Deep Access Documentaries: Year End Accomplishments, Updates, & Plans

Hello,

Welcome back to the Prairie-Ice Newsletter. To jog your memory, we’ve been developing two documentaries . . .

By the time both are finalized I will have spent 20-years immersed in extreme landscapes and intense cultures.   

Many are fascinated yet very few ever gain access to the landscapes of Antarctica or Native Cultures in their backyards.

The name Prairie-Ice represents both projects. But in 2017 we added the subtitle, “Deep Access” to reflect the source and motivation behind both films.

Developing before your eyes – Chronicled in the Director’s Blog: 

1:  The primary Documentary about an  Oglala Lakota Medicine Man explores his ancient culture and modern struggle to “live” an indigenous religion & spiritual ecology. 

2:   Deep Field Antarctica documents a 9 seasons experience of the most Remote & Isolated field camps in the world. 

In both cases, Prairie-Ice filmmakers maintained Deep Access for over a decade. 

On a personal level, the Director used both experiences to explore:

• Meaning in a Modern Civilizations,

• Spiritual Ecology, and

• Quantum Consciousness.

In 2018, this blog will become the release valve for many ancillary projects such as the “Ritual Poetry Project”, and “Thirty Years of Garbage in Nature”.

We will entangle a lifetime of poetry, essays, photography and video right here on this blog.

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So . . . . .

Look through the blog above for our history and insights.

Look below for last year’s accomplishments and next year’s plans.

And look around for the social media and Newsletter links of your choice.

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Looking Back – 2017

Salvatore Consalvi: Prairie-Ice Director-Producer

In 2017 we redefined the production vehicle for both documentaries. We are now “Prairie-Ice: Deep-Access Documentaries”.

The Prairie-Ice moniker always reflected both Landscapes & Cultures. But the new subtitle reflects commonalities between subjects and the motivation behind the filmmakers.

The first to be completed will be an  8-years investigation of an authentic, Lakota (Sioux) Medicine Man that led to 6-years engaged in his intense, often grueling, ceremonies.

The second sprang from 9-season in Antarctica documenting the most remote and isolated Deep-Field Camps on the planet.

Hit the Links for the many ways to follow our progress and

Look below to learn when you will be able to see the work.

https://www.facebook.com/documentaryinprogress/

 

LOOKING FORWARD – 2018

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Salvatore Consalvi
Director-Producer

Gross Edit: We’re going in hard in 2018 . . .

Without getting too personal, in 2017; we (I) consulted and Uber/Lyfted out of debt and raised enough for the “Gross-Edit” (Thanks to the Birthday Fundraiser).

This first/ gross edit is the director’s cut. from that conceptual edit we’ll develop a rough narrative. From there we polish, refine, and augment the narrative. We do the same for audio and ancillary visuals  . . . adding  animation if we can afford it.

It’s a very exciting time!

The Director will:
1]   Re-watch and relive all 70-hours of interviews.
2]   Assemble clips into a narrative structure.
3]   Reveal Ancient Wisdom & Modern Trauma.

We’ll organize the disparate concepts of native culture, spirituality, intergenerational trauma, and consciousness into 4 narratives resembling 4 prayer-rounds. In the first 4-chapters will become a journey around Sundance Tree. The next two chapters will represent the third demention; we will touch Grandmother Earth and reach up to Granthfather Sky in thanks. The last Chapter will look beyond to Wakan Tanka – The Great Mystery.

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Other Projects in 2018 :

 

1. A push to grow our social media family in preparation for . . .
2. A crowdfunding effort this spring or summer (IndiGoGo, perhaps Seed & Spark).
3. Continued efforts to self-fund the Rough/Gross Edit.
4. Completing the Gross Edit myself.
5. Fund the Rough Edit and
6. Assembling the team to execute the Rough & Final edits.

Yes, we have a lot on our plate . . .

