SongBirth is a documentary exploring the creation of songs, gathering perspectives from songwriters and composers of all genres from Italy, the UK, and the US. With an interesting visual style bringing together film and animation, it is both engaging and insightful and will be released in Summer 2014.Award winning director and creator of SongBirth, Simona Irrera, talked to us about what sounds like a groundbreaking project.
Q: Can you explain in detail what SongBirth is about?
A: SongBirth is a full feature documentary on the creation of songs… told by songwriters. It follows the journey of their minds also portrayed via metaphoric representations such as a woman that finds a flower in the desert, an emotionally locked young man who struggles to relate to his next, the creation in a dance choreography, the natural coupling. The mix of diverse though unified forms of art joins the songwriters’ storytelling. Above all, music, also from live performances; the soundtrack and the songwriter’ voices are the leading sound of this documentary.
Q: When did filming start and how far did you go find the musicians you had in mind?
A: Filming started this past summer 2013 in Los Angeles, I went on haunt wandering around in Venice beach, West Hollywood famous night clubs (The Viper Room, Whiskey a go go, The Roxy) and Music shops to reach and engage songwriters and musicians. The filming continued in London, UK, with the support of Sofarsounds. Songbirth features seven bands who performed at their event such as CHAMPS, Jake Isaac, Laish etc. We had the possibility to meet even more musicians and composers via Sofarsound and Fresh&Bold networks. Many others have joined in London, Rome, Milan to get to over thirty interviews!
Q: Is any of the material you filmed available online yet?
A: Our first trailer is online on youtube http://youtu.be/soIa5IAUJmQ Some of the live recordings of the soundtrack are available on soundcloud https://soundcloud.com/songbirth
Q: What’s next?
A: Next step is Nashville, the capital of songwriters! Where we have support by Rick Marino from 95.5-FM WSM, a local radio station.
Q: Who’s financing the project?
A: This project has been self-financed so far, it’s not associated with a TV channel, we plan to submit the film to festival and enter the circus of film marketing. We are raising money to finance the filming in Nashville, shooting the fiction and dance scenes as well as high quality post-production on Indiegogo at the following link: http://igg.me/at/songbirth/x/5411706.
