Joes Journey is Complete

Monday, January 14th – 10:30 P.M…..Joe’s Journey is complete! :) Since the amazing premier under the stars we had in Connecticut this past summer many people have given fantastic feedback and helped mold “Joe’s Journey” into what it is today. From Jay McKay’s original soundtrack, to some magic from the Jones Street Boys, to advice from filmic masterminds such as Myles Jewell…we finally felt that it was ready to rock. We sent out the link to Joe this morning and his reply, “I’m watching it right now….You are the BOMB! You're the best. I'm quite emotional” :)

You’re the man Joe! :)

We’re all looking forward to a premier of “Joe’s Journey” on February 20th in NYC where Joe will be speaking after the screening. We’ll be sure to give the details should anyone want to roll out for it.

Until then, we hope you enjoy the film.

Big Smiles from fresh flakes in VT,

-Silas

Smooth Feather Headquarters- Middlebury, Vermont

So recently a few people in the Smooth Feather posse, Sean Goodwin, Seth Herman, and myself all decided to hunker down for a couple months and crank out some Smooth Feather magic. :) Sean pulled some strings to get an amazing house in the cozy town of Middlebury. We're super excited for this amazing opportunity of creative collaboration and when we're not working on projects we will surely be tearing down the slopes of the glorious Green Mountains. So with that said, if anyone finds themselves anywhere near Middlebury you're more than welcome to drop on by. We've got working space upstairs and a screening theater in the basement :).

In other news, if anyone is near Dartmouth NH this weekend there is a great "Lose the Shoes" soccer tournament which is being held by Grassroot Soccer. Following the event there will be an awards dinner as well as a screening of Lusaka Sunrise. The soccer is from 12-4 and the dinner is at 6 in anyone is interested in attending.

For the next few weeks we're working on finishing up the editing & scoring of our next film "Joe's Journey". We'll soon ship it down to our main man Jay McKay in NYC whom I'm sure will create an amazing score for the film. We'll keep you posted as to when it will be released online.

Seeing as though it always seems complete to post a video as part of the blog,... I thought I would pass on this hilarious clip that our good friend Justin McLennan took while hiking in Peru a while back. He couldn't figure out who was yelling until he came across this little guy :) Happy Friday!

Margaret Mead, Couch Surfing,.. Generosity :)

Last night Jenny Douglas and I were part of the Margaret Mead film festival and it was a fantastic event. Jenny spoke to the crowd of 200 about KarmaTube and rocked the house. I told a few stories of Smooth Feather and the best question came from the crowd at the end. One gentlemen asked, "So Silas, how do you afford your apartment?" I smiled and responded with, "Currently I don't have an apartment :)" I have a feeling I may have been the first filmmaker at the festival without a home. Although these days my home seems to be defined by the many glorious couches & kitchen tables that have been generously offered to me over the past months.

Speaking of offerings, a recent friend of mine Laurie Meadoff made an offer to Smooth Feather that was over the top! I recently got together with Laurie at her production house NextNext Entertainment in Manhattan . Their work is fantastic and their latest project called Hometown Baghdad, is an online documentary series about life during wartime. If you haven't seen it, you should definitely check it out. At any rate, last Thursday we were sitting at her beautiful office in midtown and I began to explain the spirit behind Smooth Feather Productions and how we all resonate with giving with no strings attached. And at the end of the conversation Laurie says with a smiles, "well, we've just had a few people relocate and we've got some extra office space if you'd like it." A ridiculously generous offer! :) So now the Smooth Feather posse may be meeting up for a bit at W 38th on the 18th floor! :) The joys of the gift economy.

And if that wasn't enough, Laurie then offered her expertise to help distribute "Back in Life" to many of her network connections at MTV, VH1, HBO and the like. My only request was that we give it away to the networks at no cost, with no strings attached...well one string attached...that no adds interrupt the films :)

In other news, we just re-cut an old promo video for CouchSurfing.com over the weekend. 6 Years ago Casey Fenton and I put together a video in my backyard in Maine when CouchSurfing was only a crazy idea in Casey's head. Today the site has over 350,000 members world wide and been featured in the NY times and covered by NBC nightly news. CouchSurfing is an amazing worldwide network for making connections between travelers and the local communities they visit....and its free:)

Due to some copyright issues of a Sublime song we used 5 years ago I offered to recut the promo piece for CouchSurfing and add a bit more flare to the video :)

Feel free to check out the promo here.



Big Smiles from NYC,...next Couch...The home of the Jones Street Boys!

Bill Clinton Meets "Lusaka Sunrise" Cast

Completed at this time last year, "Lusaka Sunrise" continues to generate amazing energy in all directions. Bill Clinton recently met up with Victor Mawere in Lusaka and partook in a few Grassroot Soccer games highlighted in the film. Read more about it here.




"Lusaka Sunrise" will also be screened this Sunday at the Margaret Mead Film Festival in NYC. The event is held at the American Museum of Natural History and begins at 4:30 on Sunday. Myself and Jenny Douglas will be there as part of a panel discussion focusing on user generated content in relation to the internet. It should be an amazing event and it would be great to see all of you there. I'm sending big smiles from the wild city of NYC. -Silas
P.S. Our Smooth Feather Powerhouse Composer Jay McKay, finished the NYC marathon in glorious form today. :) You're the man Jay.

"Lusaka Sunrise" airing on ZNBC

We just recently got amazing news that Lusaka Sunrise was aired on ZNBC to thousands of viewers in Zambia, Africa. Both Ebby and Victor were invited onto the Kwacha Good Morning show and talked about their work of using the power of football to educate youth in Zambia about HIV/AIDS. This is an amazing milestone for "Lusaka Sunrise" and it's so exciting to see that the films powerful message is spreading to those most effected by HIV. Feel free to watch Lusaka Sunrise here and if anyone has any feedback regarding the film, feel free to shoot either Ebby or Victor an email in Zambia. I'm sure they would love to hear from folks across the ocean :) Ebby: ebbymka@yahoo.com, Victor: maweretj@yahoo.com.

BACK IN LIFE

Here is our most extensive Gift Economy Film as of yet,...after over 300 hours of shooting, editing, scoring and polishing, we present to you.... Back In Life. :) We hope you are as inspired as we are . This weekend we are printing out our first set of 100 DVD's that we plan to send to other quadriplegics that have recently been injured. We'll be sure to keep you updated as things develop with the film. All the best from San Fran, -Silas

Signing in from California

Currently I’m posted up next to the gift economy wild man Nipun Mehta who got me into this crazy lifestyle a year back. :) We’re both at his folks house in Santa Clara where we each took part in a weekly Wednesday night meditation. Every Wednesday for the past 10 years Nipun’s folks have opened their home to anyone who wants to take part in an hour of meditation, followed by a small discussion, and then a glorious meal. It was so powerful to be in the presence of such amazing service and loving people.

So I’m planning to be out in the bay area for the next month or so working on developing the online infrastructure of Smooth Feather with Nipun. We’re developing some exciting ideas that will soon allow others to get more actively involved with future productions.

In regards to the latest Gift Economy production, two weekends back we offered our service in Cape Cod to the amazing reggae band John Browns Body.


It was a weekend of frisbees, flip flops and sun on our shoulders. :) JBB played two sold out shows at the Beach Comber and on the second night we showed up with the cameras rolling. The show was fantastic and the band was clearly touched with our no strings attached offer.

To view the film click below.