|
SPONSORS
|
About the DocumentaryA Synchronistic Story of the Making of Return of the Magi From Kelly Lee Phipps: (Born Feb 5th 1971@3:14AM in Jackson MS) Ever since Neptune aligned with my Aquarian Sun in 2005, I've been podcasting the Cosmic Weather and working with video. It all started when a client offered to trade me a $500 DV camera in trade for three readings for him, his wife, and their baby son. Next thing you know I'm experimenting with video and doing these wacky Youtube videos of the early version of the Cosmic Weather. I signed up for a filmmaking class with an award-winning filmmaker in Asheville and his main advice was to get the camera out of the bag and shoot video! Then I started making a film using miniature figures about a fantasy novel I wrote set in another world I call Thandoria. Then I made a video about my son who often reads his poetry at open-mic night with me in downtown Asheville, ever since he was five. His name is Arian Brazenwood and my first film is about him, called the Web of Life. Next thing you know, I applied to be an extra in a local Asheville film production, and got to rub shoulders with trained professionals! Under my third Jupiter Return, Jupiter conjuncted my natal Jupiter, Neptune, and Mars in the first degrees of Sag in my 12th house, and I sat down to meditate on how I wanted to spend the next twelve years of growth. It was during that free writing session in December of 2006, that the vision came to make the Return of the Magi! I had been watching the Secret and I bought my very own cork board for pinning things to that I wanted to manifest, and I pinned a $4,000 dollar HDV video camera to the board. My friend and fellow filmmaker/podcaster, Tamurile, of Canada, inspired me to go for it in a phone conversation one night! Within a few months I had the camera along with 13K of extra equipment needed to make a film, and I started practicing being a filmmaker! At the NCGR Baltimore conference in March, I began a journey of many amazing steps, with a vision to create a documentary about authentic astrology on the order of "What the Bleep Do We Know" and "The Secret". The vision of the film came to me in December on the day of my third Jupiter Return, as I've said before. After the conference I had 19 hours of HD video interviews with astrologers and stock footage for the film, and on my drive through Virginia back to Asheville NC, the title of the film came to me: "Return of the Magi: A Documentary of Astrology." I was already scheduled to speak at the revolutionary Blast Astrology conference in Sedona AZ, and Moses Siregar heard that I was making a film and hired me to also film the lectures at the Blast, and it was certainly a Blast on all accounts. I got 30 hours of lectures and 20 more hours of interviews for the movie! When I started editing the film, I realized my computer was not fast enough to handle the HD footage, and with $20,000 invested in the film, I had run out of money and credit. But Jupiter was crossing my Sag Ascendant, and I wasn't about to give up hope. This was going to be a film by astrologers for astrology, a statement to the world about our beloved, misunderstood profession. So I asked the listeners of my weekly podcast, CosmicWeather.com, if anyone would care to make a donation to help with the film. One of my clients who listens to the podcast and that I had done mail order voice-recorded chart interpretations for from Alaska the previous three years, emailed me and asked, "How much do you need?" I sent her an itemized email asking for a total of $16,060! On April 17th, she sent me an email with these simple breathtaking lines: "Wow, I wasn't planning on spending that much, but you know what they say: You get what you give! I'll Fed-ex you a check for 17,000 tomorrow!" You can imagine the exciting dance I did while my 12 year old son and wife were eating breakfast that morning at 7 AM. With the new infusion of cash I decided on the spur of the moment, that I'd head up to NORWAC, to get some more interviews and stock footage recorded, and the trip was amazing. I even found an astrological mandala inscribed on the ground at the gas works park! When I got home from Seattle, I had convinced my friend Peter Roth, an astrologer and software-developer, to play a role in the movie. He flew to Asheville two weeks later so we could begin shooting the storyline dramatic elements of the film about a woman in her early twenties facing the Uranian and Saturn squares, and rising out of the ashes of crisis to discover her destiny through astrology. That was an amazing film education! Working with actors is a lot harder than sittiing down and conducting an interview! The twenty-five books I had read on filmmaking and the experts I asked, and the classes I took, and the Asheville film I worked for, all gave the same wise advice. "Want to learn to be a filmmaker? Just go make a film!" Then I decided to head to my first OPA retreat to get a few more interviews and I synchronistically ran into astrologer, Jozef Slanda, who happened to be coming to Asheville in a few weeks, and who happened to be having his Chiron Return and Saturn crossing his Ascendant the same minute in time that Jupiter was re-crossing my Ascendant.and who was an amazing musician looking for a project to pour his art into. Jozef went back to Detroit last week, after we worked on the music together obsessively 'till 8 in the morning, and he recorded the theme song for Return of the Magi at a studio in town! I spent the week crafting the first trailer for the movie and putting together a quickie website to get the word out. I got an email from my donor after she saw the trailer and she loved it. She said it was 100 times better than what she expected! The board of UAC voted and I've teamed up with the AYA (Association of Young Astrologers) to have the premier screening of the film during their party night on Sunday at UAC. I'm still steeped in over my head in post-production editing, but I'm excited about showing this film, and our sacred language of astrology, to the world! You can order a pre-release copy of the DVD on the website at a whopping $10 discount! If you want to attend the premier, you can also purchase a ticket online or at my UAC booth in the trade show! Please check out the trailer on the website, or on MyspaceTV or Youtube, and spread the word. In the modern world film has become the new parable, and if we as astrologers want to show the world what we're all about, I think film will be the fastest and most expressive avenue. Thank You for sharing this journey! |
