Our Kickstarter for THE SEER: A PORTRAIT OF WENDELL BERRY Launches
[Note: The film’s prerelease title was THE SEER. We changed it to LOOK & SEE prior to general distribution.]
Thank You for a Great First Day!
Our team is small, we work in relative obscurity and we don't have (or want!) "social media" people to do our talking. We want to keep you – our valued backers – up to date and to thank you for helping us bring this film to the public. Knowing that you love Wendell Berry enough to support our small film prompts us to want to do something broader with our backer updates. Instead of fixating on just raising the money, we want to keep the project updates brief and use this dialogue to actually share moments from our many years of working on THE SEER.
PROJECT UPDATE:
THE SEER is already at 20% of our goal. Whether you gave $1, $100 or $1,000, we sincerely thank you. It's especially cool to see how many people have responded to Wesley's wood engravings. We even have had someone opt for the 27" x 40" Letterpress Movie Poster level. This forces us to actually produce the full size print. It's going to be VERY complex, and frankly we are thrilled to undertake it. We will ensure that the process is documented as I imagine most of us will never again get a chance to see letterpress printing at that size. The thought of a giant, raised magnesium-cast enlargement of Wesley's engraving has us all excited. Wesley is excited too!
BEHIND THE SCENES: LARKSPUR PRESS
With so many of our rewards being letterpress prints, we thought our first Behind The Scenes update should be to from the inside of Larkspur Press. Helmed by Gray Zeitz of Monterrey Kentucky, Larkspur produces the majority of Wendell Berry's short-run poetry volumes and other pieces.
Gray perfectly summed up what he was about in an Lexington Herald-Leader interview, which notes:
Gray Zeitz thinks the best way to experience poetry is to hear it read aloud. The second-best way is the way Zeitz has presented it for 36 years: in hand-set type with woodcut illustrations, printed by letterpress on thick, creamy paper, hand-stitched and beautifully bound. “Everything else,” he said, “is downhill from there.”
VIDEOS
Sewing
This clip shows Larkspur's Leslie Shane hand-sewing sheets into a signature while cinematographer Lee Daniel films.
Checking the Chase
This clip shows Gray Zeitz checking to ensure everything is tight and smooth.
The Chandler & Price Press
Ever seen a C&P Press in motion? Its rhythms are downright hypnotic.
PHOTOS
Larkspur is a beautiful studio. Really loved the colors and palettes throughout. Just look at this. (iPhone photo quality notwithstanding)
MORE READING
Larkspur rightly has drawn their share of profiles. Here are some of the better ones.
THANKS AGAIN
There is a lot more where this came from. We thank each of you for supporting THE SEER and look forward to sharing much more in the coming weeks.
Best,
The Seer Crew