Tuesday, August 31, 2010

The Sun Magazine

Leslee Goodman's article on Gordon in The Sun Magazine is online now. It's a wonderful piece.
"Quiet, Please: Gordon Hempton On The Search For Silence In A Noisy World"

http://www.thesunmagazine.org/issues/417/quiet_please

Wednesday, July 28, 2010

DVD coming soon!

Indiepix is doing a great job getting the DVD into all the right places. It'll be available at select retailers on August 17 before expanding wide on September 21 in the USA and then expand from there to other countries.

Pre-order your copy now! (It's got lots of cool special features like filmmaker interviews, deleted scenes, a whole special section on One Square Inch, including a map to the quietest place in the USA, and a beautiful 72 minute audio recording that is a sample of 56 of Gordon's best recordings...that alone is worth the cost of the DVD!)

http://www.indiepixfilms.com/film/soundtracker

And don't forget to add it into your Netflix queue...the more queues we appear in, the more Netflix starts to recommend it to other users.

http://www.netflix.com/WiMovie/Soundtracker/70142064?strackid=56ecb262410b5251_0_srl&strkid=1348423775_0_0&trkid=438381

Thanks!

Friday, July 2, 2010

Nature Sounds Society's Annual Field Workshop in the Sierras

Spent a great weekend in the Sierras with the Nature Sound Society at their annual field workshop. One of the participants covered it in his video blog...http://www.noisejockey.net/blog/2010/07/01/field-workshop-notes-part-1-video-diary/

Saturday, May 22, 2010

They compare us to Simon and Garfunkel in this interview...sweet!

"Mountainfilm in Telluride waxes eloquent on the subject of silence with the inclusion of "Soundtracker" in this year's lineup. The documentary, the intersection of science and poetry, was written and directed by Nick Sherman.
The Sounds of Silence were first immortalized in lyrics that propelled folk duo Simon and Garfunckel to fame back in 1964. Forty-six years later the sounds of silence are celebrated once again in "Soundtracker," as Sherman pursues sound recordist Gordon Hempton pursuing the few remaining quiet corners of the Earth, where deer cross a quiet country road and tall grass waves in the wind. In a way, the two media events are related: both the hit single and the documentary are responses to an assault, the first on an American president; the second, on our senses. Both tributes argue for an awakening."

To read the whole thing and listen to the podcast interview, visit...

http://www.tellurideinside.com/2010/05/nick-shermans-soundtracker-featured-at-mountainfilm-in-telluride.html

Friday, May 14, 2010

Highlights from Hot Docs Press

Last week was an exciting but hectic one in Toronto where I was joined by the subject of my film, Gordon Hempton, my editor J. Davis, and my cinematographer, Martin DiCicco. We played the film at the Hot Docs International Documentary Film Festival and screened three times over 10 days. It was fun to scan the web each morning to discover new reviews for the film appearing in the press and blogosphere. Here are some of the highlights. If you want to read the full versions, follow the links at http://soundtrackerthemovie.com/ST/Press.html

IndieWIRE
“The beautifully shot film follows Hempton for a month as he obsessively tries to capture a specific sound recording in nature...”

NOW (Toronto Newspaper) 4 out of 5 stars! “An enthralling look at the world's disappearing "quiet places"

“Sherman invites us to contemplate the world’s disappearing “quiet places” lost to human encroachment.”

MillionGossips.com
“Director, Nicholas Sherman faced the difficult task of making a movie about sound. He needed to allow the time for the audience to take in all the layers of Hempton’s discovered soundscapes without sacrificing the image or his own artistic expression. And just like the delicate balance between the song of a bird and a passing whistle-blowing train – the symphony we follow Hempton in hopes to find – Sherman finds the perfect sweet spot.”

Allan Tong - Blog
“Credit director Sherman for putting us in Hempton's shoes and forcing an audience watching a series of images to hear the world like Hempton does. There are no dead spots in this film. Sherman fills the frame with beautiful landscapes and haunting sounds. A film worth hearing as much as seeing.”

Dark of the Matinee - Blog
“The film finds a wonderful balance of sweeping wide shots, subtle detail photography...and even moments of letting the screen go black. It all comes together beautifully and gets the audience to start hearing the world the way that Hempton does.”

Saturday, May 1, 2010

4 out of 5 stars from Toronto's "Now" Magazine

http://www.nowtoronto.com/daily/story.cfm?content=174812

Soundtracker
An enthralling look at the world's disappearing "quiet places"
By Norman Wilner

Director Nick Sherman accompanies sound recordist Gordon Hempton on a trip across America to capture the sounds of a vanishing natural landscape – deer crossing a quiet country road, tall grass waving in the wind.

As he works, Sherman invites us to contemplate the world’s disappearing “quiet places” lost to human encroachment.

Like all great obsessives, Hempton has his buttons – at one point, he’s moved to tears by the loneliness of a remote pair of trees – but he’s terrific at his job, and it’s enthralling to watch him spend days trying to capture the perfect intersection of a passing train and a mockingbird’s song.
May 1, 2010 at 05:19 AM

Thursday, April 29, 2010

More Soundtracker Hot Docs Reviews - Milliongossip.com

http://www.milliongossip.com/65649-black-sheep-previews-hot-docs-2010

Another Review, this time on Allan Tong's blog

ALLAN TONG: Soundtracker [Hot Docs review]

Soundtracker Featured on Hot Docs short list!

