A great session with Jim Reilly hosting and special guest Dan Chapman. Chicago was definitely in the house today with Russell Keating and Matt Tate and from California, Dean Pascarella and Gene Perry.

Lots of great information in this session about growing up with Emmett along with some great footage from the "Emmett" documentary - a must see.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlUyIizvrmM[/youtube]

Watched the whole thing very attentively! Bravo! Great meeting I wish I could have attended.

So THAT's what Free Hands Friday is. Now I understand.

Watched it ! Wow, it's so nice to know more about the man and his invention
I love this Free Hands Friday, it's a great way to experience more of the unique and warm community that we are !

Cheers,
Bas.

I'm honored to be asked as this week's FHF guest.

Google Hangouts definitely doesn't do justice to the clips and audio. This medium is so low rez and the music is so squeezed that it makes them hard to watch. But the ideas are there.

A couple clarifications:
When I say I dropped out of music school and became an artist, what I really meant is that I switched majors in college, from a music to art. The reason being that I couldn't read music very well. I felt I was so far behind all those music students who were classically trained to sight-read since childhood. So I switched to a subject that I had excelled at since I was a small child.

With the accordion picture of my three brothers, I described it as Emmett and three brothers. I meant two brothers, since I wasn't born yet in that picture or at the time of the accordion track.

After watching it, I realized I never answered Russell Keating's question about my goal for the film's end product. I am targeting a full release which includes everything from theatrical, broadcast, DVD to VOD/online.

I also regret not following through to play the segment entitled "To be or not to be?" that I had up on screen, which touches on a key point in the story. Featured in one of the clips is an interview of Diana Lange, his daughter, who is also shown briefly as young teen in a B&W pic with her sister Grace Chapman McCarty. I start off the clip with "Waking The Day" a song by Tom Griesgraber. And Kevin Keith is shown briefly playing in the Railboard clip.

Funny, we never mention Emmett by his full name, Emmett Chapman. I'm definitely too close to this project.

The hour went by very fast. I had so much more to show that I didn't have time to get to. A heartfelt thanks to Russell Keating, Matt Tate and Dean Pascarella for your insightful participation. So glad you were there. I'm so happy Jim Reilly could host it. No one mentioned that Jim played host despite having broken his collarbone playing hockey this week!!! Talk about pain. What a trouper! I'm very grateful.

This morning Yuta and I enjoyed every bit of yesterday's FHF show and it was great hearing portions of our past history when our career was getting started. Someone directly asked Dan how I might feel about the biographical film and Dan said, "That's a good question", as if he was somewhat puzzled himself. I'm here to say that it's a most rewarding experience personally for me and that I fully agree with Dan's ethic of keeping the documentary real and honest. I think we both share that trait in our own ways and it just makes the story that much more interesting.

I fully support his EC doc and also his abilities and intuitions as a film maker. I'm very happy that so many other Stick players are included. I'm always ready to provide whatever information, materials and personal video shoots that Dan might need. Otherwise, I can't touch it, neither financially, commercially, nor by any control over art or content. It's his work in progress and he told me from the start that he must be free of my influence and priorities in order to make it a genuine documentary for competition in film festivals and peer review journals, etc.

To my brother Dan, here's my note of gratitude from the heart (never from the wallet) for your first film work in progress.

Thanks Em. Of course you know how I feel.

That was Dean Pascarella's question and I'm so glad you answered it personally.