It’s good to be writing on these postings once again. When looking at the last post of June 2009 I realized how much I’ve been in an editing cave for the past year. Most of the time was spent up in Maine editing “Dakota 38” at my buddy J Golub’s house. J, you’re the man once again. At night I’d head back down Porterfield Rd. where I grew up and climb the mountain behind my folks house to spend nights in the yurt. If you don’t know what a yurt is, they’re very rad Mongolian structures that were used for nomadic travel. At any rate, it was great to do the core of the editing for “Dakota 38” completely immersed in the rhythms of Nature. Owls would often swoop down on my hike up at night, I encountered a Big Buck in the trail one night; all I could see was his eyes because my head lamp was dying……it’s pretty intense to see eyes that are 5 feet off the ground in the dark :) He eventually started snorting so I knew who he was.
I spent this past summer in Maine and then about a month ago I decided to move down to D.C. and finish working on everything with “Dakota 38” from here. Love is what often pulls a man in the directions he travels, and Ms. Caroline Jova is the reason for me moving to the mother ship of Washington D.C. A couple weeks back I was grabbing a table for our new house and driving by all of the monuments including the Lincoln memorial, it seems quite fitting to be finishing “Dakota 38” from the city where many of these decisions and policies where headquartered from. It’s also been a huge part of my own journey of reconciliation, healing and forgiveness towards Lincoln and everyone involved on both sides.
This morning I got an email from someone who’d watched the trailer and they were very angry about many things. I think anger is an important step in the process of reconciliation; it needs to be honored and then processed in order to move towards a deeper healing. I look back at myself and many of the riders on the ride and we were pissed off many times for different reasons, yet with Jim’s Leadership he always pulled us back with that unconditional love, coming up to us and muttering in a low tone, “I love you buddy”.
Even last week I was talking to Jim on the phone about how messed up it was that our nations capital had a football team called the “Red Skins”….I mean if I were to call Jim, Andy, Sarah or J.B. a Red Skin that would be deeply offensive. The teams mascot is a Native Chief with a feather headdress and everyone was walking through the streets of D.C. with that logo proudly displayed. And so I was venting this to Jim over the phone and he honored my feelings, yet I could tell that he wasn’t putting any of his energy into the subject. Those things are difficult to change, I think is what he may have said something to the effect of. And so as I continue to learn from Jim, I keep coming back to the power of love and forgiveness. That’s what makes this film so powerful and I’m honored to continue growing from it everyday.
There have been many exciting developments with “Dakota 38” over the past week. I’ve been trying to make what we’re doing with the film more transparent to the general public because we do need help in certain areas in order to finish the film. Those can be found on the community page of the site if you're interested. I was starting to feel overwhelmed with all of the things that needed to be done and the people closest to me kept saying, “Silas, you need some help” :) And so I’ve started making these needs more transparent.
For example, there is a website called kickstarter.com which has got me thinking about alternative ways to finance the final stages of post production for Dakota 38 , i.e. the score, sound effects, travel, etc. It’s an amazing way for many people to finance the film with 10 bucks and become part of the process. I actually backed a cool documentary about street musicians in NYC and the light bulb went off when I realized how good it felt to be part of that film and as a result how invested I became in its future.
So I’m excited to welcome more people into the family that is Smooth Feather and “Dakota 38”. I’ll be doing my best to keep folks up to speed with the developments with everything. Thanks also for all of the emails of support.
Alright, if I'm going to be more consistent with these postings I’ve got to pace myself. :) Talk soon,
Silas