Documentary Trailer: The Last Ghost Dancer
https://youtu.be/mayw3Q25ezo

Newsletter: Prairie-Ice – Deep Access Documentaries
http://eepurl.com/deBMWr

Website: Sidney Has No Horses – The Last Ghost Dancer 

http://sidneyhasnohorsesthemovie.com

Facebook – Prairie: The Last Ghost Dancer
http://facebook.com/documentaryinprogress

Facebook – Ice: Deep Field Antarctica           

https://facebook.com/deepfieldantarctica/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/DocHasNoHorse

 Prairie-Ice Deep Access Graphics

Adele Penguins, Humans, & Mt Erebus, Antarctica

 

UPDATE Prairie-Ice: Eight Years of Intense Interviews & The Content Database – A Taxonomy of the Human Experience

The Gross-Edit of 8-years of Interviews & The Design of the Prairie-Ice Content- Database & Taxonomy of Human Experience

This spring, Prairie-Ice Production entered a deep-state of self-organization:

1. Last year we added the Subtitle, “Deep Access” to reflect the intensity and motivation for both Prairie-Ice Documentaries.
2. We also reorganized financially and eliminated the debt that accumulated from 8-years of self-funded and in-kind production. Nearly 20 trips to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota.
3. And most importantly, we began the Rough/Gross Edit by watching and assembling the dozen or so interviews totaling nearly 50 hours.

In other words we are working full time on the Prairie documentary about Lakota (Sioux) Medicine Man, Sidney Hasnohorses; while preparing the Ice-Media for Deep Field Antarctica.

So we’re excited to turn our focus to the Rough-Edit of the documentary about Lakota Spiritual Ecology & Religious. And we continue the media-prep for six intense seasons in Deep Field Antarctica.

We’ll be posting teasers and relevant threads from both intense Cultures and Landscapes.

 

Fall Hunt

We Will Explain the Whiskey References Very Soon

 

Deep-States, Spring Cleaning, Rough Edits, & the Prairie-Ice: Content Taxonomy

This spring, Prairie-Ice Production entered a deep-state of self-organization. Last year we added the Subtitle, “Deep Access” to reflect the intensity and motivation for both Prairie-Ice Documentaries. We also reorganized financially and eliminated the debt that accumulated from 8-years of self-funded and in-kind production. Nearly 20 trips to the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota added up to quite a significant problem. Glad to be done with servicing that debt.

So this spring we are excited to turn our focus to the Rough-Edit of the documentary about Lakota Spiritual Ecology & Religious Identity (So Rough I’m calling this ‘Director’s’ Cut a Gross Edit). And the Documentary, Deep Field Antarctica, about Remote Field Work and Isolated Landscape meditations is never far from thought. The media-prep for six intense seasons is ongoing.

In other words it’s full time on the Prairie documentary about Lakota (Sioux) Medicine Man, Sidney Hasnohorses; while preparing the Ice-Media for Deep Field Antarctica.

We’ll be posting teasers and relevant threads from both intense Cultures and Landscape right here from both Deep Access Documentaries.

The process of organizing the media is proving to be a rich and intense experience all it’s own. The four-direction prayers, poetry, and essays that sprang from my attempt to “Live” an authentic, native religion will augment and tie the narrative together.

Journal entries on the rituals, ceremonies, and morning prayers will establish the motivation behind the 8-year-long immersion.

Reflections on life, humanity, trauma, ethnicity, ecology, quantum field theory, consciousness and the brutality of modern civilization . . . continue to surprise and inform.

The documentary narrative is revealing the interconnectivity of all living things in the language of oneness, wisdom-keepers, and quantum consciousness. In other words, the edit is becoming an experience of its own within oure space-time river of life and quantum consciousness.

Inevitably, before your eyes, all projects will self-organize on this Blog. A relational database of content  has been designed. This very site is becoming a taxonomy of potential human experiences organizing decades of creative and investigative projects. It will serve as the publishing engine for all future Prairie-Ice projects.

In short, the first documentary will portray the religious identity and spiritual ecology that led me to the grueling Lakota rituals and a deeper understanding of the tribal mind. The profound ceremonies still strong in the North American cultural landscape this attempt to live an ancient, natural religion became a Slow-Motion “Collision between Ancient & Modern Minds”.

So a “walk around the medicine wheel”  guided by and authentic Medicine Man is becoming an experiential documentary floating on the River-of-Life & quantum consciousness.

