Must Watch Video - There's Something in the Air / But It's Not on the Airw

[sarahlee]

You really need to watch this. Get the Kleenex out first. It is powerful!

http://chrisvids.org/

From the site:

The making of the film: There's Something in the Air / But It's Not on the Airwaves

Thursday, August 11, 2005, 01:01 AM

I have spent the past 10 days producing this 8-minute film along with Karen Kilroy. "There's Something in the Air/But It's Not on the Airwaves" is a political spoken word piece about the media’s lack of coverage on the peace and global justice movement. The piece also includes excerpts of the music that was widely known during the 60's war protest era.

Sarah Rolan of Akron, Ohio is cast in the video and plays a part where she places a folded U.S. flag on the grave of a soldier killed in action. On Tuesday, shortly before we taped the scene, Sarah received news that her close friend, U.S. Marine Lance Corporal Daniel "Nate" Deraymin, was killed in action on Monday. So I'm sure you can imagine, it is very intense.

The video was shot on location in Kent and Akron, Ohio. Many many thanks to the people of Kent for their help in making this video.

- chandler

[tk2kewl]

1. wow

.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

2. EXCELLENT! best protest thing i've seen or heard in a long long time

and so so TRUE

[sarahlee]

3. That is just what I thought.

But I just came from a week at an intense spiritual ceremony so thought maybe I just wasn't in "this reality" yet. Thanks for verifying my impressions.

[knowbody0]

4. way powerful

i am weeping - it is beautifully done. thank you

[Robeson]

5. Very good. Thanks!....

...:thumbsup:

[fooj]

6. Thank you for this...

Peace.

[Griffy]

7. NOW.. get THIS on Gores new channel! 8 minute bit!

THAT would be freedom of speech! I am writing him .. please join me and ask this to be submitted to Current TV... in fact.. I hope www.takebackthemedia.com is sending clips too.

[sarahlee]

8. Great idea!

Thanks!

I did send to Free Speech TV but didn't think about Current.

[ElsewheresDaughter]

10. absolutely! i sent it to Current TV

[ElsewheresDaughter]

15. btw, i am 54 years old and remember how it was and this is a wake up call

not because i haven't been in the streets (which i have with my children in NYC in 2002 for 4 days)...but there is so much apathy today and this makes me cry.

[sarahlee]

25. Current.TV

says they want exclusive rights for 3 months, so that probably won't work.

However Karen just emailed me that Democracy Now is interested in playing it. She has to make them a tape and snail mail it in. YEAH!

[meganmonkey]

9. Kick

so I remember to watch this when I get home :)

[otohara]

11. Send to Local Channels & Radio Stations

in your area....

[sarahlee]

30. Local Cable Access?

Wonder if any DUers are involved with local cable access channels. Maybe it could get some local play on them.

If anyone reading this knows of DU folks involved with cable access maybe you could send them a note to look at this.

[suff1107]

12. My experience in making this video - from the co-producer

Hello everyone,
I wanted to take a moment to share with you the incredible experience of making this video.

Political spoken-word Chris Chandler recently released this song, "There's Something in the Air/But It's Not on the Airwaves" on his brand-new 2 CD album, "American Storyteller." http://cdbaby.com/cd/cchandler3

I became intimately familiar with the song when I worked on the Enhanced portion of Chris' CD (I'm a webmaster by trade - you may know my work from the Kucinich for President campaign in its height, or from DemocracyRising.US). Anyway, as we talked, we decided to do a video - and "Something's In the Air" became the obvious first choice, as Chris has been playing it on the main stage of major folk festivals across the country and getting standing ovations every time.

Chris surprised me when he said "I'll be there Monday." Chris is based in Washington DC, and his schedule is normally so booked up, he had 260 shows last year alone. He's been touring for 15 years and this is his 11th album. So I hustled and cleared off my schedule. We had originally planned to only do the filming, I was going to do the editing over the next several weeks.

"Here" is Akron, Ohio. We're only a few miles from Kent State University, where the historic slaughter of student protestors took place on May 4, 1970. The people of Kent were more than happy to step up and help us make the video, without them this would not have been possible.

One of the main people volunteering to help is a young woman named Sarah Rolan. She possesses stunning physical beauty. Sarah has been my friend for a number of years, and I can certainly tell you that she has inner beauty to match.

Anyway, on Monday we were really working on getting our script together, and we planned to film in Kent on Tuesday. We had Sarah cast as a modern carefree woman, dancing with an IPod, and the plan was to have her dance in front of the protest footage. Monday afternoon I kept getting a vision of her placing a triangular folded flag on a tombstone and mourning. My father was a U.S. Marine and I have his flag, and I could not get the vision out of my head.

