Community
This past year or so has taught us at Chromoscope quite a bit; how to run a business, how different creative industries work, and what it means to be an artist and a business owner. It also taught us a lot about something we thought we knew pretty well, and that’s community.
Coming from a filmmaking background, community is built into the machine. In order to make something of value, it really does take a village as the old adage goes. Aside form the director, the cinematographer, editor, and actors; you need grip, gaffers, production assistants, set designers, production managers. We could go on. The point is that the more people involved in a project, the better the final product will be.
We learned this very early on in our pursuit of this thing. When the call went out, our friends from all over the state flocked to our sides and got whatever the project was done, and those were some of the best days we can remember. The experience of running yourself ragged among a group of people with a common goal is hard to describe, but any filmmaker will tell you it’s where the addiction starts. Anyway, the idea of community is something we thought we knew well, but recently we’ve seen that the community behind a film is merely a micro chasm of the real thing. We had never extrapolated that idea on a larger scale.
After moving to Troy and really diving into music video and commercial work for local artists and businesses, we’ve discovered the large interwoven community which exists under the surface of this area. A powerful resource that has been untapped, and not just in film, but in music, modeling, photography, and even dance. The amount of creative activity is astounding. This is a phenomenon we’re extremely proud to be apart of, and something we’d like to see cultivated and grown, to the benefit of everyone involved. Our friend Mira, of The Sea The Sea, said something to that end…
“We all need to continue throwing stones into the river, to raise the water and speed the current, so everyone can keep sailing.”
(Mira, we hope we’ve quoted you correctly. If not, forgive us.)
That sentence seems to nail it.
