my life that I first wrote about here, I’d like to use my considerable clout to introduce both of my readers to some amazingly talented, yet remarkably good-hearted artists you’ll want to keep an eye on, because I suspect they’re going places.

Tessa and her brother Luke

Tessa Barton and her sister, Sophie, were an up-and-coming duo when Sophie collapsed and died completely unexpectedly at a church camp for girls. I remember I had a daughter up at the same camp around the same time, so the news felt like it hit pretty close to home. I can’t begin to imagine how it felt for Tessa and her family. We didn’t know them, but our hearts went out to them, and I knew many others felt the same.

I don’t think anyone would have blamed Tessa if she wanted to just hang up the performing thing after that. I got the sense that Sophie was more of the driving force behind the duo. But Tessa told me that she feels closest to Sophie when she is performing. So now she frequently gigs with her younger brothers. In fact, the video she sent us for her audition featured her singing with her little brothers.

You can sense that Tessa is an old soul when she performs. It’s not just her cool style of flowing clothes and hair that all combine into this cool updated bohemian ’70s thing. It’s her flowing lyrics. And it’s the rich texture in her voice that sounds like it is no stranger to tears. There’s a depth there. You can feel it as soon as she starts to sing.

Tessa was a last-minute fill-in on StarBiz. I remember calling her just a few days before we were scheduled to start shooting her episode, which meant she would have to clear several days from her calendar as a photographer. I know it meant some hasty rescheduling of some shoots, but I’m glad she did.

Tessa has several performances you can check out on the internet, including this song that she performed on the show (this version was recorded somewhere else). But I recently came across a charming little video that I hope she doesn’t mind me using as a way to introduce both of my readers to her, because this particular version was shot in the back of a car on the way to somewhere with her brothers. So it’s all a cappella, with what looks to be the car door and knees standing in for a set of drums and a guy singing into his hand supplying bass.

Maybe not exactly pristine conditions for recording a song. But to me, it shows how talented of a singer-songwriter Tessa is. A song that is stripped bare and recorded in a car yet still manages to grip you to the end? Good, good stuff. Enjoy, tell a friend, and keep an eye on Tessa Barton.

Creativity and the Tortured Artist

Whitney Houston’s premature demise brought back to mind a beautiful TED talk by Elizabeth Gilbert. Elizabeth wrote the phenomenal bestseller Eat, Pray, Love. She talks about the immense pressure that comes upon artists to live up to their earlier successes, and how it frequently leads to self-destructive tendencies that can see us lose too many of them too soon.

Elizabeth suggests that the link between creativity and the anguish in the artist doesn’t need to be. There is a better way.

A good reminder today for us all, even if we don’t quite have the huge earlier success to live up to, but are just trying to find our way through our next creative project. If you’re the creative type, do yourself a favor and take 20 minutes to watch this sometime.

The Missing Chapter: Nik Day

Nik Day at work

In my effort to recapture the missing chapter of my life that I wrote about here, I’d like to use my considerable clout to introduce both of my readers to Nik Day.

When we were casting for StarBiz, Nik Day’s name came to us with some buzz. I’d never heard of him, but apparently he was making some waves in the local music scene. Sometimes that can be a bad thing, as big fish in little ponds can present some special challenges to work with. But my concerns disappeared as soon as he walked through the doors of the studio. Very unassuming. Pleasant. Slightly awkward, but in a sweet way. All I know is if I had his talent and looks at his age, I would probably have presented some special challenges to work with. But Nik was just flat out all around nice.

The original composition he brought to the show was “One in a Million.” It melted all the girls’ hearts (made our coach Kendra Lowe cry) (in a good way) and made all the guys want to be him.

Jeff, Ellee and Nik doing their "Life is Beautiful" thing.

In the group challenge, he was teamed up with Ellee Duke and Jeff Bartholomew. They struggled like crazy, and for awhile, I worried that they were going to come up empty. Nik’s forehead will probably be forever indented from where it kept plopping down in despair on the piano. But the song they came up with I’ll never forget. It was called “Life is Beautiful,” and when our guest mentor for that episode, country legend Collin Raye, heard them sing it for him, the man was moved.

Nik’s got a few videos out there on the internet. Great sound. John Mayeresque, but with 52% less “I’m all that.”

Here’s one a few friends made for him that I hope you enjoy. 9,487 views as of this writing. Seems like it should be more. Please pass it along. The music world could use more Nik Day.

When No Answer Means “No”

All the time.

