Follow Me Down: The New Work of
Louisiana Prison Songs (in post-production)
PRE-PRODUCTION VIDEO COMING SOON
Follow
Me Down takes the
viewer inside the experiences of inmate musicians with
compelling visual footage, revealing interviews, and a powerful
soundscape of prison. Much in the manner that
John and Alan Lomax did in the 1930s, the film’s soundtrack
combines and contrasts sounds of music with noises of prison.
The film’s narrative follows
a diverse group of inmates at the three institutions from
those who have been incarcerated a matter of hours to lifers,
who have spent as many as 45 years behind bars. The film
begins at the Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women
with a profile of two very different new commits as they
enter the institution. Music is important in both of their
lives, and that importance becomes refigured in the setting
of prison. One finds community, while the other leaves music
behind, conforming to the institutional agenda of learning
practical life skills but in doing so, losing the joy she
found in singing. Next, at Elayn Hunt Correctional Center,
the film follows a heavy metal band as they plan and execute
a yard show. This segment explores the lengths that inmates
go to in order to play music. The film ends with portraits
of what music means and has meant to inmates who have lived
most of their lives behind bars and will likely never leave.
Along the way, the film will feature uncut music from a gospel
quartet, a women’s choir, rappers working in the fields,
a metal band, a blind country singer, a jazz saxophonist,
and an institutionally supported R&B band. Inmate commentary
will reveal the different ways that music is meaningful behind
bars and the challenges they face being musicians. Interviews
from administrators and correctional officers help flesh
out the bigger picture of prisons as places that are fundamentally
about custody.
Produced and directed by Ben Harbert
Cinematography by John Slattery
Recording direction by Chauncy Godwin
In a Day’s Time: Songs of the California
Men’s Colony (2007)
NOW AVAILABLE ON DVD.
A chronicle of an ordinary day of music-making
at the medium security California Men's Colony in San Luis
Obispo, In a Day's Time offers an alternate view
of these men behind bars. The performances (from rap to ranchero
to rock) are interlaced with interviews and conversations,
and reveal on a very human level how music is an inner and
outer mirror for lives full of regret and hope, loneliness
and camaraderie, and opportunities yet to come.
In a Day's Time was shot in one day
to show the vitality of musical activity in the California
Men's Colony. What emerges are startling momentary connections
with inmates as they discuss and perform music that they assume
no one beyond prison walls will hear. Moving across three medium
security yards, we meet charismatic musicians with a range
of talents from endearing amateurs to seasoned troubadours.
The film presents uncut music, offering the opportunity to
visit a variety of inmate musical worlds.
Today's musical inmates work with limited
resources and personnel, often creating original music styles.
Their songs are born out of a necessity to connect with each
other and poetically grapple with the situation of incarceration.
For example, a white country guitar picker collaborates with
a black R&B crooner to deliver a powerful song about freedom
and mortality. A songwriting group develops a rap inspired
by Shakespearean themes about having artistic dreams given
the reality of living on the streets. (32 min.)
A companion DVD for Anthony Seeger’s
Why Suyá Sing: A Musical Anthropology
of an Amazonian People. The film documents the annual
two-week long celebration of a boy’s
initiation into his name set by the
Suya people of central Amazon.
Director/Producer: Anthony Seeger
Editor: Ben Harbert
Qin: The Seven-String Zither of China (in post-production)
A film introducing the Chinese qin, featuring
scholar Bell Yung.
Director/Editor: Helen Rees
Director of Photography: Ben Harbert
John (Ivan) Filcich, Life in the Circle Dance (2008)
John (Ivan) Filcich, the Croat in ethnic
background, devoted his life to the preservation and promotion
of musical traditions and dances of many ethnic groups in
California. Filcich has been a music seller and record producer
catering to ethnic communities in California for nearly sixty
years. Since 1947, he has been a folk dancer, and then a
teacher to the international folk dance community in California,
and he was a founder of that community’s Kolo Festival.
In this documentary film John (Ivan) Filcich
is portrayed as a treasure trove of knowledge and an invaluable
source of information and documentation for all those fascinated
by the musical and dance life of California’s ethnic
groups in the second half of the 20th century. The film exposes
Filcich’s vivid memories; his vibrant but modest personality;
his warm, expressive way of presenting knowledge of oral cultural
history of California; the caring way he shares music, dances,
costumes, and information, and it documents his long-lasting
relationship with Machvaya Gypsies, and his knowledge of their
changing lifestyle within California’s multi-ethnic urban
settings. (29 min.)
Director: Ankica Petrovic
Producer/Editor: Ben Harbert