生活的艺术: Two Filmmakers Capture Life-Changing Theater Education in a Crowd-Funded Documentary

当 里士满社区表演艺术协会 去年1月推出了生活的艺术, 在里士满, 维吉尼亚州, they started with two brilliant and dauntingly ambitious ideas: to create "a 20-week inclusive performing arts educational experience for children with and without 发展al disabilities and hearing impairment," culminating "with these students performing on stage alongside some of 维吉尼亚州's best professional musicians"; and to bring in a skeleton film crew to document not just the event itself, 而是整个5个月的教学, 发展, 排练过程.

While 生活的艺术 itself is underwritten by SPARC's ongoing fundraising efforts, 这部正在制作的纪录片现在已经有一个月的时间了 Kickstarter运动 众筹完成这部电影.

导演马丁·蒙哥马利 马丁·蒙哥马利电影公司 和Bill Gaff的 Humanstory say that producing the SPARC documentary has swept them into a range of new adventures. 两人都是经验丰富的活动，婚礼和 大学体育相关的电影. 蒙哥马利曾担任民主党议员 两个获奖的48小时电影计划作品Gaff编辑了许多PBS纪录片.

但两人之前都没有制作过长篇纪录片, 计划在节日期间发行，并最终在影院上映, 生活的艺术也是他们首次涉足众筹领域. But the transforming experience that 生活的艺术 has proven for both of them has sprung 从 the nature of the project itself and its evolving focus and scope as they they've logged more interviews and footage and watched the storylines emerge.

The 生活的艺术 documentary Kickstarter site (pictured in the video: SPARC director of education Erin Thomas-Foley)

进入现场艺术世界

The 生活的艺术 documentary film project began in October 2011 when Montgomery got a call 从 Erin Thomas-Foley, 香港大学教育总监 SPARC, a nonprofit children's theater company 在里士满 whose alumni include Grammy-winning singer-songwriter Jason Mraz. Thomas-Foley told him about the project she was developing in which "kids of all abilities would be performing together at a concert with 维吉尼亚州-based musicians" (a lineup which would eventually include Mraz himself). "I don't know why," she told him, "but I just know it needs to be documented."

起初, Thomas-Foley suggested that Montgomery could capture just a bit of footage here and there, 开始的时候拍了一点, 中间, 项目结束了. 但“我们聊得越多,蒙哥马利回忆道, "the more I started to sense that there was a bigger need to have more of their classrooms covered, and I instantly thought about Bill and how we needed to integrate him into this documentary and bring it about."

Left: 马丁•蒙哥马利 of 马丁·蒙哥马利电影公司; right: Bill Gaff of Humanstory

尽管SPARC没有多少预算来制作这部纪录片, with their fund-raising efforts focused on the project itself—"We're raising money to make sure that the project lifts off the ground and these kids can attend and not pay a dime," Thomas-Foley told the filmmakers—the fact that Montgomery and Gaff were willing to donate about half the time they spent on the project during production helped create an environment where they were much more integrated into the whole teaching experience than a hired film crew might ordinarily be.

“从第一天起, they were open to ideas 从 us to work in some of our costs and what we were willing donate to them because it was such a great cause,蒙哥马利说. 从电影人的角度来看, “我们可以看到这里有一个更大的图景, and it would be beneficial for us and for the children's theater company to get the word out nationally, 如果不是全局的, about this unique project of integrating kids of all abilities and having them perform on a huge stage in alongside Jason Mraz, 苏珊Greenbaum, 罗宾·汤普森, Steve Bassett in this big celebration of art and 维吉尼亚州-based artists."

在第一堂课开始之前就开始拍摄了, as Gaff and Montgomery shot footage of SPARC's regular core classes and combined that footage with interviews with the teachers who would be participating in 生活的艺术 to put a trailer together. 以下是他们的成果:

生活的艺术 . . . SPARC 从 马丁•蒙哥马利 on Vimeo.