The We Are Superior Story
By Sarah Mayne
Sometimes I just want to help people to find their voice. To help them see that there is power in their story. To do them justice in telling their story.
I was moved to help my community tell their story. Not a story dictated by outsiders with lame Internet lists based on skewed data and misrepresented facts. A real story about who we, the people of this community, are.
About a month ago, I met with a wonderful community leader who confided in me that our community needed to feel like they could be proud of who we are. It really struck home with me that people needed to hear that message that we are in fact Superior.
“To help them see that there is power in their story. To do them justice in telling their story.”
It all made perfect sense. We are what we think we are right? Of course there is all of this amazing work and progress happening…but no one was celebrating it. Instead our community social media pages were filling up with posts about what “others” thought of us.
I’d seen enough.
I’ve been making videos for many years, but usually for smaller targeted projects. I wanted to tell the story of the Superior that I know. It seemed strange at first. “Hey, I’m making a video and it’s just about how cool we are…” The very next question from those who didn’t have the vision to understand what it was “Why would you do that?”
I had some people insinuate that my motives must be ulterior and that this was likely about self-gain. I learned I needed to be careful who I shared my vision with until it was ready to go to bat against any negativity that might try to buck something so inspiring, candid, and true.
I decided that my next project would be a video piece of art- a tribute to the people of Superior. I knew I couldn’t do it on my own, so I brainstormed a list of potential narrators for the project. Ultimately, I could think of no one better than Kalee Hermanson and Craig Sutherland. Both are active members of the community focused on giving back. Their love for this community is genuine and that is exactly what I wanted to share with the world.
Kalee was actually riding out a Hurricane in Florida when I contacted her and she said yes without hesitation. She was able to rope in Craig -who was all in from the start. Over the first few weeks, we brainstormed ideas for locations and shots that we wanted to use to capture the essence of Superior.
We made Red Mug our home-base for planning meetings. We also put many hours in online at night after our day jobs were over, slinging ideas back and forth. We also learned that we had too many ideas and that we will need to make more videos in the future to capture them all…
Filming at the Fire Ring in Billings Park (originally referred to as the “Ninth Ward”). Nevermind my sweatpants. I spent the pre-dawn hours sitting in the cold to capture a timelapse sunrise. Filming is not glamorous work…
The script was written in one night after a week of engaging and inspiring community events. We worked through 7-8 different cuts of the video before it became what it is today.
We set-up a make-shift audio studio in some space that the Spirit Room was able to arrange for us and we recorded 90 minutes of audio to achieve the 3 and 1/2 minutes you hear on the video.
An amazing thing happened when I approached businesses and community members about being in the video. Not only did they agree, but they celebrated the project and what we were doing.
I came across Randy “The Guitar Guy” at Barker’s Island playing his guitar just as you see in the opening of the video. When I asked his permission to be filmed, he said, “Absolutely. I’d love to share my gift with others.”
Me too Randy. Me too.
#WEARESUPERIOR
