This weekend I had the amazing opportunity to watch the premiere of Smells Like Community Spirit, the directorial debut of my friend Isaac Stambaugh. I hadn’t seen any of the movie before the screening at the Derby City Film Festival on Sunday. I had very little to do with this particular movie – I just helped to get the ball rolling and played a supporting one-day role as an actor.
I’m happy to say that the movie was very funny.
I could never have made anything close to it for the limited resources Isaac had. I’m very proud of him.
I left the screening with a profound feeling of gratefulness. The movie was made by my friends. Literally. I knew every single person on screen and 90% of the crew. Around here, we talk a lot about creating a creative community of artists. This weekend I saw that community in action. And the best part, in a weird way, was that it happened more or less without me. The greatest joys of my life have been when my friends (or kids) do something better than I could do. It fills my heart with gratefulness.
I took some time today to think about how this creative community was formed. Almost accidentally, we stumbled into some core values along the way…
1. We let everyone play.
There is a spot for everyone. Not everyone always gets to do their first choice, but everyone gets to play somewhere. These movies (there have been 5 of them now) have only worked because hundreds of people decided to do something fun together.
2. We maintain positional leadership and relational equality.
Mutual submission is key to our community. The director is the director. He or she is in charge. The day player actor is just that. We all know our part. The most amazing thing about this community, compared to others, is that we are able to (and actually enjoy) rotating positions from project to project. For instance, in Hitting The Nuts, Isaac played a small role. (Small, but ridiculously hilarious.) I was the director. He worked for me. In Community Spirit, it was completely reversed. I played a small role. I worked for Isaac. And loved it.
3. We actively resolve conflict.
Like any artistic community, we have our share of relational conflict. We have had some instances in when conflicts get to a point of no return and relational damage is done. But when this happens, it grieves us. On A Strange Brand of Happy, Brad Wise (the director) spent hours creating a working environment that resolved conflict. He would say that it was the main thing he did as director. We believe that ultimate success of the final product is proportional to the love shared between those creating it.
4. We create an improvisational culture.
Our community was birthed out of improv. Most of our actors and crew have had improv training. We work as an improvisational unit. When things arise, we accept them and say,”Yes, and…” We agree and move on. Not one of our projects to date would have happened without this attitude. We plan hard. But plans change constantly in indie filmmaking. We pivot with each change and move on toward the completion of the story we are telling.
5. We value storytelling as a spiritual activity.
We believe that telling a story is spiritual. Some of us would go as far as to say that it is worship. We invite God into the process and expect him to show up. We don’t do company prayers before shooting or mid-day devotionals…we just try to live within the reality of the presence of God. The greatest compliment that we get (and thankfully we get it often) is that our sets feel different that all the others – that they feel like family. We agree. And we think God does that.
good stuff joe ……good stuff