Interview

Stuart: Andrea, how did you first hear about the 1000 Journals Project?

Andrea: In the Fall of 2003, I had suddenly lost the financing for a feature film I was in the middle of producing, and was discouraged and idle.  I wrote a lot, and had time on my hands to browse the Internet. One early morning, I came across a small posting somewhere which said, “Someguy sent out 1000 blank journals into the world…” and I thought: wow! What an amazing thing to do! The post continued with the report on one of these journals returning.  I clicked all available links and started to research.  And how about you?

Film title art by LindA Zacks from the documentary "1000 Journals" by Andrea Kreuzhage. Photo © andrea-k productions, Inc.

Stuart: I saw it mentioned online somewhere, back in 2002, so I visited the 1000 Journals website and immediately saw something of great value.  I thought it was one of the most significant and innovative sociological experiments in recent history.  Think about it—each journal potentially criss-crosses the globe, with people of all walks of life adding their ideas, scribblings, rants, drawings, personal effects.  I once told you that I would like to be present when they all came together in a show.  I imagined the room vibrating with the collective input of humanity that the journals would encompass.

For the longest time there were no journals available and I began to worry about ever obtaining one.  I wrote to Maria Noain, a young woman in northern Spain, who was in line to receive one and asked if there was any way that I could contribute to hers.  Finally, Journal 973 became available, so I signed up and eventually received it.  I also signed up my wife, sister, mother, and a good friend to receive journals as they became available.  My wife, Joanne Warfield, did finally get one (#987) as did our friend, Maxine Martell, an amazing artist in Washington State.

Boris Drenec adds to a journal in Marseille, France; film still from "1000 Journals" by Andrea Kreuzhage. Photo © andrea-k productions, Inc.

Stuart: What were the circumstances in which you had that “Aha!” moment when you just knew you had to make a film about it?

Andrea: I soon realized that as fanatic as people were about joining the 1000 Journals Project, the risk of it going away and under was huge: The internet was growing and changing and other social networking sites appeared, and many wanted to participate in the next hot thing.  Also, spam and identity theft started and as a result, many people changed their email addresses and handles and didn’t update existing profiles.  People are on the move, especially in America, both on- and offline.  I felt I had to act “now.” The story of 1000 Journals had to be told, and the sooner I started investigating and hunting, the better.

Andrea: I know you featured the project in your arts magazine, TheScreamOnline, so when was your “Aha!” moment when you knew you had to do so?

Stuart: It happened when I received my journal in the mail.  It was quite a momentous feeling to open the package and hold the actual journal for the first time.  By then the project had become quite legendary, and the prospects of getting a journal were slim.  Part of the process is to scan the pages and send them to Someguy before sending the journal on to the next person.  As a result, his 1000journals.com website accumulated a lot of material, and so I contacted him about doing an art feature on the project, and I mined his site quite extensively for images of pages that had been sent in from people around the world.

I mentioned Maria earlier.  She and I have become pen pals, and I learned that she is an archaeologist, so I encouraged her to write an article with pictures about some of her digs for the magazine.  It’s been interesting to see how the Journals Project has brought people together in different ways.

Video: Film title sequence by LindA Zacks

Andrea: Didn’t you also feature the Brooklyn artist LindA Zacks in your magazine? We interviewed her for the film, because she had designed one of the Journal covers, and ended up hiring her for the film’s title art. Which was a dream come true—making this film from within, with people who had contributed to the Journals Project.

Stuart: Yes, I had featured LindA’s work in TheScreamOnline in January 2004, so it was an immense pleasure to see her connected to the film. I love how that works… and whether we know it yet or not, we are all connected!

Andrea: I think all of us did what we could to help keep the Project alive.  In fact, you took “the rules” very seriously as far as passing on your Journal 973 was concerned, and didn’t allow it to stray, not even in your own household.

Stuart: Well, that’s a funny thing.  It really didn’t occur to me to offer mine to Joanne, since I knew she had one on the way…  eventually.  Actually, hers came from Zihan Loo in Singapore.  Mine came from a girl named Sammy in Fayetteville, Arkansas. I was the fourth person on the list, and once I added my pages I then sent it to Allie in Loudonville, NY.  According to Someguy’s website, it was last seen in Durham, Maine.  Joanne’s journal, on the other hand, was actually the catalyst for this film and is featured quite prominently—I think it also was part of the show at San Francisco’s MOMA.  At the end of 2003 you had learned that it was in town, so you called us to ask to see it.  Joanne had been feeling guilty about keeping it for so long, but she had extenuating circumstances… her mother dying, for example.  So you showed up with cinematographer Ralph Kaechele and filmed interviews with both of us.  I think you may have taken the journal with you, or at least you did end up with it after Joanne was finished with it.  But it was during that initial meeting that you learned that I am a composer, so one thing led to another….

Self portrait & Chinese-character stamps, two pages from Journal 973, by Stuart Balcomb.

