Sound Spring is a 78-minute experimental nonfiction, performative docudrama, as well as a historical documentary that uses music to tell the history of Yellow Springs. To be specific, the movie delves into the village’s relationship with race through the lens of personal anecdotes from the residents and quotes from significant figures who had lived there. I sat down for a virtual chat with director Catalina Jordan Alvarez on her unique storytelling style, her interviewees, and more
Film Fugitives: How did you come up with the idea for Sound Spring and how did it evolve over the course of making the film?
Catalina Jordan Alvarez: I was living in Yellow Springs, Ohio because I’d moved there to teach at Antioch College in 2018, in the Fall. And it was a really fascinating place. There were these empty majestic buildings because in Antioch’s heyday in the 1970s, there were 2,500 students and the greatest artists in the United States went through there, either on tour or visiting artists, Cecil Taylor, Janice Joplin played there, Tony Conrad taught there, just to name a few. And it had this incredible history, as a progressive and experimental university. And parallel to that history was the history of Yellow Springs, this beautiful walkable village that—unlike many other villages in the United States—was diverse and was not just White folks when you went to a bar. And then you learned that there were residents who traced their ancestors back many years, that people were keeping track of their history, and Tecumseh—the great Shawnee warrior—was from nearby, and lo and behold, even Dave Chapelle, uh, lived there. So.. I am a filmmaker, and I wanted to make a film, and I wanted to get to know the villagers. So Sound Spring was my way of getting to know this town and its history.
FF: How did you come across the interviewees of your film and how did you shape the narrative according to their stories?
Catalina: So I had a concept for how I would make this film, which was to begin with audio interviews: long audio interviews where I had nothing to do but listen very carefully, not interrupting the interviewee, as they told a story. Letting them talk freely, like a therapist. I was doing therapy at the time, and I think I wanted to reverse that role of therapist and patient. A History Professor at Antioch—Kevin McGruder—gave me some ideas for how to find interviewees who had some personal connection to the history of the village. He had a few specific ideas and he suggested that I attend the 365 Project meeting and introduce myself. The 365 Project promotes African-American history 365 days a year. I found other interviewees through personal connections. I interviewed about twelve people and I explained to each of them that there would be an optional second step, but it was sort of vague about what that would be. But I knew that the audio interviews would then become—not only material for the script—but the actual audio of the dialogue, and I knew that the visual aspect of the film would be completely composed or choreographed. Whereas the audio would be completely honest, real, like in an interview, like this interview I’m doing right now and the way I speak naturally. And I thought that would make a really interesting tension and be one of the central keys to the film—the way that people speak, the way that they tell stories. From those twelve interviews, I chose eight to create into the actual film script.
FF: How much did you know about Yellow Springs prior to making the film and what were some of the most startling revelations that you came across through the interviews?
Catalina: I had a little bit of knowledge about Yellow Springs, but it deepened as I conducted interviews and learned more about the community’s history. Some of the biggest revelations included connections to notable figures like Coretta Scott King and Tecumseh.
FF: What was the process of fine-tuning the unique editing and sound design style of the film? How much of that was pre-planned and how much of it did you discover during the post-production phase?
Catalina: Later on, in post-production, I had meetings at the Wexner Center for the Arts, where I had a Fellowship— it’s called the Film/Video Studio Program, it’s an amazing opportunity. There was the COVID pandemic lockdown, so it was actually a virtual residency in the end. But they would spend a lot of time with me and I realized a few things through conversations with them: One is that I needed to shoot more material to really give the viewer a better sense of the village, even though I had already done almost all the interviews. And there was one interview that I felt I was missing, addressing the indigenous history of Ohio. There are no federally recognized tribes or reservations left in Ohio today, because of the Ohio Trail of Tears. Sound was always central to Sound Spring, and we had these original audio interviews that were going to be the dialogue and they were going to be lip-synced or somehow performed by each interviewee. Not every interviewee performed their visual scene—Sumayah Chappelle and Rukiya Robertson performed Jalyn Roe’s interview. I knew that each chapter might have a different version of what this performance could look like: so in the case of Sumayah and Ru, we had many rehearsals. But many people didn’t have that much time or didn’t have acting experience. So in order to accurately lip sync, they had to listen to the line that they were going to say over and over again on loop during filming. And I knew that some of that (the looping itself) might be interesting material to leave in the final film. I knew that it might be interesting to see what the line looks like out of its context, to create poetry from repetition, and I also knew that it could be interesting to sometimes hear the lines coming out of a computer speaker, along with the performer speaking along with it. So with every chapter I was experimenting a little bit with the sound. And because the sound was so important to the film, the music composition was incredibly important and I had the privilege to work with Ohio-born composer Anthony Vine, through a generous grant from the Johnstone Foundation for New Music. And Anthony was one of the most generous listeners and collaborators I’ve worked with. He made the sounds of the film—environmental sounds, any sounds that were in the film—he made these a part of his score. He asked the instrumentalists involved to play along to something specific in the film’s sound, to tune their instrument to it and so on. And that was the material that he used for the soundtrack, in a sense mirroring the process I used with my interviewees, who—through lip sync or speaking along—performed their previously recorded audio interviews.
FF: Were there any moments, scenes, or conversations that were tough to crack?
Catalina: I got the feedback from my mentor that one of the histories I was depicting (through one interviewee’s story) was too one-sided. And I was a little reluctant, because telling a complete story from all perspectives wasn’t the point. But I did end up shooting another scene, to address this feedback. The scene continued to be tricky, because it wasn’t part of the original script.
FF: Are there any scenes that you really wanted to put into the film but had to be left on the cutting room floor for the sake of narrative?
Catalina: The final sequence, Talon Silverhorn’s chapter, was originally 17 minutes long. After watching it at Unorthodocs (the Wexner Center for the Art’s festival of documentary art), I cut it down to 5 minutes, with the talented Editor/Filmmaker Emily Packer.
FF: What are the films that have influenced Sound Spring?
Catalina: A year before beginning to shoot Sound Spring, I had attended the Flaherty Seminar, and there I encountered filmmakers who inspired me. Especially the performative documentaries of Zelimir Zilnik and the experimental films of Christopher Harris—his film Halimufack also used lip-sync. Also the films of Kitso Lynn Lelliott.
FF: What are the movies or filmmakers, documentary or otherwise, who have influenced your filmmaking style?
Catalina: There are too many to name in terms of movies/filmmakers. But the choreographic aspects of my films stem from my Colombian background, which is a very dance-centric culture, and my training in physical theater. My undergraduate degree was in experimental theatre (NYU Tisch).
FF: Are there any Ohio-centric documentaries and films that you want to recommend to us?
Catalina: Yellow Springs is such an incredible place because so many incredible people live there, including some of the best documentarians in history. One of them is Anne Bohlen, who is in Sound Spring. She taught Michael Moore how to make films and her film, With Babies and Banners: Story of the Women’s Emergency Brigade (1979), was nominated for an Academy Award. But in terms of films that are themselves Ohio-Centric, I would have to say the incredible film, American Factory, by legendary Yellow Springs filmmakers, Julia Reichert and Steve Bognar.
FF: What overall thoughts or opinions would you want the viewers to walk away with after watching Sound Spring?
Catalina: I hope they are moved to look up the specifics of the American histories that each interviewee mentions. The interviewees in Sound Spring are Karen McKee, Paul Graham, Rose Pelzl, Charles Arthur Williams, Shane Creepingbear, Anne Bohlen, Donna Denman, Jalyn Roe & Talon Silverhorn. The performers include Elias Kelley, Sumayah Chappelle and Rukiya Robertson.
