Exploring Legacy, Art, and Community Through Film and Music: The newportFILM Premiere of "John Shearer: American Moments"

This episode dives into the multi-layered world of documentary filmmaking, community building, and artistic legacy, with a special focus on the upcoming world premiere of John Shearer American Moments. We explore how film, music, photography, and community spaces intertwine to create immersive cultural experiences that honor history and inspire future generations.

Key topics

• How Newport Film creates a "third space" for community engagement through multi-platform events
• The significance of John Shearer's photography legacy and its artistic reinterpretation
• Jim Spione's approach to combining documentary storytelling with visual arts and music
• Alison Shearer's journey in composing era-specific music for the film
• The role of multi-sensory experiences in storytelling and community building
• Highlights of the upcoming film premiere at Rough Point and its cultural significance
• The generational legacy within the arts through storytelling, photography, and music

Transcript

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SPEAKER_01 0:00

Well, uh, thanks for for having us on today. Uh I'm Jim Spion. Um I've been a documentary filmmaker for about twenty-five years, and um very excited to be coming to uh Newport Film with uh my latest, which is called John Shearer American Moments. And Allison?

SPEAKER_00 0:19

Hi, I'm Alison Shear. I am a uh musician, a saxophone player, flute player, a composer. Um delighted to be here. Thanks for having us. Uh and I've been working with Jim. I did I did the soundtrack for uh American Moments.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Jim, who is Josh Shear? I wasn't familiar either, and he was my neighbor for many years, but um we lived in the same little lake community in Upper Westchester here in New York, and uh I heard he was a photographer, uh, and I'd heard he was a Life magazine photographer, which which uh piqued my interest because of course I remember Life magazine from when I was a kid, just a huge cultural sort of central media publication. Uh half of America got got Life magazine. And so he was a staff photographer there, as well as with Look Magazine uh before that. Um it wasn't until I actually saw his photographs that I realized, oh my God, this guy was an amazing talent, and really his work needs to be known and seen by a wider audience than it was. Um so he um was active in the 60s and 70s at a very young age. He was hired at while still a teenager to work at Look magazine, and uh, and then he was at Life magazine on staff by the time he was 20 years old. So it was really it's quite an extraordinary uh story of this like very early rise and and someone at the center of the pictorial magazine uh culture in America, and that was a really central um kind of way that America viewed itself and and John was on the inside of that. Uh and he also was in the wrong place at the wrong time because the publishing industry really collapsed in the early 70s, and um the life magazine folded just as a couple years after he got there. So that's that's the omnal sketch of his story.

Bill Bartholomew 2:22

Yeah, and of course, uh captured some of the most iconic moments of the civil rights movement and beyond. Allison, in addition to your musical prowess, you're also connected to the story in a very familiar way.

SPEAKER_00 2:43

Yeah. Uh and it was, you know, it's so it's been an honor to work with Jim on this film and uh you know, to have a story like this out in the world. And and Jim did such a great job, I think, capturing my dad's energy and and telling, you know, I sort of see American moments as the first part of his story. And and you know, I love that title also. It's like he captured such important uh landmark events from Martin Luther King Jr. Jr.'s funeral, John F. Kennedy's funeral, um the fight of the century, you know, lots of lots of important moments. And as Jim mentioned, he life folded when he was in his early when he was in his mid-20s. And uh, you know, there's a lot else that he did in his life, but this this film captures, you know, that period uh which was quite historic.

Bill Bartholomew 3:31

All right, before we get into some of some more detail and how we kind of how how you got here, Jim, into this work on a specific level. The world premiere of this film is Thursday, July 30th, and it's going to be right here in our own community in Rhode Island. It'll be hosted by Newport Film as part of the Outdoor Summer Documentary Series, and this will be at Rough Point. It's an amazing environment. And again, that that third space, that ecosystem that Newport Film curates so beautifully, will be on full display here. This is a particularly novel event because it's a world premiere of a film, and it's also been curated by Newport Jazz AD Nate Smith. And that that is uh in in part, there will be some of John's Prints inside of Rough Point. And then Allison, you're gonna be opening up the event with your quartet at Rough Point. So this is an all-encompassing event. So bridging all of these different worlds, the film, the the your music, Allison, and obviously the prints themselves on exhibition, why does this kind of all-encompassing multi-platform event uh come, why did it come together and why does it feel like the right way to open up this film to the world?

