Spotlight: Coyote Motel & Nashville trio’s cinematic watermark is THE RIVER

by Screenmancer Music

With Award Season over for 2022, seed projects lay the groundwork for creatives looking forward to the next round of film festivals and trophies. That said, Screenmancer Spotlights the Arts and Business Council of Greater Nashville’s “The River: A Journey in Storytelling Music, Light and Dance” from Filmmaker Ted Drozodowski.

Guitarist Drozdowski is a frontman and veteran music journalist now based in Nashville who, with the Business Council, is developing “a songwriter’s distinctly American narrative about life, history, and myth told in a stunning, expansive union of music, movement, and visuals,” that focuses on “three great rivers of the South: the Mississippi, the Cumberland, and the Tallahatchie.”

This is THE RIVER & an invitation for you

We had a chance to ask Ted about his new film project made up of “11 songs” where viewers will “meet the hopeful and the lost; drifters, grifters and miners; juke jointer revelers, levee camp workers and ghosts; and, eventually, even ourselves.”

This journey of self-and-other discovery is presented by The River Arts Collaborative. Specifically, this Collaborative brings together 15 Nashville-based artists from different artist disciplines: Ted’s band Coyote Motel, visual light artists Darling Lucifer Productions, aerial dancers known as the Suspended Gravity Circus, and Parlor Films. All four groups are synched up to “create a performance film experience in storytelling, songs, light, and dance.”

Here’s Coyote Motel’s Ted Drozdowski in his own words about THE RIVER

“The title of The River, and the entire work, was inspired by a song I recorded for the 2016 Scissormen (his other band) album, Love & Life. It’s kind of a ghost story, inspired by a lonely stop along old Highway 4 south of Holly Springs, Mississippi, where muddy water slowly ripples under an old, rusted railroad bridge.

Watching the water from the bridge one night, under a gauzy moon, got me thinking about the ghosts in the water and the other elements all around us. And I wrote the song. I’ve always felt the song was special and evocative.

As years passed, I started to think about it as a key to a story or a connection to other songs of mine. Kind of a foundational thing.

And in recent years, I’ve been collaborating with all of the artists and their groups for various musical and dance events, so it made sense to try to pull all of that–and especially this amazing group of 15 talented Nashville artists in these varied disciplines that are currently in my circle—together into something bigger.

I selected the songs for a large performance piece—which, in the age of COVID [from which he recovered last year], it makes sense to make as a film, although not a straight up performance film—and wrote the script that connects all the songs via a series of stories and anecdotes. So it becomes a narrative —with me as guitar-slinging narrator—driven experience in music, sound, light and storytelling that explores the lives and lore of the people and places along three great rivers of the American South: the Mississippi, the Tallahatchie and the Cumberland.”

Arts and Business Council of Greater Nashville made all this happen…

“In 2015, I was part of a pilot program aimed at making artists economically self-sufficient here in Nashville called Periscope. It’s a cooperative venture of the Entrepreneur Center and the Mayor’s office. I became aware of the Arts and Business Council of Greater Nashville via Periscope, and have stayed in touch with ABC ever since. They do good things for artists!

When I mentioned this project to Jonathan Harwell-Dye, ABC’s director of programs, he brought up applying for ABC’s FIscal Sponsorship program along with his interest in the project.

And the idea of being able to solicit tax-deductible contributions under their 501(c)3 status was appealing, so we worked through the complicated process. It involved procuring insurance for a film, which was a whole ‘nother world for me, as a total novice in movies. Maybe the most challenging but fascinating part was putting together the budget.”

“Still Among the Living” video features all the players

“We had to do the math on time/location/cost for everything from recording to finding and scouting a location with a roof high enough and beams strong enough to support aerial dancers. Covid testing, craft service … all of that.

I know there are people in the film business who do this every day, but I ain’t one of them.”

Ted adds, “our current line-up (a quintet) is me on guitar and vocals and whatever else needs to get done, Sean Zywick on bass and ambient sounds, Kyra Curenton on drums, Luella (only one name, like Bowie!) on vocals, second guitar and tambourine) and Laurie Hoffma (go Laurie!) and Theremin and glockenspiel. It’s the first time Laurie and I have been in a band together since the mid-’90s, and that’s a lot of fun.”

– Ted Drozdowski, Nashville, TN

For info about Arts and Business Council of Greater Nashville, find more here.

Visit here to listen and to support The River. 

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