Pope Michael Documentary Film

I’m happy to announce that “Pope Michael” is...

Wed, 07 Dec 2011 00:26:18 -0500

I’m happy to announce that “Pope Michael” is now available to view online for free. You can find it on our website here:

http://popemichaelfilm.com/watch

The video is hosted with Vimeo, which means that it can be viewed from almost any internet-enabled device from an iPhone to an internet-enabled TV.

I decided to release “Pope Michael” online for free because it was never my intention to profit from it, and with the recent proliferation of places to affordably host HD video and devices to view it on, it’s easy to get a full-length documentary out there for anyone who wants to see it.

Thank you very much for your interest in this project, and I hope you enjoy the film.

- Adam Fairholm

Director/Editor, “Pope Michael”

"Pope Michael" to be Released on Vimeo December 6

Wed, 16 Nov 2011 10:38:11 -0500

I’m very happy to announce that “Pope Michael” will be released on Tuesday, December 6th, and will be available to view for free on the video website Vimeo.

I’ll be releasing the full 86 minute version, as well as a shorter 56 minute version. Both will be available for viewing on Vimeo, as well as anywhere you can watch Vimeo videos, such as your iPhone/iPad/mobile device or AppleTV or Boxee Box.

Stay tuned.

- Adam

2010 Wrap Up

Tue, 14 Dec 2010 10:50:07 -0500

If you’re reading this now, you are in a small group of people following the documentary right now in its early promotional stages, and I want to take the time to thank you for your interest in and support of “Pope Michael”. Over the past year or so, I’ve had contact from people all over the world about wanting to see the documentary, and it’s been a great experience from shooting to the finished product. It has especially been an eventful 2010.

My last trip to Delia was in October 2009, and the documentary was finished this summer. In late January 2010 me and 3 other people working on “Pope Michael” watched a 2 hour very rough cut in my living room in Delray Beach, Florida.

Over 6 months I lobbed off 40 minutes, and spent a lot of time processing the images and sound.

In March we released a website and a trailer.

In June we had a final cut ready, and in September we started looking at which film festivals were a good fit for “Pope Michael”.

And in late November we got an IMDB entry, which means the documentary is officially cool.

So it has been a long year for a project that was started in early 2008. 2010 saw a lot of exciting things happen to get the documentary finished - I can’t wait to see what 2011 brings.

So what is going on now? We are working on getting “Pope Michael” into a film festival for mid-2011. We’ll know more details soon, but for right now it’s the good old waiting game!

Andy Burd's "River Jordan" Story

Mon, 13 Sep 2010 14:31:28 -0400

Andy Burd has been a huge help in making “Pope Michael” in a lot of ways. Not only has his experience and advice been critical, he’s also provided the song that opens up the documentary, “It’s Cool Down There by the River Jordan”.

In true Andy Burd fashion, when you ask for a story about how he wrote the song, you get a novel about his musical history with the banjo. With pictures.

So, for your reading pleasure, here is Andy’s story - “How the Stars Aligned Over the River Jordan”. We’ve got the full version and an abridged version, but I highly recommend taking the time to read the full version.

Andy’s Story - Full Version

Andy’s Story - Abridged

You can find Andy’s song on the “Pope Michael” soundtrack along with a reprise and an instrumental version.

"Pope Michael" Soundtrack Released

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 10:02:13 -0400

Music is a crucial part of any film, even a documentary film. “Pope Michael” is no exception, and only being an amateur musician, music was something that I wasn’t able to even start to tackle myself.

Luckily, I have a very talented brother who recently graduated with a BA in music performance and composition from the University of Miami, Florida. He plays piano - more specifically, jazz piano, and he is incredibly talented at what he does. He wanted to participate, and we began a long process of music creation that resulted in the soundtrack that we’ve just released.

I’ll write more in the near future about the music creation process, but what I will say now is that Derek’s music is more than exceeded my goal for the music for the film. Not only are the melodies and arrangements beautiful, they vividly describe the tone of the film in a way that only a great soundtrack can.

The soundtrack also has a few variations on the intro song of the documentary - “Cool Down There by the River Jordan” by Andy Burd. Andy is a great friend and banjo player who sent me this song on a whim. It perfectly fit the tone I wanted to set in the beginning of the film (and I was looking for a song with lyrics for the intro), and it became a part of the soundtrack.