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Jim, do you want to take that?

SPEAKER_01 4:43

Um sure. I mean, um, yeah, this is just kind of a a dream come true in a sense, because Allison and I and the team were discussing this six, seven months ago. Like we wanted to bring this film out to the world in a different way. Uh, that wouldn't just be a film screening. Uh, I thought Allison doing the soundtrack was really an integral part of the the film. And obviously the photographs are so important to the film, so important to the film. And so we thought we were talking from the beginning of like, wouldn't it be great if you could have a multimedia kind of immersive experience with Allison's band and the photographs themselves and the film as well. Uh, and so this all kind of came together in like the perfect location. I mean, it's just really exciting um to be at Rough Point. Yeah. Uh that gorgeous um estate. And uh it's I just think it's gonna be a really beautiful uh evening.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Yeah, for for me, it's it's it'll be highly it'll be really emotional. You know, I as I mentioned, you know, I'm a I'm a professional musician and I I very much have my own career um alongside my father. You know, I I tour all over the world and I'm I'll be playing with my quartet on the 30th, and I play with I have the pleasure of playing with lots of groups. And uh this will be the first time I think that I'm sort of sharing the stage with my dad, so to speak. You know, we're gonna premiere this beautiful film of gyms that I got to have a a hand in helping with the music. And um, you know, one of the things that Nate, Nate Smith, who is like a hero of mine, um the fact that he's involved is like kind of a a dream come true for me. I I really revere him. And uh I think what sparked his interest in the in the project was this idea of sort of a gener generational legacy. Um my grandfather, Ted Shear, was a a cartoonist um who had a a strip called Quincy that was one of the one of the first, not the first, but one of the first nationally syndicated cartoons depicting a black family. And then you have my dad, uh, you know, this wonderful photographer, and now I'm a musician in the world. And so it's exciting and humbling and exciting to sort of share the stage, so to speak, with my dad for for what will be uh a wonderful event. And Nate Nate will also lead a Q ⁇ A with uh with Jim and myself after the film is screened.

Bill Bartholomew 7:05

Yeah, the the tie-in with Newport Jazz, certainly not coincidental, obviously aesthetically, thematically, just an organic, like duh. It's like an obvious fit right there. So it works really well.

SPEAKER_00 9:42

I don't know that they that there has Nate was saying that I don't know that there's been a true partnership like this. I could be wrong, but for them to come together is yeah, it's it's it's big. It's it's uh it's really exciting.

Bill Bartholomew 9:53

Yeah, absolutely. It's uh it's worthy of a multi-institutional front, so to speak, here. Jim, when you look at this project or in your overall work, how does when when when you're documenting someone, obviously in a different component of uh the work that you do, not the identical medium, but in theory, in a sense, uh somebody who serves as a mirror to the outside world. That's the work that you do, in fact, that you did on this film. How has this film inspired your work? How has how has John inspired your work?

SPEAKER_01 10:22

Yeah, it's it's very much on a continuum. Um, of course, I related right away because I trained as a photographer before I got the filmmaking bug. Uh I was uh in fine arts and a and a visual arts major in in college uh and a photography major. So um so I right away related to that and to the sort of artisanal way John worked. I mean, he was a little older than me, but I also worked in negatives and dark rooms and black and white, and and so could relate to it actually directly in that way. Um But you're right, it's that it's that um being a witness to something, uh recording uh moments and history, uh, but then also um working on those in a way, fashioning something artistic out of that. Uh and in John's work in particular, I found so fascinating because he took a lot of these kind of reportage uh photos from the 60s and 70s, and then later on in his career reworked them in a in a much more like artistic manner. So these these gorgeous, deep, dark, rich prints um, would not have appeared that way in Life magazine. They would have been kind of these grayish, you know, old magazine prints.

