Since 2007, West Kelowna filmmaker Jason Woodford has been shooting video, conducting interviews and doing research to tell the story of rock and roll legend Keith Emerson.
Now, six years later, Woodford is nearing completion of the production phase of Emerson: Pictures of an Exhibitionist.
“It’s been a long project; it’s been a labour of love, really,” said Woodford.
Woodford first got involved with the project after reading Emerson’s autobiography in 2005. Woodford was able to connect with Emerson at a gig shortly after—it helped that his father went to school with the famous keyboardist in England.
Woodford told Emerson of his desire to turn the autobiography into a documentary.
“I took down a short film I’d shot in the Okanagan…he watched it at some point during the tour and loved it. We started shooting in 2007.”
So far Woodford has shot over 80 hours worth of footage ranging from interviews about Emerson’s early life to details of his rockstar lifestyle.
“Kelowna has been the location for some of the elements in the documentary. We had Keith come down to Kelowna on a couple of occasions.”
Woodford is now looking to raise funds to get the local film crew down to Kentucky to document Emerson receiving a lifetime achievement award from the Orchestra Kentucky Sept. 17.
He said that event will likely make a “nice ending to the film.”
There are just over three days left on Woodford’s Indiegogo campaign—which can be found by searching Emerson: Pictures of an Exhibitionist pt. 2 on indiegogo.com—and the filmmaker is still a few thousand dollars short of his $6,000 fundraising goal.
Woodford is hoping to have the first cut of the documentary completed this winter.
For more information about the documentary, visit progrockdoc.com.
wpaterson@kelownacapnews.com
Twitter: @PatersonWade
