For the first time, Field Notes, a brand best known for its special pocket-sized journals and other stationery dry goods, is bringing its indie short films to the big screen. As it takes over Music Box’s main theater on Monday, June 23rd, the one-day-only festival expands our understanding of the intentionality behind each special, quarterly notebook.
On a Monday morning, I sat with Field Notes Co-founder Jim Coudal at the Field Notes HQ in what was once Chicago’s industrial and meatpacking district, the West Loop. The space continues to harness the simplicity and care-of-craft of blue-collar work. Producing a straightforward, intentional product aligns well with Field Notes’s ethos: supplying people, mostly creative individuals, with tangible tools for their self-archival practices.
In 2007, Coudal and fellow co-founder Aaron Darplin began Field Notes as a hobby that quickly scaled into much more. Since beginning its quarterly filmmaking in 2009, Field Notes has produced over 50 shorts, and about 25 to 30 of the films will be showcased during the festival. At one point, Coudal shared that someone “accused us of creating our quarterly edition notebooks as a means just to make movies.” In truth, there have been editions where the theme is born from the concept of the movie they set out to make; this reciprocal, symbiotic relationship between these two modes of making is what fuels their creative fire and transparency in sharing their process along the way.
Some of the titles included are “East is East and West is West,” which accompanies a 2018 edition, and “A Man You Don’t Meet Every Day,” a mini-documentary that tells the story of Rex Brasher, a prominent pioneer of bird paintings. A notable aspect of the films previewed is the feeling that there is so much more to them than what we see on the final screen–Coudal confirmed that most of the short films were spliced down from hours of footage captured. Although the upcoming festival will mainly showcase shorts under 10 minutes, Field Notes has also dabbled in long-form filmmaking. Despite the continuous call for everyone and every company to generate social media content, Field Notes never shoots vertically; sticking to widescreen aspect ratios is integral to remaining true to the medium and their craft.
The familiar scores and stunning sets should not be misconstrued as big-budget productions. With a small production team and strong connections to its community, Field Notes, like many filmmakers, knows how to deploy scrappy tactics, which adds to the authenticity of the films and the brand. While the Field Notes team is not new to hosting in-person gatherings to celebrate their work, the film festival is a formal leap into highlighting its commitment to keeping other analog art forms alive. With the resurgence in popularity of night outs to the cinema, the festival’s timing is crucial in amplifying creative intersectional support.
Audiences have a natural desire to peek behind the scenes and understand how and why something was created; many great movies are memorable because they accurately and empathetically convey the process of creation. During our chat, it was inspiring to experience Coudal pulling past seasonal journals off the store’s shelf to tell its story with nuanced details of how it came to be. Amidst these controversial times, in which the pursuit of the American Dream grows murkier, the Field Notes films and the story of each notebook remind us of the desires that keep care in our hearts, for the well-being of our land and our neighbors.
In addition to an array of shorts, attendees can expect special guests and other surprises. To commemorate the inaugural (and likely only) festival, ticket holders will also receive a very special Music Box edition 2-pack of journals, individually hand letter-pressed and adorned with a cute cinematic camera. A memento that generously and strategically keeps festival-goers engaged even after they leave the theater, further spreading the Field Notes motto, “I’m not writing it down to remember it later, I’m writing it down to remember it now.”