SPEAKER_00 11:36

I didn't even know that until the other day when Jimmy Yeah, he did something really extraordinary with them.

SPEAKER_01 11:41

And so they kind of also kind of sit in that on that space between just recording something and then interpreting it and making uh art out of it. And so uh yeah, all of that is just um very much what documentary is about. So uh I was really pleased to um to to make a film about an artist and especially someone who is um so talented and I think underrecognized as as Mr. Shearer. Alison, similar question. Oh please.

SPEAKER_00 12:10

Yeah, sorry to interrupt, but uh yeah, what what's what's uh also I think really special about what Jim made, you know, a lot of the footage well, all of the footage of my dad speaking in the film was was captured at the very end of his life. He passed away just months after after Jim finished the final interviews. And so it's this very tender, you know, to my eye it can be hard because he's he's sick in the you know, he he appears to me as as a you know, he's he's dying of cancer, although he looks you I don't know that that that ever that people would know that when seeing it, but it's this very intimate, tender footage of someone really looking back in a in a way that um and you know my my father's the only person who speaks in the in the documentary, so it's very much like a memoir of sorts. And I think Jim did a really, really lovely job and took a you know, that's an interesting artistic choice to have it just be that one person's voice. Um and I think, you know, it captures that energy of of deep reflection and yeah, it's really it's really powerful.

Bill Bartholomew 13:17

And Allison, how is w when you see that film, does it how does it impact the work that you do through music?

SPEAKER_00 13:25

Um I will say it you know, it it was an interesting process for me because I mo most of my career is you know, I I compose music that's based on, you know, maybe a an a bit of nostalgia or or but not uh written to picture. So working with Jim and and creating, you know, period specific tracks was was new for me. Um and it was fun. You know, it was uh and it, yeah, I don't know, yeah, it was just a new experience. And um I'm grateful we got to do it.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Well, I should return the compliment because thank you for those very good sweet words, Alison. But um yeah, one of the amazing things about Allison's work is in the span of 20 minutes in the film, you go from kind of a 1940s, 30s, even 40s style all the way up through 50s, 60s into 70s kind of funk tinged blues rock. Uh, so she was able to create like just going from genre to genre really um really um deftly. And um uh I I I suppose she had to tolerate me giving her uh direction and sort of how I envisioned or heard things. We worked a lot with like stretch tracks and we listened to other um other artists from these different time periods, but then she came up with something that was really completely original and um and recorded with just an amazing uh group of musicians.

Bill Bartholomew 14:54

I'm super psyched to hear it and experience it in in real time. Um folks should head to Newportfilm.com for full details. And uh as always, uh we thank Newport Film for what they've added in terms of value. I've we were talking about a gym offline. I just want to say it again because it's that time of year where the folk and jazz festivals are about to start and uh film Newport film has been happening. And you know, I love I lived in Newport for a couple years, other than Providence is basically the same place right now. You know, if it was New York, it would be just like, I don't know, six train stops away, but it feels like a different world. But one of the best parts about living in Newport was the vocabulary of the community was just higher, way higher than most places I had lived outside of the city or even inclusive of the city, because people attend and they're exposed to even if indirectly um, you know, the the the artists or the films that come through the city. And so somebody who might ordinarily be wearing a sports team hat may have like a Kamasi Washington hat on or something like that. And it just goes one notch deeper. And that's all it takes sometimes to build a little bit more community and create these third spaces, but you have to have the organic gold mine goods to bring people together. And so I I thank both of you because you're contributing to our community up here by creating art of that magnitude. So thank you.

SPEAKER_01 16:10

Well, thank you. That was very kind of you discovering. We're really pleased that he had us on today.

SPEAKER_00 16:16

Yeah, thank you. Yeah, and I hope I hope you can come on the 30th.

SPEAKER_01 16:20

I'll be there, yeah, for sure. Newportfilm.com.