Chris agreed, that was a good way to take this, so we planned out a graveyard scene with Sarah to be filmed the next day. However, when Sarah showed up for filming she was quite upset. She had just learned that her close friend Nate Deraymin of Tallmadge, Ohio had been killed in Iraq the night before. She asked us to dedicate the film to him, which we have done. Sarah said Nate was a reservist who had joined to learn how to be an auto mechanic.

Sarah was a trooper and gathered her strength to continue the shooting, despite her deep grief. During the filming of the newspaper scene and the graveyard scene, she was able to vent her grief and it is on the film. I'm sure no one can watch it without feeling how badly she is hurting.

A total of 14 Ohio soldiers were killed in the 3 days of filming. The strangest thing about this is we had decided not to use any soldiers names because we did not want to be anything but highly respectful of them and their service. The decision was overridden by the course of events.

After we learned of the Ohio deaths, Chris Chandler and I decided that this project was bigger than both of us, and that we would clear our schedules for the remainder of the week and begin editing. We went into my basement for 5 days straight, with no sleep and very little food. We literally only slept and hour here, an hour there, and it was usually in shifts so the other one could press ahead. Neither one of us had ever experienced anything remotely like this before.

I don't know what to say, I can't say I hope you enjoy it. I think I hope it disturbs people and wakes up those who still aren't really paying attention. My 10 year old told me he is proud of me - he said when he finishes watching the film he feels so many emotions that it makes him stop and think.

Chris Chandler and I are completely independent artists and we did this not quite in starvation, but pretty darn close. If you can help us circulate it widely, that would be very helpful. We have CDs of American Storyteller for sale, and tomorrow we will also have DVDs for sale on CD Baby.

But the most important thing is to change minds. I think this hits a button that can accomplish people to get off their duffs and do something to stop this senseless war.

Best to you all and thank you,
Karen Kilroy
Co-Producer
There's Something in the Air - But It's Not on the Airwaves video

http://chrisvids.org

my other sites: http://karenkilroy.com/political_clients.html

[Rainscents]

14. Please write to Buzzflash and see, they would post this film on their web

Also, they can also put DVD on their site for people who wants to purchase.

[sarahlee]

16. I sent Buzzflash the link

earlier today, before I even posted here, but the more folks they hear from, the better.

[sarahlee]

17. Hey Karen!

Thanks for coming by to share the background info.

[NEOBuckeye]

31. I'm from Akron, too.

Thanks for posting about your work here. I watched the video and it brought tears to my eyes at the very end. You guys really put things into perspective. I hope that many more people will see this.

Thanks, and welcome to DU. :hi:

[Rainscents]

13. WOW!!! Thanks for posting this beautiful short film!!!

That was beautiful! There's something in the air for sure!
People are waking up and MSM is scare of us!!!

[rman]

18. beautiful

[Nederland]

19. Question

Is it really true that we have more people on the street today than we did in Vietnam? Anybody have a source for this?

[suff1107]

21. I'll ask Chandler to reply to this

He wrote the piece, I'll see if he's available to address the question himself.

[ExclamationPoint]

20. incredible (except for an unexceptably irrelevant detail)

I hadn't realized that so many were protesting, more than those against Vietnam, until now.
My only qualm about the video was that the narrator had a very irritating country accent, but idk, i guess people in the south and heartland will "connect" more to it then.

[suff1107]

22. Personally, I think the accent helps

Chandler is from Atlanta, and I think it is good to have someone speak out against the war who has an accent that people in the south may relate to. Our goal was to wake up people who are on the fence about whether or not they support the war and GWB. We want to disturb people into paying attention.

After the Ohio deaths, I personally heard of two people in my town changing their minds about supporting GWB. This had nothing to do with my film - it was their response to the deaths of our young men. Both of these individuals have strong Republican and Christian backgrounds.

I think we are at a turning point, people are waking up from the 9/11 induced daze and are starting to see what is happening. My goal was to channel my anger into a product that might help push things over the edge.

thanks to everyone for your compliments and comments.

Karen

[rasputin1952]

26. Welcome to DU....

:hi:....:patriot:

[eridani]

23. This is very, very good! n/t

[ChiciB1]

24. There's Something REALLY Great About THIS!!

As a Boomer, this sure does hit home!!

Fantastic, will be sending to all my "like-minded" friends!!!

[sarahlee]

28. Yep

The music with the the graphics really took me back. What hopes I had back then, that we would all learn....

[haydukelives]

27. Very nice

something is in the air.

[sarahlee]

29. Maybe this video can

...help cut through some of the polution.