The Story Behind Storytime
The essence of Sundance – the story behind it – is the interplay of artist and audience. Because stories need an audience, but they also need tellers.
"I’d always understood 'story' to mean the driving narrative of a film... It’s about the people. Without the people, there is no opening title, much less the closing credits." -Josh Rogers
Every story has a beginning. There’s the opening sequence of a film or the first chapter of a book. But the real beginning, the very beginning, is the one that no one sees. It happens way before. First. It’s that moment the person who will become the storyteller experiences alone. When, from nowhere, a light turns on in the seeming dimness of his or her mind to show a path to what will be the beginning, the middle, and the end of the story that everyone else will experience next year, or the year after.
As one of the people responsible for the Festival’s creative campaigns, I’d like to share just a little about the very beginning of STORYTIME, the campaign we made for this year, the 25th of the Sundance Film Festival.
Just before it happened, we were consumed, like always, with panic. And pacing. My creative partner Neil and I were trying to answer the perennial questions of how we top last year’s, how can we possibly do justice to Sundance’s special birthday, and what’s the sandwich special at Olive’s today.
And then, like it normally does, things got better with a call from Jan Fleming, our Sundance sister-in-arms who’s guided the brand’s communication for the last decade or so. “Just keep it simple. Like you do,” she said. “That’s what we do too. It’s all just ever been about letting people’s stories be heard.”
I’d heard this before from Jan, and Robert Redford and John Cooper and Jessica Buzzard and everyone else at the heart of Sundance. But I’d always understood “story” to mean the driving narrative of a film. The answer to “what’s it about?” But something about the way Jan said “story” at that moment broadened the meaning of the word for me. I realized it’s about people too, not just the final product they project onto a screen in a theater. It’s about what they’ve encountered, what they’ve overcome, what they’ve championed – the story of everything in their lives up till that very moment they realize what it is they will share with others. It’s about the people. Without the people, there is no opening title, much less the closing credits.
It’s specifically about the people who make each film, because each story we see or hear is an organic outcropping of that person’s life experience. But it’s also about the people who form the audience. The witnesses of the story’s existence and its ongoing life after the lights go up. They are the other side of the story relationship.
It’s that collaborative sense – of supporting this interplay of artist and audience and the stories that connect them, I realized, that is the essence of Sundance. That is unique. And that is the simple heart, the beginning of the STORYTIME story.
The middle of the story is about how we brought the idea to life. First we designed a clock that stylistically smashes past and future. It’s modern and outsized and rusty, and it’s set to 85 : 09, which isn’t so much a fixed “time” as it is the span of the Festival’s life so far. Along with its iconic purposes, the clock also acts as a functional portal to a few stories we tell with the help of some of the many people who have made Sundance special over the years. You can dive into the clock in each of the Festival trailers to be with Robert Redford, Steven Soderbergh, Gregg Araki, Morgan Spurlock, and others as they share a few of their Sundance stories together. You’ll see written excerpts in many of the printed materials. And you’ll see extended versions of all the STORYTIME storyteller’s contributions at sundance.org/festival. And beginning with the ten days of Sundance ’09, the Festival website will also offer you the opportunity to share your own Sundance stories. Because stories need an audience. But they also need tellers. And the Sundance story is always a work in progress. So get involved. And make sure this is one of those stories that never has an ending.
