Catherine Clinch’s Media Grazing: The Spirit Is Willing

You know you’ve said it to yourself a thousand times. It’s a great weapon in the toolbox that enables us to manage the endless rounds of rejection we all face in Hollywood. “Great spirits have always encountered violent opposition from mediocre minds.” When Albert Einstein uttered those words, he empowered us all to self-identify as great spirits. But what, exactly, is required of one to achieve the designation with authenticity?

Rob Fried fits easily into the category. In the first chapters of his career, Fried earned an MBA from Columbia University following an undergraduate degree from Cornell. He jumped onto the studio executive fast track and served as President of Savoy Pictures, Executive Vice President of Columbia Pictures and as an Executive at Orion. He produced and/or executive produced “Collateral,” “Rudy,” “Godzilla,” “Man of the Year,” “Boondock Saints,” and many others. Then, his career got interesting.

It’s possible the Oscar that he (and Seth Winston) won in 1992 for “Session Man,” a dramatic short subject, inspired Fried to give greater thought to the short film as an effective medium to reach people. After marrying actress Nancy Travis and having two sons, Fried longed for a different existence that was more satisfying and peaceful. So he shifted his creative energies from long form to the short and redirected his career toward the challenge of uplifting the daily experience of your life. He launched www.SpiritClips.com and began to both produce and curate inspirational short films that encourage you to “watch, feel and share.”

“You’re on a treadmill as a producer,” Fried explains. “It becomes difficult to express yourself.” Acknowledging the fact that “the whole project is sort of a rebellious move in itself,” Fried doesn’t care what people in the industry think about what he is doing. “What I really care about is making Spirit Clips as good a service as we can make it.” His goal is to create stories that touch people. “We tell the stories we love and that we think will have a positive impact on the lives of our viewers.” He believes that by combining high quality story content with state of the art tools of filmmaking and technology he can help people improve their emotional and spiritual existence.

Fried doesn’t know the economics of any particular short. “We just make or license the films and offer them to people on our website. We don’t sell the films. It’s a membership subscription system.” A significant percentage of his subscribers are teachers and clergy members who discuss the films in their classrooms and their sermons. Often, parents watch the short films with their children and use them as a starting point for the important discussions that many families overlook in our chaotic society. The rest of his subscribers are people who enjoy the kind of entertainment that makes them feel good about the world and the positive impact they can make.

How’s it working out for Rob Fried? “I feel better every day than I’ve ever felt. I like what I do and so I’m rolling with it.” How many of us can honestly say that?

Catherine@nuclearfamilyfilms.com

Originally posted on http://filmnewsbriefs.com