This is a video I made with Virna Splendore, who is a bellisima persona. We arranged a Skype interview on 7/17/10 from her rustic studio in Casaprota, in the hills above Rome to me in Los Angeles. I shot her also at the World Stick Concert in San Jose 2003. She is a rare human being and she plays a rare musical intrument, The Stick. She will be deeply missed. With much love lost so tragically and needlessly. — Dan Chapman
Hey! Check out the 4/27/11 podcast interview with Emmett, Tom Greisgraber (pronounced like nice neighbor) and myself hosted by Canadian, Eric Arthur. For those who don’t know, Tom Greisgraber is a phenominal Stick player. We are all discussing The Stick and my new DVD, STICK NIGHT LIVE. Lots of great Stick music. It will be up for 2 weeks and you can stream it, or download it if you prefer to listen on an mp3 player. It will actually air on the station Saturday morning 4/30/11, but most listeners choose to listen to shows on demand rather than actually listening to the live feed. After two weeks when this episode comes down, soon after the interview portion of the show will appear on the special events archive section of the site.
You can scroll midaway to go direct to the interview. Check it out here:
Here’s the link below to what was a live stream of last night’s concert at the Museum of Making Music. We captured some beautiful moments. If you don’t watch anything else, at least see the wonderful introduction at the beginning by the lovely museum director, Carolyn Grant. Also Tom and Emmett’s duet was brilliance. Alone worth the price of admission.
The museum set up to do the streaming, using a siingle SD DVX100, directly streaming the event live.
We shot separately with two cameras in beautiful HD for the documentary.
I’m not very good at making announcements am I? It’s happening tomorrow at 8pm in Carlsbad CA. I’m very excited to showing a 6minute work-in-progress preview of my documentary just before a question and answer session with Emmett and Tom Griesgraber, who are both performing. If you haven’t been to the MMM, go! It’s an amazing collection of the history of music very well-done. Check out their site.
STICK NIGHT LIVE. Check out the trailer up un YouTube. A collection of 9 top Stick artists performing on Emmett’s instrument. I’m very proud of the project. I produced and directed this 83 minute DVD using concert footage we shot for the documentary. It really gives you an idea what The Stick is. Shows how it can be played in any genre of music. It’s the best live performances from series of three concerts my son Dean and I shot. We put together this trailer for it.
Dean created the flying Stick motion graphic using a combination of Maya, Cinema 4D and After Effects. I have been encouraging him to work in motion graphics for a long time. He has a natural aptitude for it having been an obsessive gamer since a toddler. I’m proud that he’s picking up where I left off as a designer. I knew I’d never be able to devote the time to learn this stuff.. He regularly stays up late nights with tutorials. He pulled 4 all-nighters on this trailer alone.
He was originally intending to fully render the instrument, but the texture mapping would have put the render times into the stratosphere. It will happen next time tough. It will look like an actual Stick.
This is a documentary about my brother, who has been a role model for me all my life. Thousands of people in many countries have also been influenced and inspired by him. This film is a window into an unusual creative community. The Stick has been used by groups like Aerosmith, King Crimson, Santana, Dave Matthews Band, Peter Gabriel, Pink Floyd, Robbie Robertson, Paula Cole, Tangerine Dream, The Blue Man Group and Cirque du Soliel, among many more from around the planet.
– Dan