Andrea: What did you and Joanne think when I showed up in your house with the plan to make a film about 1000 Journals, even though only two of the journals were alive and accounted for—#987 in your house and #526 in Someguy’s possession?

Stuart: In spite of the fact that anyone who goes into documentary filmmaking has got to be totally nuts, we both thought that it was an extremely worthy project.  We were thrilled that you had chosen to grab this particular tiger by the tail.

Stuart: You aren’t in the film as an interviewer or any kind of an identifiable presence.  Please explain what drove the style, your approach.

Andrea: When I started to think about telling the 1000 Journals story in a film (rather than a book), I wrote treatments for two very different approaches: The first was the story of my investigation, first person singular. A detective story about tracking down 999 missing journals and their keepers.  The other and very different approach was for a film without the all-knowing voice of a narrator.  Echoing an artist who calls himself “Someguy,” the identity of me, the filmmaker, was far less relevant than what the journals themselves could say.  My goal was to go for a story where no one outside the Journals Project speaks, where no one knows more than the journals know.

As to the score, at first I wanted us to experiment with a translation of the 1000 Journals journaling process: going online to find a journal, Someguy’s inspiration from graffiti, and street art, mixed media and collage work found in the journals.

Stuart: Yes, you told me that you loved the idea of visceral, everyday sounds woven into the music, and I began writing a somewhat “muscular” theme‚ sorta “in the streets of San Francisco”-type of feel.  I put in a motorcycle sound with a revving engine, and believe it or not, a road crew showed up in my back alley and started using a jackhammer, so I grabbed a digital recorder and held it over the backyard wall, and I used that sound in the initial main theme.  You and I even experimented with a modem sound, a fax machine, all sorts of things.

Andrea: But then the movie started to grow its own “voice,” and we were developing more cinematic themes.

Stuart: You sent me some music from Massive Attack that you liked, so I changed the instrumentation to guitar harmonics, piano, and percussion to create the theme we now have.

Andrea: And we were on the same page in that we didn’t want to score the film wall to wall.

Stuart: Yes, especially for a documentary.  There’s nothing worse than trying to hear what’s being said over some boring, droning music that has nothing to do with the scene.  In 1000 Journals, we hear the Main Title theme when appropriate, for scenes that show the process and that identify with the main theme.  All other music was written for “source material,” music that you’d expect to hear in the coffee shop, or on the street by the accordion player, or in the ballroom—that’s all me.  If the viewer starts to listen to the music for the music’s sake, then the filmmaker has failed.  Music should either enhance the dramatic effect or be there because you know that music is being played (on the radio, in a concert, etc.).  A documentary is a different animal, but still should somewhat follow the same rules.

Stuart: Andrea, the film has been in many festivals around the world and is now out on DVD.  What are your plans for its future?

Andrea: I’m very excited about the implementation of collaborative journaling in schools, museums, community projects, even hospitals, and more, and I try to show examples and connect these projects via the 1000 Journals Extension network.  I feel this film is a commitment to the community that made it possible, and don’t want to withdraw.  But I’m working on a few new ideas for documentaries as well….

Someguy is cutting a journal cover in San Francisco, CA; film still from "1000 Journals" by Andrea Kreuzhage. Photo © andrea-k productions, Inc.

Stuart: Are there any particular memorable moments from the festivals?

Andrea: The World and International Premieres, at the Los Angeles AFI Fest and Berlin International Film Festival respectively, were both very emotional events for me. A couple of festival screenings ended with a surprise: In Indianapolis and in San Francisco, journals resurfaced during the Q&A sessions.  Shannon, from Indianapolis, came out with Journal 832, and Erin, from S.F., with Journal 270.  Both had had their journals since 2001, and both were brought back to life right away and passed on.  You attended the Port Townsend (Washington State) Film Festival in my stead and did Q&A sessions after the two screenings. How did that go?

Stuart: The film was very favorably received. Many people had good, intelligent questions, so it was nice to see that the film connected with the audience.  I told them that a journal had surfaced at the screening in Indianapolis, and I asked if anyone happened to have one in the audience.  That brought a big laugh, but I could also hear a collective gasp at the prospect that there could be one there.  So, most of the people had not heard of the Project, but in only 90 minutes the film created a sense of magnitude about it that was interesting to see.  So, hat’s off to you, Andrea!

Andrea: Stuart, you’re in the middle of making a documentary yourself now. Describe….

Stuart: It’s really Joanne’s project.  The film is about Silvia Nakkach, an amazingly ethereal singer from Argentina whose voice transcends anything I’ve heard.  She has a school in the San Francisco Bay area called Vox Mundi, and one in Rio de Janeiro, so we travelled to Rio, Buenos Aires, and San Francisco to gather some preliminary footage for the film.  Yes, I know, we are completely insane!

[Stuart's latest film score is "Mythic Journeys," which won the Audience Spotlight Award at LA's Dances With
Films festival in June 2009. Links: DVD and soundtrack and trailer.]