I hope you enjoy the music as much as I have enjoyed it. As a documentary filmmaker, I was unbelievably lucky to have friends and family that are so talented and were able to create something so incredible.

You can buy the soundtrack on iTunes and Amazon MP3. You can see some more info about it on our soundtrack page.

Also, this soundtrack wouldn’t be possible without the talents of a few people. Brian Tate (bass) and Dag Markhus (drums) lended their talents to the trio recordings. Luke Moellman recorded and engineered the trio sessions and was responsible for getting the great sound of the recordings. Brian Gerstle recorded and mastered Derek for the solo piano sessions. Joe Hinman recorded Andy Burd’s track as a demo that eventually became the actual version of the song on the soundtrack.

I hope you enjoy these tracks as much as I have and have enjoyed having them inspire me during the post production process.

During the film festival submission period, we’re posting...

Tue, 13 Jul 2010 23:10:07 -0400

During the film festival submission period, we’re posting some videos put together specifically for the web. This first video are some shots from a trip to the Bawden garden on one of the last shooting days last fall.

For this sequence, Doug was still with me, so he is walking around with me with the boom pole.

At this point in shooting, I had gotten to know Tickie, Phil, and Bawden very well, and I think they were very comfortable with my presence with a camera. From spending so much time there, I can say that this is a look at exactly how they are around each other on day to day basis. I really love Tickie showing us the hot peppers, and Phil’s comment about not hitting your gardener with tomatoes.

This clip also includes a mention of Bawden’s gigantic solar array which I had to cut out of the documentary because it disrupted the flow of the first 20 minutes. It’s a strange feature of the backyard, and according to Bawden, wasn’t cheap.

I hope you enjoy the clip, and there is more on the way.

Call for Translations

Fri, 09 Jul 2010 10:16:11 -0400

One of the interesting things about “Pope Michael” is that the documentary seems to have an interest in Europe. In fact, Dutch Catholic television visited Bawden around a decade ago to do a story on him, and Bawden has regular contact with people in the Netherlands among other countries. I’ve gotten emails from several European countries including Spain and Germany, asking about the documentary.

Unfortunately, though, the “Pope Michael” clips available online are in english, and not everyone speaks English who is interested in the film.

So I’m officially putting the word out asking if anyone has the ability and the will if they’d like to translate the dialogue a clip of “Pope Michael” into a language of their choice. It could be the trailer, the wine cellar clip, or even one of the clips we’re releasing next week.

If you’re interested, please contact me at adam@popemichaelfilm.com. We’ll make it easy and painless, and also give you credit wherever is possible!

One of the interesting things about doing a documentary about...

Wed, 23 Jun 2010 11:06:26 -0400

One of the interesting things about doing a documentary about Bawden is that there is an almost constant stream of video content produced by him and Phil and put out on the internet. It’s like a whole DVD extras section for free on the internet, and a very interesting look into their house in Delia largely unfiltered.

A question I get sometimes is how serious is Phil about what he’s doing. It’s a fair question, since Phil is only in his early 20’s.

That question is implicitly answered in the documentary itself in a section late in the film that contains Phil making a vow of Obedience to Bawden and to the papacy. Phil, like Bawden, appears to be extremely dedicated to what he’s doing, hence the vow, which he took very seriously.

Phil is no stranger to vows. By the time we filmed his vow of obedience, he had already made a vow of chastity on his own. Then I spotted the above video that contains a vow to defend the papacy.

There are plenty of other interesting videos Phil and Bawden have made that are floating around on the internet and I’ll be sure to post some more.

"Pope Michael" on YouTube as Well

Sun, 20 Jun 2010 23:47:21 -0400

Just a little note: as of this week all of our video content is going on YouTube as well, instead of just Vimeo. You can check out the documentary YouTube account here.

Over the summer we’ll be releasing a series of cut...

Fri, 18 Jun 2010 09:55:00 -0400

Over the summer we’ll be releasing a series of cut sequences from “Pope Michael”, and we’re starting today with one of the earliest sequences to be assembled - Bawden showing us around his home winery.

