What I'm Hearing In My Head
Mr. Natural's Music School, madness,
and surviving San Francisco
What I'm Hearing in My Head | Mr. Natural's Music School, madness, and surviving San Francisco
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“Everybody has a higher purpose – mine was to teach music.”

– Mr. Natural

 

 

“Music is not out there – it’s in each of us.”

 

 

The film What I’m Hearing in My Head is a portrait of Mr. Natural, a San Francisco iconoclast who has developed a unique method to teach music. He arrived in San Francisco just before the ‘Summer of Love’ when the city was embracing free spirits arriving from all over the country. Over the years, Mr. Natural has struggled to share his methods through Mr. Natural’s Music School. His uncanny resemblance to the Mr. Natural character created by Robert Crumb has influenced his life and identity over the years, and this film captures the colorful and multifaceted life he has led in San Francisco. See a ‘teaser‘ of the film here, and stay tuned for more updates!

 

 

“Why would you go to school and just learn to read and not to write? It’s the same with music.”

– Mr. Natural

Asha Ghosh

Director/Producer

 
Asha Ghosh was inspired to make films to share stories of people she has met who are grappling with social change. Her portrait documentaries bring the audience into a unique space to share a few moments of an individual’s life. She is the Director/Co-Producer of the short Mr. Shanbag’s Shop, which premiered at the San Francisco Asian American Film Festival in 2010. The film also screened at the following festivals: Asian Film Festival of Dallas, Asian American International/New York and the San Francisco International South Asian Film Festival. Asha has been production assistant on two films produced by Urban Voice, based in Emeryville, CA. Crossroads in Nihonmachi (2007) describes the redevelopment of Japantown in San Francisco and Ingleside Presbyterian (2007) documents the role of a Minister and community leader at Ingleside Church in San Francisco.

Kathleen Dargis

Editor/Producer

 
Kathleen Dargis has been working within the media industry for over 20 years and has worked on a diverse selection of projects; from broadcast television to web-based video. With a personal interest in character driven portraits, she particularly focuses on documentaries, short films and non-profit profiles that capture unique, unheard voices with social issue themes. She co-produced and edited the character driven documentary short, Mr. Shanbag’s Shop, which premiered at the San Francisco International Asian American Film Festival and screened at numerous international film festivals, and edited and produced the character driven documentary short, What I’m Hearing In My Head. In addition, she has worked with Kurtis Productions editing documentaries for the History Channel, edited short form profiles for the San Francisco Foundation (directed by Citizen Film), edited the documentary museum profile for the Anderson Collection at Stanford University, as well as a series of short form projects for Stanford University and the Cantor Museum Arts Center.

Charlie Canfield

Illustrator/Animator

 
Charlie Canfield is a 4-time Emmy award-winning animator, designer, and director creating sequences for film, documentaries and ads for over 25 years, with an emphasis on digitally hand-drawn animation. He has won Northern CA Emmy’s for ‘best animation in a documentary’ for the films: The Bridge so Far (which also won for ‘best doc’); A Span in Time (which was also nominated for ‘best doc’ and ‘best on-air host’) and The Next Frontier: Engineering the Golden Age of Green (which also won for ‘best doc’). Recent projects have also been nominated for awards this year. His work ranges from drawings and paintings to computer graphics, special effects, and motion control camera shooting for employers such as Colossal Pictures, Wild Brain Inc, Industrial Light and Magic, Digital Kitchen, Mondo Media, MTV, Nickelodeon, Alpha Cine, and many independent filmmakers. He has also received awards, nominations and selections from The Addy’s, Ad Age, and from international film and animation festivals such as Ottawa, Zagreb, London, Melbourne, New Zealand, San Francisco, Sundance, Anima Mundi, and The world Animation Celebration.

Dan Cantrell

Composer

 
Accordionist/pianist/saw player Dan Cantrell is an Emmy winning composer known for his innovative and energetic approach to documentary film and television scoring. Dan received an Emmy Award for his scoring work on the PBS documentary Home Front and was the musical director for the PBS children’s series Mark Kistler’s Imagination Station. He most recently composed music for three seasons of The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack on Cartoon Network. He has scored over thirty films and has been awarded two Golden Gate awards from the San Francisco International Film Festival for his work on local films. Influenced by the music of Eastern Europe, Early American Jazz and modern alternative rock, his extensive scoring catalogue for film and television is described as “hauntingly beautiful…quirky and energetic” (SF Bay Guardian). Dan’s music spans a wide range of emotion and style, rich with virtuosic performance, lush acoustic orchestrations, sonic textures resonant with sound design, and strikingly innovative melodic themes. He can be heard on albums from Tom Waits, Joanna Newsom, the Toids, Beats Antique, as well as numerous self-produced albums. He was recently a featured soloist with the San Francisco Symphony, and has performed with the Oakland Symphony, Danny Elfman, Mike Marshall, members of the Klezmatics, Brave Old World, and Fishbone.

