Hope Springs Eternal

Monday, January 12th, 2009
Lennie Appelquist Lennie Appelquist Lennie Appelquist
Lennie Appelquist Hope Springs Eternal Lennie Appelquist
Lennie Appelquist Lennie Appelquist Lennie Appelquist

Sometimes you (me) get really lucky. We have magical experiences that, if we pay attention to, will transform us in ways we would never guess.

What started out as another production job turned into something much bigger, more personal than I ever imagined.

Let’s start at the beginning… I get a call for a job with Director Jesse Dylan (yup, Bob’s son, Jakob’s brother). The job is an industrial, kind of in house video for Oprah Winfrey’s O.W.N (her new network). It will be a series of interviews with real people and some “celebrities” in and around the San Francisco area.

Now we all know what Oprah’s about. She is full of Love, compassion, integrity… all she really wants is to do her part to make the world a little better. Cool agenda, if you ask me.

Interviews… cool, I’ve done tons of those (especially with Director Errol Morris). No logistical nightmares that I must figure out, just interviews… Kind of an AD’s dream. Well we did have 4 location moves on day one… with new interviewees reporting to each location.

The logistics, or the equipment ( 1 kinoflow when we had power and the RED Camera) aren’t the interesting part of the story really. It’s what these people kept saying… The common theme.

“It feels like there has been a shift of consciousness…” That’s what I kept hearing. People are hopeful. The economy sucks, people are losing their jobs and homes, yet they are hopeful.

Maybe it’s that we now have an opportunity to move past the fears induced by the last 8 years. Fear of Terrorism. Fear of people who are middle eastern. FEAR, FEAR, FEAR…

Maybe there is truly a shift of consciousness going on. Maybe we as a family, community, country, world want something more. More love, less hate. Less fear, less anger, less greed… More goodness… Why is it that in school the good kids get ridiculed… “Teacher’s Pet”, “Goody 2 shoes”? It should be cool to be good, to do right. Wouldn’t that make our corner of the world just a tad better?

What if we lived everyday with just a bit more grace…

a bit more respect….

a lot more love…

Human connection, making a conscious choice to connect, loving more, being more present. These are all choices. We have choices nearly every moment of our day, I for one, am choosing to to make more conscious choices. Because I choose to be part of this “shift”… See you there.