(Not really, but that’s the way to play it. Don’t wait around. Keep moving the ball.)

The Missing Chapter: StarBiz

For those of you who follow my blog, and I do mean both of you, you may have noticed that there was a period of a few months last year when there were no postings at all. That gap was due to an all-consuming project I was working on called StarBiz. I didn’t post about it at the time because when I say it was all-consuming, I mean I’d frequently work until I couldn’t keep my eyes open at my laptop anymore, then get up at 5 a.m. to finish what I couldn’t the night before and then get to the studio for another all-day taping session that would go until midnight.

And I didn’t post about it when it was over because I didn’t know what to say. But it was a big part of my 2011, and it feels like it would be wrong not to at least make an attempt. So here’s my attempt.

StarBiz. Strange name, but a cool concept.

It was the brainchild of Aaron Edson and David Osmond, who had recently collaborated on David’s new faith-based album, Reflections, and had previously worked with us on Jonah (Aaron was the composer and David was Jonah).

I remember it was about a year ago at this time when Aaron laid out the concept to Ken and me as we ate ice cream around the fireplace at Farr’s in Orem. The idea was that they’d bring in a group of unknown singer-songwriters, have them play their songs for a panel of coaches, who would then work with them on their songwriting and performance skills. At the end of the series of workshops, they’d perform their songs again in front of a studio audience, and a number of them would be selected to move on in the competition. So, sort of like a smaller version of American Idol, except with singer-songwriters?, I asked Aaron.

He then told us about the wrinkle, and that was that during the workshops, the singer-songwriters would be challenged to write a new song in a short period of time incorporating the theme of a different non-profit organization each episode. The winning song would be professionally recorded and released on iTunes, with the proceeds benefiting the non-profit group. In addition, the contestants who participated in the writing of the winning song would receive special privileges in the competition, the details of which were still being worked out. Aaron described the pitch of the show being that most music reality shows took young people and made them great artists, but that StarBiz would be about taking young artists and making them great people. That was pretty cool, I thought. The music world could use a little dose of that.

BYUtv was interested. They were working on expanding their lineup of original programming, and StarBiz was among the shows they were considering. After a number of starts and stops, they eventually greenlighted StarBiz, and I was brought on by Aaron and David’s company to be the story producer.

You may wonder what the story producer on a reality show does. I wondered the same. The division of responsibilities was a little fuzzy, but I had decided that I would jump in with both feet and help anywhere I could in an effort to help the show be successful enough to get a second season. That was my prime directive. Whatever it took.

It didn’t get a second episode.

I’m not going to get into the whys. I’m not convinced I even know the full story. Suffice it here to say that perhaps our reach exceeded our grasp. That’s not a bad thing, though, because if you’re not stretching yourself, how will you grow? In the words of Mario (the race car driver, not the video game character, but probably could’ve been said by either), “If everything seems under control, you’re just not going fast enough.” And pushing yourself means sometimes you’re going to end up off the track. This apparently was one of those times.

But when the plug was pulled, it was a major shock to the system. To be fully consumed in something, working day and night on it, and then it is suddenly gone? Like me, I know a lot of people in the cast and crew were, as my friends in England would say, gobsmacked. There was for awhile hope that it could be revamped and revived, but it hasn’t happened.

I felt bad about the cancellation in a bunch of different ways, professionally, economically, socially. I mean, I had made a lot of good friends during the seven episodes that we shot and was looking forward to continuing to working with them through the end of the 13-episode season that had been planned.

But perhaps the most disappointing thing of all to me about the cancellation was the premature demise of a very cool means to introduce to the world a new breed of talented young artists. In an era where music stars seem to be all about themselves and excess, we were finding beautiful young people with ridiculous amounts of talent, but who had a depth to them and seemed to recognize the responsibilities that came with their God-given gifts.

I was so looking forward to being part of the effort to help give these artists a little boost in the industry to see what they might go on to accomplish. And in the process, hopefully inspiring a rising generation of artists to consider looking at their talents a little differently than perhaps as a way of merely becoming a rich idol.

While the show may be gone, I’m hopeful that many of these talented young people will still be able to find a way to break into the industry. I think they would be a breath of fresh air.

I’m thinking that maybe I could use my considerable clout (thanks to both of you, my readers) as a blogger to help introduce some of these young artists who could change the music world. I’m thinking about a mini-series of posts over the next little while highlighting a few of them.

It may not be BYUtv, with its reach into 40 bazillion homes, but what it lacks in reach, it makes up for in being something within my control.