Project Description

The Nashville 9 is a nine-day multimedia project that featured four friends—a songwriter, a director, an actor, and a utility man—gathering stories from citizens in Nashville, Tennessee, and using those stories as the basis for a nine-song album and a nine-scene short film.

This unique undertaking centered on a 24-hour cycle that consisted of collecting several stories, selecting one, and writing and producing one song and one scene based on that story. Over the course of the project, which took place Nov. 1-9, 2008, nine different Nashville artists and producers recorded the written songs as Nashville actors and crew filmed the scripted scenes in nine different Music City locations.

The short film and album premiered March 19, 2009, at the Belcourt Theatre in Nashville.

The entire process, from pre-production meetings to the premiere, was filmed for a documentary feature.

The video to the right is a 10-minute introduction to the The Nashville 9. For more details on the project, visit the Extras section of the Film page to view two "Nashville 9 in a Nutshell" featurettes that focus on a single day in the life of the music and film crews and demonstrate exactly how the project worked. The album that resulted from this project is available for purchase on iTunes and cdbaby.com. The short film can be viewed for free online.

Purpose

To express the idea that any given community (Nashville, TN) at any given time (November 1-9, 2008) relates a specific and unique story through its people, traditions, architecture, geography, and culture. And that the possibilities for this story are numerous and varied, contingent upon the factors of choice and chance.

Everyone involved in the Nashville 9 is a part of the project for different reasons. To one it’s the challenge of discovering what might be achieved; to another it’s the forcing of art in directions it may never have gone otherwise; and to yet another it’s simply the chance to be a part of something special.

As a city, Nashville is unique in its strong focus on collaboration. The Nashville 9 demonstrates that a community, thriving both culturally and professionally, is defined by its ability to recognize a need for collaboration, and in turn, its ability to implement a working atmosphere in which all components strive for a common goal.

We hope to create a network of friends and collaborators who, through the contribution of their talents and skills, are paid back ten-fold in their growth as artists and members of their community. We will find the story in a city, and in so doing, the story in ourselves.