Check out this video of Hot Docs programmer talking about a few of his favorite films at the fest this year. Hint: the first one he mentions...yep.
http://www.hotdocs.ca/news/programmer_picks_director_of_programming_sean_farnel

Soundtracker featured in IndieWIRE's "In the Works" Column

This appeared in today's “In the Works” column on IndieWIRE. “In the Works” is a weekly column taking a look at upcoming films, in addition to projects in production. It spotlights films in development, as well completed films that are taking creative paths towards distribution and occasionally ventures away from films to look at other types of projects, such as interesting new film distribution, funding, or exhibition mechanisms.

----
(excerpt) to read the whole thing go to... http://www.indiewire.com/article/2010/04/28/in_the_works_eerie_inn_crude_story_quiet_hunt_immigrant_mess_microloan_impa/

“Soundtracker”
About the film: Filmmaker Nicholas Sherman worked together with “Hoop Dreams” producer Frederick Marx on a documentary in the Himalayas and was inspired to direct his own film, one focused on the natural world but with a strong human element. When he read about Gordon Hempton in the newspaper, he found his subject and quickly made arrangements to accompany him into the field and unobtrusively (and quietly!) film his activities. Sherman explains: “It was sort of like shooting a nature film about a rarely seen animal, a snow leopard or something – only in this case our snow leopard was the soundtracker.”

Current status: The project is nearly complete, and will be premiering next week at Hot Docs and then moving on to other festival engagements. Producers are currently running a Kickstarter campaign to raise funds to cover the post-production costs, including a sound mix, color correction, and some clearances for archival footage.

For more information and to support the film: http://kck.st/9yfXW2. As with all Kickstarter campaigns, the filmmakers will not receive any donations unless they meet their fundraising goal of $5000 by their May 15th deadline.

Monday, April 26, 2010

Soundtracker is an Official Selection of Telluride Mountainfilm 2010!

(from their website) http://www.mountainfilm.org/festival/2010/index.asp

Currently in its 32nd year, the Mountainfilm Festival is a four-day, six-senses experience of art, adventure, culture and the environment. It attracts filmmakers, photographers, conservationists, mountaineers and explorers from around the world. Our audiences also come from around the world to gather in theaters that range from historical to state-of-the-art in the box canyon of Telluride, Colorado and the gondola-linked town of Mountain Village.

Our motto is “Celebrating Indomitable Spirit.”

The spirit we celebrate may be of a vital eco-system or a fragile one. It may be of an endangered culture or of one courageous soul. It may be of a grassroots sustainability movement or of the struggle of a species on the brink of extinction. In whichever case, it is always a spirit that is unique, important and eminently laudable.
The Festival Weekend

The festival begins each year with its Moving Mountains Symposium. This full-day event has a different topical theme each year that is explored, discussed and debated by a panel of world class experts drawn from many and varied disciplines. In 2009 we featured Food, for 2010 we will feature The Extinction Crisis.

Special Events throughout the weekend provide a chance to mingle with other festival guests, bask in the beauty of Telluride, and stimulate all 6 senses. The Gallery Walk following our Symposium affords a chance to meet and greet while strolling from one Telluride art gallery to the next to view original paintings, sculpture, photography and multi-media works of wonder.

Films begin Friday evening and run through mid-Monday. Each year we have a special focus for our film programming. In 2010 we will feature The Extinction Crisis.

Throughout the weekend you will also be treated to Q&A's with your favorite filmmakers, and presentations by our Special Guests who round out the Mountainfilm experience with colorful tales of adventures and eye-opening talks of current events.

Breakfast Talks each morning offer a bite to eat while listening to casual presentations from the Minds of Mountainfilm.

Saturday afternoon we gather on Main Street to celebrate the mountains with our annual Ice Cream Social, where the frozen treats are on us!

On Sunday we get a little crazy with The Reading Frenzy, an opportunity to talk with authors and get signed copies of their books.

The Closing Picnic on Monday rounds out our weekend. Set in Telluride’s Town Park, surrounded by the soaring drama of San Juan peaks, the picnic serves as our Awards Ceremony and offers a last chance for free beer and great food, and to catch up with old friends and make some new ones.

Friday, April 23, 2010

Soundtracker the Movie the Blog

“This is a remarkable journey: a quest for imperiled Nature by an artist who never stopped listening.”
-Ken Burns, describing the film "Soundtracker"

"Soundtracker" is a documentary about nature sound-recordist Gordon Hempton. It premiered at the Sedona International Film Festival in March 2010 and will have its Canadian Premiere at Hot Docs in Toronto at the beginning of May.

Hot Docs described the film in the following way:

“Pure sound unaltered by human hands is becoming increasingly difficult to find.
Gordon Hempton is an Emmy Award-winning sound recordist who has spent the last 30 years trying to find and record the vanishing sounds of nature in an attempt to capture a disappearing sensory experience.

Filmmaker Nicholas Sherman observes Hempton in the wilderness for 30 days and uncovers an obsessive artist on a quest for perfection in this obscure medium. Hempton’s natural ability to locate and articulate himself through sound has a contagious energy and gives his work a transportive quality. Soundtracker is a fascinating meditation on the world’s changing landscape and the things we may be leaving behind in the service of progress.”

This is a blog by the Producer/Director of Soundtracker, Nicholas Sherman. It's a place to read more about this film, about acoustic ecology, and about the importance of listening to the world around us. It is a work in progress and this is just the first of many steps.

Welcome.

Soundtracker Trailer from Nick Sherman on Vimeo.