Our Story
The Script:
The initial idea for Connected just fell into my head one day - instant download. I’d recently moved to Philadelphia and kept in touch with friends and family via email, cell phone and Skype. I didn’t even have a landline. Then a video I’d made, called 21 Accents, suddenly went “viral”, getting millions of views worldwide. I started connecting to people around the world whom I’d never met, who were inspired by this little piece of video shot in my kitchen... Then I’d call my Mom & Dad, whom I love, and be completely frustrated trying to communicate through a delayed cell phone signal.
I started thinking about the effectiveness of our myriad forms of communication technology - when it makes me feel incredibly connected to the world, and when it feels like an actual barrier that makes it harder to know how clearly I’m communicating.
My dear friend and incredible Script Advisor, Marilee Jolin, and I wrote Connected in the Spring of 2008. We started when she was living in China and I was still in Philly and we’d Skype and email our initial ideas in spastic, impassioned pleonasms. We both felt like the story of the Russel family already existed. Like we were just peeking in the windows of their house, rubbing the fog away so we could see more clearly and describe what we saw as truthfully as possible.
Production Companies:
Together with Marilee and my business-savvy Manager, Sander Kallshian, we formed SoulFire Films*, LLC, to co-produce the film with a veteran production company. I contacted the Executive Producer of a prod. co. in San Diego, who had approached me previously for one of their films. He read it and suggested that I direct it, which instantly felt right. They had a Green Light Study done to test its projected marketability, and the film was Green-Lit (projected to do quite well!). They proposed a co-production together with SoulFire Films.
Thus began the process of procuring private investors in a downward-spiraling economy. It has always been important to us that the funds come from wonderful people who believe in the film and aren’t just looking to make money at the expense of the project’s integrity. We longed to find a way for everyone who believes in the project to help us fund the film, whatever their current income situation.
The Connected Revolution:
One day, a woman suggested we accept dollar donations online. We realized we could make a film about Connecting by Connecting to people around the world. We’d be simultaneously making the film and demonstrating the collective power of uniting many gifts, fueled by the soulfire of a global community.
This fit in perfectly with our goal to create an empowering community website where anyone can make a page about a project fueled by their own soulfire, and gain awareness and even funding in this way. We founded SoulFireProject.com with that eventual goal. Later, we realized that it would be more effective to consolidate our efforts and simplify our message until Connected is in a theatre near you. Then we can use proceeds from the film to help others realize their soulfire dreams!
– Amy Walker, Co-Founder of SoulFire Films, unLtd.