Tony Sondag

Cinematographer

 
Tony has worked in film since 2004 when he was in his final year at California College of the Arts, San Francisco, studying for his M.F.A. in sculpture, combining video and found objects for installation art. Upon graduation, Tony studied film at SF State in the Digital Video Intensive. Since then he has been Assistant to the Bridge School News Network Video Director in Hillsborough, California and Editor/ Camera Operator/ Associate Producer for Stern Grove Festival Association’s video podcasts in San Francisco. He was Co-Producer/ Co-Director/ Co-Editor/ Co-Director of Photography for Crossroads in Nihonmachi-The Struggle of An American Community (2007) produced by Urban Voice in Emeryville, California where he first met and collaborated with Asha.  Tony currently lives in The Pacific Northwest and is continuing to work in filming and photography.

What I’m Hearing in My Head is now available on Vimeo!

 

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What I’m Hearing in my Head — World Premiere!

 

 

Saturday, April 2nd 3:00pm — The New Parkway, Oakland CA.

 

Screens with the program Locally Grown Docs #3, a showcase of Bay Area documentary filmmakers.

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    Supporting Producer

     

    Roseanne Barr

     

    Sponsors

     

    Paul Zmudzinski

     

    Major Contributors

     

    Pam Brennan
    Ezra Daskal Hausman
    Kati Rooney
    Phil Surkis
    Tom White

     

    Major Supporters

     

    Aparna Ghosh
    Sasha Korellis
    Pippilina
    Akhilesh K. Sista
    Vinitha Watson

    Supporters

     

    Danny & Theresa Ames
    Gary-Paul Barbosa Prince
    Marjorie W. Barndt
    Donna Bennett
    Dimitri Carapanos
    Denys Carrillo
    Promita Chatterji
    Gary Coates
    Paola Coda Nunziante
    Douglas Comstock
    Genevieve Connors
    Andrew Cove
    Roseanne & Theodore Dargis
    Shaheen & Aditya Dayal
    Tom Disher
    Patty Domenickine & Scott Pease
    Matt Fuller, GRI
    Katie Galloway
    Teri & Steve Gamer
    Anna Ghosh
    Asish Ghosh
    Chris Gibbons
    George Goehl
    Mary Gribbin
    Sarah Gribbin
    Jodi Lynn Hanson
    Cea T. Hearth
    Kathryn Hempel
    Sarah Hill
    John Hiser
    Linda B. Horn
    Violet & Rita Lemley
    Eric Koziol
    Sri Devi & Arvind Krishnamoorthy
    Cheryl Magiera & John Dingfield
    Jane Hallin Mattson
    Lydia & Andrew Mays
    Adam Millard-Ball
    Erica Milsom
    Morgan Monet, Eyefull Tower Films
    Raman Narayanan
    Denise M. Nelson
    Julie & Ted Obbard
    Jim Passard
    Priti Radhakrishnan
    Lori Raimondo
    Larry Reed
    Amy Reisch
    Srabani Roy
    Ratna & Vivek Sarkar
    Garth Sayers
    Nikki Sayres
    Caroline Scruggs
    Kaitlin Shilling
    Shinu Singh
    Emily Steel
    Stephen H. Stein
    Jennifer Tait
    John Truckenbrod, RADAR STUDIOS
    Jim Welte
    John Douglas White
    Joe Winston
    John V. Winterhalter
    Danaa Zellers
    Highwire Coffee Roasters
    Yani

     

    Friends

     

    Nayna Agrawal
    Mark Augustine
    Jennifer Bagheri
    Eleanor Beaton
    Cindy Betz
    Jerry Blumenthal
    Chris Bourke
    Tuni Chatterji & Clay Dean
    Srila Chatterji
    Jenny Chu
    Rhonda Collins
    Alexandra Corwin
    Lindsay Criss McCollum
    Kathleen Dargis
    Grace De Mari
    Carole Dean
    Peter deKramer
    Richard DuCasse
    Teri Duff
    Michael Flodin
    David Fortney
    Ian Gardiner
    Anna Ghosh
    Barnali Ghosh
    Lauren Golik
    Joe Grossman
    Allison Grote Gerlach
    Lynn Haight
    Brooke Hobbie
    Samara Hull
    Susie Idzik
    Britton Jackson
    Julie Kahn
    Ami Kanani
    Sharon Karp
    Alexandra Lacey
    Lucia & Steve Larson
    Jeri Lawson
    Jude Leak
    Madeline Marschak
    Lee McLaughlin
    Steve Morrison
    Kristine Novotny
    Oliver Petzold
    Rich Remsberg
    Paula Richards
    Irene Rohrs
    Memory Elena
    Mario Savioni
    Kimberley Sevcik
    Lisa Simonson
    Melissa Sterne
    Beth Strever
    Eric Sullivan
    Karen Sutton
    Minda Tayam
    Melissa Taylor
    Mustafa Vahanvaty
    Sarah Wan
    Debbie Wei Mullin
    Winnie Wong
    James Zellers

     

    © 2024 What I'm Hearing In My Head.

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