Here’s the description from Vimeo:

In this sequence, Bawden explains a little bit about his home wine making. He makes two types of wine - table wine for drinking with dinner, and altar wine for use in mass.

This sequence was cut for time and general irrelevancy to the larger plot of the documentary.

This sequence was shot on the second day of the first trip, and was one of the first to be assembled. If you look closely, you can see there is a boom mic next to the wine bottles when Bawden takes them in and out of the shelves. This was an oversight during filming - we were looking for the sounds of the wine bottles without realizing we’d need the b-roll as well.

Update on the Documentary

Thu, 27 May 2010 13:09:22 -0400

After releasing our first trailer a few months ago, the hard work started of turning the rough cut of “Pope Michael” into the final cut. A week and a half ago I locked the picture (meaning that no more editing was necessary) and the remaining time has been spent working on the image (color correcting, taking out booms) and working on the audio (normalizing, EQing).

Thankfully, that work is done now, and the real fun begins! In a few days, “Pope Michael” ships out to its first film festival for consideration. I’m very excited to see where it goes, and what kind of response it gets, but we won’t know that for a bit.

If you don’t happen to be a film festival selection committee, then what’s in it for you in the mean time?

Well, now that the hard work is over, I’m going to be releasing some content over the summer:

The “Pope Michael” Soundtrack

The section in the “Pope Michael” credits for music is literally four times the size of the section for production. I was extremely lucky to have a group of amazingly talented musicians and audio engineers work on the soundtrack, bringing to life the amazing music that Derek wrote. Over the summer, we’ll be releasing the soundtrack online for a small cost to help cover film festival expenses. The soundtrack will have all of the songs in the film (as well as a new version of the trailer song) and some special tracks recorded just for the soundtrack.

Cut Scenes

Everyone loves some cut scenes, and “Pope Michael” has a ton. I’ll be finishing those up and putting them online. There will also be a few behind the scenes clips, because everyone loves those as well.

Guest Posts

I’ve asked some people involved with the documentary (both in front of and behind the camera) to write pieces on there experiences, which we’ll be posting here. Also, we’ve got some interesting guest pieces about sedevacantism and other issues that are relevant to the documentary.

So watch out for some cool stuff coming up! I’m very excited about what we’ve got, and excited about eventually getting this thing out into the world!

My little brother Sean is a senior in high school - the same...

Mon, 26 Apr 2010 08:36:51 -0400

My little brother Sean is a senior in high school - the same high school I went to, and my other younger brother went to - Saint Thomas Aquinas High School in Fort Lauderdale Florida.

When I was there, they had very little in the way of visual arts, period, not to mention the arts in terms of film and video. But now, since my brother is in a film class this semester, I’ve been made aware of a film festival they put on every year now called STAsis. Very cool!

Sean and his class were tasked with finding some sponsors, and he had me put together a little ad for “Pope Michael” in there, since Derek and I are both grads. Too bad I got Derek’s year wrong. The film festival was last week.

"Pope Michael" Short on iTunes

Wed, 21 Apr 2010 09:47:39 -0400

"Pope Michael" Short on iTunes:

The Notre Dame Film, Television, and Theatre department has put up an archive of past film festival shorts on iTunes. If you check out 2008, you’ll find that the original “Pope Michael” short is up there (#3). It’s also available on the “Pope Michael” doc website here.

You’ll also see your favorite “Pope Michael” director (me) in the documentary “Ring by Spring” also of 2008, where I am on camera for a few blips with my girlfriend Michelle (she’s still my girlfriend).

What's the Matter With Kansas?

Fri, 09 Apr 2010 13:32:16 -0400

In 2004, Thomas Frank published a book called “What’s the Matter With Kansas? How Conservatives Won the Heart of America”. It took a look at the rise of the Republican, conservative mindset in America, and focused on Kansas to drive the point home.

If you step into David Bawden’s living room, you’ll notice a copy of it on a small table in between two armchairs, because Bawden is the subject of an entire chapter of the book.

Recently, the book the basis for a documentary of the same name, and it’s been getting some great press and reviews. Roger Ebert said “I’ve rarely seen a documentary quite like it.” which is definitely something coming from a film critic who places “Gates of Heaven” in his top 10 of all time.

