Over the coming months we’ll use this page to update you on how things are coming along with the film and where to catch a screening when we have a first edit ready to go. We’ll often post these updates on our Facebook fan page and you can follow along on Twitter.
Who’s making this film, anyway?
The people making the film include director Lee Schneider, founder of DocuCinema, a filmmaker and director of non-fiction media, documentaries and plays. Also involved in the project are producer Gabrielle Savari; cinematographers Kevin McCafferty and Richard Neill, both longtime collaborators with Lee Schneider on various film projects; and a team of actors, some famous, some soon-to-be-famous; a director of photography or two; and some on-camera experts who have personal stories of chance events to tell.
Since we’re approaching the questions of chance, karma, destiny and fate from many viewpoints, our on-camera experts come from many disciplines. We’re including those who are looking at life from a scientific/statistical perspective, from a Buddhist perspective, a Christian perspective and others.
And there’s also you. We’re going to choose a story from among the many submitted to this website and film it as part of the movie.
The first step for us is to put together a trailer. The Incredible Power of Chance Events is a hybrid: a blend of non-fiction documentary and dramatic re-creation, with actors playing out real events. The production photo below shows Lee Schneider directing Mark Richert in a scene at Portland’s KBOO radio station.
photo credit: Andrea Johnson
We started production on September 9, 2009 in New York by interviewing Robert Thurman, the first American Buddhist monk. We talked about karma. He told us that the date (09-09-09) was an auspicious one to begin a film. A few weeks later we spent a morning in New York with statistics expert Kaiser Fung, author of the book Numbers Rule Your World. We talked about the chances of improbable things happening and workout out some misconceptions about what randomness really is. (What are the chances, in a gathering of thirty people, of two of them having the same birthday? You’ll have to watch the trailer to find out.) That same afternoon in NYC we filmed an interview with popular author SQuire Rushnell. He told stories of amazing coincidences in life. He calls these events GODWINKS, and examples of his stories can be found on Belief.net.
photo credit: Gabrielle Saveri
Then, in early November 2009 we flew the crew up to Portland, connected with a production team put together by Picture This, and hit the streets to get footage of rolling tires. (See photo, right.)
It sounds a little crazy, but the rolling tires are part of a true story told by radio newsman and DJ John Erickson.
photo credit: Andrea Johnson
Every time John changed jobs during his long career as a radio guy he saw a tire or wheel rim rolling free in the street. What are the chances of that? We put that question to a couple of statistics experts and will have some answers for you. We’ll also try to figure out what those rolling tires mean.
In early 2010 we’ll be scheduling interviews with others who have agreed to be in the film, including Acumen Fund founder and author Jacqueline Novogratz, Professor Richard Wiseman, author of The Luck Factor, Lama Surya Das, author of The Mind is Mightier than the Sword, and a few other surprises.
Right here on the Chance Happens site you can vote on the stories you’d like to see in the film and also help us pick out our dream cast.