My thanks to Sidney Hasnohorses for overcoming his personal struggle and revealing the ancient medicine-wheel to this modern-mind; for preserving and guiding an ancient, Oglala Religion; and for putting up with a decade of incessant questions.

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Fall Hunt

Sidney Hasnohorses Hunting

Salvatore Stalking the Hunters

 

 

Deep Access Documentary – A Lakota Spiritual Odyssey

Eight-years ago, filmmakers were granted permission to complete a short film about traditional Lakota Medicine Man, Sidney Hasnohorses.

Inevitably, I (Director Salvatore Consalvi) asked to pay the Medicine Man, and his Ancestors, back in the traditional way.

So in year three of filming I went “on the hill” for a 2-day Vision Quest (Humbelechapi). I thanked the ancestors for the access, patience, and education I received from Sidney and the Wakpamni Lake Circle.  I tried to give thanks and “cry for a vision” in the same way a Lakota patient repays the spirit world for a cure or a Native family gives thanks for good fortune of another kind.

Being of European descent it was uncertain what the spirit world would ask of me, if acknowledging me at all.

I subsequently embarked on a four-year cycle of Vision Quest, Yuwipi Night Ceremonies, Sundance and Ghost Dances. In the first Sun Dance I gave flesh during the warrior round; in year two a celestial sign required I hang from the Ceremonial Tree; in year three I fell while giving flesh and broke my back. Year four I pulled the skulls.

Each year I felt honored to be allowed to participate and learn. Each year the act of giving flesh held more meaning. Each year I understood the process of being born human in deeper ways. Each year I understood the word , “consciousness” differently. And when put adjacent to the word, “quantum”, I understood that too.

The Last Ghost Dancer: The Interview that Sparked the Decade Long Documentary & Odyssey of Consciousness

Within hours of their first meeting, Oglala Lakota Medicine Man, Sidney Hasnohorses, divulged the ultimate nature of his beliefs to filmmaker Salvatore Consalvi: “We do not practice our religion, we live our religion.” Taking place between a smoldering fire and the willow frame of a sweat lodge, these extemporaneous conversations were honest, courageous, and riveting.

Yet the words themselves felt like echoes of native wisdom from the intentions of grandfathers like famed ceremonial chief Frank Fools Crow. “There is natural power, and spiritual power.” His teachings connected the interview that night to much older and deeper lessons. “Without spiritual power we tend to work for ourselves. Accomplishments may be outstanding, yet we tend to subordinate and misuse the rest of creation.”

This documentary reveals a powerful tension between the beauty of Native American traditions, and the harsh realities of modern reservation life. Our account will superimpose casual storytelling, formal interviews, landscape studies, and social awareness. Visual effects, animation, video and photographic studies will portray mystical rituals, remote healing, modern reservation life, intergenerational trauma, and daily routines.

The interviews and research includes rare insight into the beliefs and ancient rites critical to the survival of the Lakota. We learn that Sidney comes from a long lineage of Holy Men tasked by the Spirit World with passing the religion to future generations and to a modern world in dire need of native wisdom. However sacred ceremonies or private rituals were never invasively recorded, rather those events will be depicted creatively, on the emotional plane.

We are currently fundraising for post-production. Keep an eye on our progress here and all over social media.

 

 

Interview Clips from the Last Ghost Dancer

First Interview: Sidney Hasnohorses Introduction

Interview Clips: Peyote, Spiritual Doubt, Family Conflict, and Indigenous Way of Life

 

Interview Clips – Medicine Man: Consciousness in the Plant and Animal Nations

Interview Clips, Lakota Medicine Man: Spirit Travel and visitations from the World Behind his One

Interview Clips: Kitchen Table Talks – Hunting, Humor, & Hallucinogens

Interview Clips – Lakota Medicine Man Reveals both his Sordid and Profoundly Spiritual Past

Interview Clip : Professor Dale Stover on Lakota Religious Identity & cultural conflicts.

Interview Clips: Peyote, Spiritual Doubt, Family Conflict, and Indigenous Way of Life

From the Pine Ridge Reservation, to Kickstarter, & Antarctica: An Odyssey of Indie-Documentary Filmmaking.

