I’ve decided to start an update blog—a space to chronicle the process and progress of some of the upcoming projects I’m involved in. At the moment, my focus will be on documenting our latest endeavor: On Homesteading.
On Homesteading serves as a companion piece to On Goat Farming, a short documentary that delved into the lives of two novice farmhands as they navigated a difficult transition to winter on a small farm in Washington. That project marked the first official collaboration between Carson Bennett and myself, as Producer and Director, respectively. For both of us, the experience came with a steep learning curve, but a deeply gratifying one. Living and working together on the farm, while discovering the challenges of crafting a character-driven documentary, proved to be both formidable and rewarding.
After months spent assembling On Goat Farming, I emerged from the cave of the editing room, eager to rejoin the world. That’s when I found Jim and Sharon. I reached out to the two octogenarian hippies through WWOOF, hoping they would let me stay on their coastal homestead for a month or two to reacquaint myself with the sun. After completing an eighteen-question assessment, getting the latest COVID booster, and sending a headshot of myself, they welcomed me to their 40-acre redwood sanctuary.
I spent a month living and working on their homestead, though there was little work to be done. As Jim says, “Once you build your house, you don’t have to build your house.” More often I found myself seated at their dining room table listening to them drift endlessly through stories of their lives, their son’s life, and frustrations with drivers these days. I found them fascinating.
But if it’s not on camera is it even real?
A little over a month ago, Carson and I traveled back to Jim and Sharon’s homestead in Annapolis, California to film for a weekend. We sat down for an extended interview, leafed through old photo albums, and took a tour of their steep canyonside property. Now that we have it all on video it’s real.
I have completed a preliminary cut of the film. The current runtime stands at twelve minutes. The opening scene is working almost perfectly, and the rest stumbles along aimlessly towards the credits. I am currently working to smooth out these rougher sections to send the film off for first notes from Carson in Medford, Oregon and Sam Garaygay our producer in South Lake Tahoe. I have just two weeks until our scheduled picture lock, coinciding with the early-bird deadline for the Mendocino Film Festival, the local festival for the Annapolis community. I would love to be able to celebrate the incredible life Jim and Sharon have built at their local film festival.
Next up I have a meeting later this week with the composer from our last project to discuss the music for this film. Because Jim and Sharon play their own music we have been looking into doing thematic variations on some of their folkier tunes old enough to be out in the public domain.
It was easy to forget just how difficult it was to complete On Goat Farming after a few months’ distance from that project, but working on this film quickly reminded me of the challenges. Someone somewhere said don’t make a film unless you have to unless the state of not making the film will do more damage than the filmmaking itself – because the filmmaking will do some damage. Luckily I have to make this film. I feel an urgent need to explore the lives of Jim and Sharon.
I think there is something powerful about insignificant things made important through the camera, recontextualizing the process of quietly picking tomatoes into a cinematic experience – an actual scene from On Homesteading. I want to watch Jim and Sharon pick tomatoes on the big screen; that is what drives me.
As I continue this journey, I’m excited to share more about the process. Thanks for following along! I’ll be posting more updates in the weeks to come. Stay tuned for more behind-the-scenes insights and updates on festival submissions and where both On Goat Farming and On Homesteading are going next!
– Nathan
