The Creative Filmmaking Process

Part 2: Independent filmmaker, Deborah Koons Garcia talks about her latest film Symphony of the Soil, and how she brings together animation, watercolor images, and original music to provide a better understanding about soil, and draw the audience closer to nature.

Garcia believes that people are naturally interested in how things work. Despite this inherent curiosity, there’s an artistry involved in the filmmaking process, for a film to successfully engage an audience on a deeper, emotional level.

There’s a certain majesty that occurs throughout Symphony of the Soil, reminiscent at times, of a very different film, Dances With Wolves. The wide-open landscapes, the emotional grandeur of the music, there’s also a wistful connection to an earlier human period, when the Native Americans and the buffalos roamed free, living in harmony with nature.

This film is exceptional, not only for the quality of information that is provided by the many different experts in the movie, but for the way in which all the individual elements are assembled into a coherent story. Symphony of the Soil transports the viewer to another world, and to return—armed with more knowledge, and maybe even, a little more humanity.

Not bad, for a film about the soil.