What began as a character study of a complicated, mystical, Oglala Lakota Medicine Man became a “slow-motion collision between ancient and modern minds.” 

Six years ago the filmmakers were granted an  interview for a short educational film. We never thought it would leed to performing the Vision Quest and Sun Dance Ceremonies for four-years.

But the ancient rituals of suffering, prayer, and gratitude added several layers of depth and intensity to the overall experience,  becoming a six-year long exploration of an ancient religion surviving the modern age.

And Medicine Man, Sidney Hasnohorses, never spared the gory details about growing up in one of the poorest, most violent counties in the country. He was brutally honest about his own past, openly revealing character flaws and inter-generational trauma.

But this documentary was an unlikely occurrence, the director, Salvatore Consalvi, was hip deep in another documentary, Deep Field Antarctica, about the remote and isolated experience managing field camps in the highest, driest, loneliest place on earth. For a time, he entertained finishing both projects at once. Yet returning exhausted from a hot water drill camp on the glacier tongue of Pine Island Glacier to performing the most rigorous Lakota rituals that included fasting and traditional flesh offerings proved too much.

Now, the experience has progressed from the spiritual identity of one religious leader to a deeper understanding of mind and consciousness, one consistent with many earth-based religions, and translatable to many modern-minds. And the filmmakers are deep into a Kickstarter Campaign that will fund post-production and tell this story of Ancient Wisdom, Modern Torment, Quantum Consciousness, and a Link to the Spirit World.

Independent Documentary: Sidney Has No Horses Launches Kickstarter Campaign

What began as a character study of a complicated, mystical, Oglala Lakota Medicine Man became a “slow-motion collision between ancient and modern minds.” 

We did not anticipate getting a second interview let alone performing the Vision Quest and Sun Dance Ceremonies for 4-years.

But the ancient rituals of suffering, prayer, and gratitude added several layers of depth and intensity to the interviews;

becoming a six-year exploration of

an ancient religion surviving the modern age.

And as Sidney says in the following trailer, “Now it is time to share it with the world.” 

Or, in other words, “Now it is the time for the filmmakers to buckle down and tell this story.”

Much has happened since then, but the TRAILER still moves us after all these years.

 

And check out the entire Kickstarter Page

http://bit.ly/KickNoHorses

 

The Path to Documentary Filmmaking: Through Antarctica to the Pine Ridge Reservation

Looking for a way to thank my Ice Friends who became backers on the Sidney Has No Horses – Documentary in Progress, I found some compelling taglines and excerpts from treatments.

Tagline: Deep Field Antarctica

It is said that people who work in Antarctica do so at first for the adventure, second for their friends, third for the money, and; if they return for a fourth season; it’s because they no longer fit in anywhere else.

 

Siple Dome Camp is an aircraft skiway 500 nautical miles from McMurdo Station.

Crossing an Ice Shelf the size of France, two ice streams, and countless crevasse fields, a crew of three is left to spend four months on the apex of a 2000-foot dome of snow.

The monotony of white is broken only by what they place upon it; three yellow mountain tents, a military issue, green, canvass tent (Jamesway), and a 10,000 gallon fuel bladder. The sky becomes the visual world. Amazing streaks, hummocks, bulbs, or carpets of flowing cloud-forms engulf the camp and minds are quickly, yet subtly, and permanently altered.

The crews will fuel aircraft, make weather observations, battle storms, and drag a 2-mile long aircraft ski-way at 12 miles per hour for weeks on end.

They sleep inches from the ice, melt snow for water, and dig everything out of the incessantly drifting snow. Though harsh and monotonous, crewmembers find themselves increasingly attached to the landscape, the camp, and the deep-field experience often while growing deeply irritated by each other.

The raw, crisp footage captures the landscape, living conditions, work, and social interactions. Long, un-narrated windows into camp life will be thinly peppered with journal entries, poetry, personal observations, original music, and essays; revealing the deeper nature of the camp’s inhabitants and the deep-field experience.

http://bit.ly/KickNoHorses

Envisioning Indigenous Peoples Day in Chicago

Source: Envisioning Indigenous Peoples Day in Chicago