How The Film Came About

Road To Perseverance

How the film came about

	The film "SounDoctrine: The Road To Perseverance" began its journey with a beat. The film will be a finalist at 2004 Hollywood Black Film Festival in Hollywood June 22-28. 'Alternative Christian Funk,' Jere B¹s self titled description of his band¹s style was totally different from other CDs. It fused together a gospel sound with jamming characteristics of the 70's music period. Their CD " PERSEVERANCE" has sold well in his local area, online and especially through Borders Bookstores. SounDoctrine founder Jere B and Borders Bookstores decided to team up for a short tour with the band in the Northeast Ohio and Western Pennsylvania. The tour was called 'The Borders Blitz.' Jere B recalls, "It was really unexpected that the [Borders] area marketing managers would work so closely with an unknown group to make the scheduling come together as it did."
	"SounDoctrine: Road To Perseverance" began as a desire to capture a moment of not knowing what was going to happen during the 'Borders Blitz' tour. Jere B said "all I wanted from the start was to really document that the event happened!" Jere told Director Art Byrd about the opportunity the band had to play at the Borders cafes. Byrd recalls "I decided that I would shoot footage at two locations on the tour: Niles and Canton, Ohio, because I had other commitments at that time." In Niles, Ohio, the first stop of the tour, Byrd took his digital video (DV) camera and shot the band coming in the store with instruments, setting up and capturing the group¹s first night jitters.
	Byrd said "as the band was finishing setting up, I put a wireless microphone on Jere who was going into the cafe and introducing himself to people, talking about the band and why they were there." Byrd continues "I was picking up great audio whether Jere was near or far. He was greeting people who'd purchased the Soundoctrine CD but never met Jere or the band." No one knew what to expect. Byrd recalls "I kept shooting and the band got use to me shooting close without hindering their performance. Surprisingly, the digital camera I was using picked up picked up the band¹s sound great."
	As the tour progressed, the lineup would change with various vocalists and musicians. This made it a constant state of not knowing what to expect at each Border¹s stop. After shooting the two Borders concerts, and looking at the footage, Byrd decided that there was story behind music and wanted to explore it in a documentary film. Byrd says "I thought we could add another dimension to the documentary. I decided to conduct interviews with the band members." Most of the interviews were done in Jere¹s basement with different lighting setups. Another interview with saxophonist James Herod, Jr was done in his church at the time, Rising Star Baptist Church.
	Since SounDoctrine is rooted in Christianity, Byrd thought it would be interesting if the audience would see Jere B in his element at his church, the mighty New Bethel Church in Youngstown. At the church, he is an associate minister and plays the drums for the choir. The camera followed him as talked to fellow church members who asked how the tour was going. Jere is shown jamming out with the choir. Other interesting parts of the film are interviews with Rick Willmitch, associate producer and chief engineer and radio personality, Cornell Bodgan. Rick talks about the CD being story of a man¹s life referring to Jere¹s. Cornell tells the story of Soundoctrine opening for Bobby Blue Bland and Jere explaining to him what "Christian Funk" was.

The final element to the documentary was to hear from Jere B; his thoughts
about the success of the CD, how it came about and how God¹s influence kept
him going through the project¹s up and down.

Byrd says about the project "I learned about the dedication and talent of
musicians and singers that came together for a single focus to glorify god
and to make their music universal to everyone."

Jere talks about his reaction of the HBFF selection of RTP in its festival
" When he first shared his thoughts with me, I thought it was cool, but didnt
really put too much energy into it, partially because I don't understand
film festivals and partially because I thought we might get more mileage by
just releasing a DVD and selling it online. Boy, I¹m glad he didn¹t listen
to me! Now that its a contender, I¹m absolutely ecstatic!

Praise God for His Goodness!"