Bawden doesn’t appear in the film, but fans of “Pope Michael” will definitely be interested to take a very different look at the people of Kansas and the political situation there, but also the environment in which Bawden operates.

While watching the trailer, I recognized much of the scenery as very close to what it’s like out in the Kansas countryside. This image of a town in the trailer is very similar to Rossville, the town I pass through to get to Delia.

You can find their site at whatsthematterwithkansas.com, and be sure to take a look at their screenings section as it’s screening across the country right now.

The last part of “Pope Michael” to be finished - the...

Mon, 05 Apr 2010 09:23:38 -0400

The last part of “Pope Michael” to be finished - the music - took one more step closer to being finished this weekend, as tracks were laid down in Miami for piano and bass parts. Up next this week is drums, and then we’re almost done!

Bawden posted this video a few days ago on Vimeo. It was shot by...

Mon, 29 Mar 2010 09:36:26 -0400

Bawden posted this video a few days ago on Vimeo. It was shot by Philip Deslippe, who teaches as Iowa University and is the one who introduces Bawden in the beginning of the video.

I’m actually in the other corner, as this was the second of two presentations that I shot for the documentary - the first being the one at Kansas University that took place several days earlier and was on a different subject to non-class audience.

None of the actual content of this presentation makes it into the documentary, since the subject matter is a little tangental, but we do briefly see this presentation being given, and the end of the documentary centers around the trip to Iowa University that was actually the last thing I filmed with Bawden and Phil.

Oh, the glockenspiel. Pretty early on, Derek hit on using...

Mon, 22 Mar 2010 16:53:44 -0400

Oh, the glockenspiel.

Pretty early on, Derek hit on using a glockenspiel in the “Pope Michael” music. It was extremely effective - Derek was writing these beautiful melodies (one of which you can find in the trailer) and they rang clear and vivid on the glock.

Derek’s process was to start with software instruments and arrange things on the computer, playing his keyboard into the program. This is actually an awesome way to compose music for a film. Instead of handing me piano demos, Derek could hand me a demo with every instrument arranged the way he wanted it. I would use that demo with the pictures, and I was able to get a very clear idea of what the final product was going to be like.

Again, with the trailer - the music is all software instruments since the studio dates were set for late March and I was itching to get a trailer out.

Derek is now in the process of recording the pieces with live instruments. There’s one small problem though - he needs a glockenspiel and there is no one to be found.

Sure, you can find glockenspiels here and there but there are usually the basic models with only one octave. Derek needs a full, orchestral glockenspiel, and they aren’t available at Target.

If anyone is able to find an orchestral glockenspiel, it’s Derek, but it just goes to show you that some of the problems making a documentary are the ones you never even thought would exist.

Bawden's Comment on the Documentary Project

Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:43:00 -0400

Bawden's Comment on the Documentary Project:

Bawden posted this entry this morning talking a little bit about the history of the documentary project and a conversation with Professor Miller he had on the Kansas University trip about whether or not we were affiliated with Bawden (us being the camera duo there to tape the presentation).

It would be very easy for Bawden to reject all outside inquiries for things like papers written on him, book chapters written on him, and documentaries about him. The fact that Bawden is so open to participating in things like this documentary project is a refreshing change from the many people I’ve come across in the process of making this documentary who are paranoid about being presented by anyone but themselves. Its certainly made making this documentary a pleasant experience when working with Bawden, Tickie, and Phil.

Welcome to the new site!

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:59:04 -0400

After a long wait, we’ve finally got a new site up to preview what the “Pope Michael” doc is going to be like. Hope you enjoy the look, the poster, the trailer, and all the new content!

In the next few months we’ll be adding some new content (videos, images, etc), so tap into one of the feeds we’ve set up to keep in the loop.

We’ve got a Facebook group:

http://www.facebook.com/popemichaelfilm

A Twitter account:

http://twitter.com/popemichaeldoc

And of course this Tumblr blog will be kept up to date with everything going on.

After several years of shooting and editing, we’ve got the...

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:52:31 -0400

After several years of shooting and editing, we’ve got the first look at “Pope Michael” here in a 2 minute trailer. The music is, of course, written by Derek. This is mostly software instruments, although the actual “Pope Michael” music has been recorded with all live instruments.

That’s Professor Tim Miller at the end.