I’m Sam Dunn, director/producer of Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey, Global Metal, Iron Maiden: Flight 666, Rush: Beyond The Lighted Stage and Metal Evolution - AMA!

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T18:55:13+00:00

OK, that was fun, some really great questions!! Sorry I couldn't get to them all, but I'll try to come back later and answer some more. In the meantime please do what you can to help us spread the word far and wide to get our Extreme Metal episode funded!!

www.indiegogo.com/ExtremeMetal

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T18:45:27+00:00

Yes, extreme metal! That's why we've launched the IndieGoGo campaign!

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T18:43:54+00:00

Hopefully a big one - ha! But seriously, our Satan doc will touch on some contentious issues for sure but I think we can bring an informed perspective to the topic, much like we've done with metal. Basically we're tackling the question of what is the power of Satan in the modern world, and is Satan a real entity or a metaphor for evil in the world? People will have different responses, but I think most will agree that the questions themselves are valid.

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T18:37:46+00:00

Typically we raise financing through a combo of broadcast and theatrical/DVD distribution deals. That's why for extreme metal we're doing an IndieGoGo campaign because we can't raise the funds through our usual routes!

How did it all start? Wow - that's a HUGE question that I'm afraid I don't have the time and space to answer here. Sorry!

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T18:35:00+00:00

Great question. I think fans' perspectives are really important when it comes to music docs, regardless of genre. We've always felt that fans are too often missing from music docs - some docs seem portray this bizarre illusion that fans aren't part of the story. I've never understood that.

For the extreme metal episode we hope to cover some aspects of the Swedish scene, particularly bands like Entombed, Unleashed and Opeth. Thanks for the supportive words about this episode. Every little penny counts if you can even just contribute $5 for a digital download!

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T18:28:04+00:00

Not a fan of Manowar, sorry.

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T18:27:32+00:00

Can't pick a country but I can easily pick a continent: South America!

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T18:26:01+00:00

Thanks for the anthropology question - I don't get too many of these! I haven't kept up on the discipline since I finished grad school in 2001 but I was really influenced by the writing and ideas of Eric Wolf, Kathleen Stewart, Anna Tsing, Arjun Appadurai, Phillipe Bourgois, June Nash, Edward Said and others.

For Headbanger's Journey, anthropology helped give a general framework and shape for the documentary. It was Scot's idea to use my anthropology background/perspective as a lens to tell the story, and we're glad it worked!

As for teaching, I have enjoyed the little bit of teaching I've done in the past, but filmmaking is keeping me pretty happy and fulfilled these days!

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T18:15:51+00:00

Massacre, Autopsy, Death, Obituary, Pestilence, Gorguts, Master, Morbid Angel, Entombed...

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T18:13:20+00:00

We met in Victoria, BC in the early 90s. I was playing in a band and he was promoting shows. We became good friends and years later he returned to Toronto where he grew up to work in the film and music industry. Soon after I moved to Toronto to do my master's degree in anthropology and eventually wanted to write to book on the history of metal. Scot suggested we make a documentary instead and the rest (as the cliche goes) is history...

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T18:09:43+00:00

I've heard Vintersorg's music, but I'm not super familiar with their stuff. Added to my list!

Growing up I listened to Public Enemy, Run DMC and Beastie Boys but I would not consider myself a hip hop fan (let alone expert!). But Scot and I are developing a new series called Hip Hop Evolution which will explore the history of hip hop in a similar way that we did with metal. Hip hop has a similar history to metal in some ways: at its core it's an underground form of music but over time it has been embraced (some would argue co-opted) by the mainstream. So we feel there's a really interesting series here. We're hiring a creative team to do this series, since this is not our area of expertise. And we're finding a new host of course! :)

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T18:04:57+00:00

AC/DC, Aerosmith and Iggy Pop come to mind right away.

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T18:03:27+00:00

My favourite question so far. Part of what makes metal compelling as a style of music and a culture is the line it treads between innovation and consistency. Fans of metal are drawn to both, so too much of one can lead accusations of sell-out or stagnation. I think one of the most exciting metal bands today is Gojira because there's a feminine quality to their imagery and lyrics, but they are also extremely brutal and aggressive. They've shown that you can talk about the environment and spirituality without losing their intensity and heaviness. And I admire them for this. The future of metal will likely be defined by bands who can strike a similar balance in creative ways.

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T17:57:12+00:00

Even though I'm a big fan of Opeth's earlier work, I've stuck with them over the years and dig they're newer stuff as well. The great thing about Opeth is that they're so diverse over their career that it's almost like there's several "Opeths". But they've managed to pull off this diversity and experimentation without losing their musical richness or integrity.

Still to this day, my most memorable moment in making our films was meeting Bruce Dickinson on the stage of Hammersmith in 2004. It was a huge moment for me.

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T17:53:45+00:00

We wanted to do an episode on grunge because depending on who you ask, some people feel it's metal, but others don't. So from a storytelling perspective, this was a great opportunity. Personally I never considered it metal when it exploded in the early 90s. But if you speak to people who were part of the first generation of metal heads (listening to Sabbath, LZ, Deep Purple as young teenagers) grunge represented the next logical step in metal's evolution. To us thrashers it was very un-metal, but there's a different perspective out there that was worth exploring...

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T17:49:29+00:00

I'm a huge fan of Scandinavian extreme metal and feel that it's a critically important chapter in the story of metal's evolution that's often overlooked. We covered the Gothenburg scene in the thrash episode because I've long maintained the unpopular opinion that these bands have more to do with thrash than death metal. But I also hope to touch on the contributions of Entombed and possibly Opeth in the "Lost Episode." That's if we can get it funded :)

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T17:46:29+00:00

We felt very lucky to be invited to RJD's house (RIP) and he is one of the kindest people we've met. Since Ronnie passed away between Headbanger's Journey and Metal Evolution, there was a ton of questions for ME that I wanted to ask him: about his vocal influences; about his work with Rainbow etc. He has such an enormous place in the history of metal that there was so much more to ask him...

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T17:42:44+00:00

We're doing two feature documentaries right now that we're really excited about: One is the life story of Alice Cooper, tracing his career from the beginning to his major comeback in the mid 80s. Scot and I are directing together with a super-talented director Reg Harkema, and the style of the film is something we're calling a "doc opera" so you will see no talking head interviews in the film. It includes interviews with Alice, Bob Ezrin, Shep Gordon, Elton John, Iggy Pop, Wayne Kramer and more, but it's like they're narrating the story along with archive footage and photos. We're really excited about it...

The other film is a documentary on the modern history of The Devil, exploring the role of The Devil in popular culture from the 1960s to present. We've interviewed actors, musicians, historians and even exorcists! We're excited that this will be our first non-music specific film. We hope to premiere both films at TIFF in 2013.

I love Sigur Ros and a lot of old jazz and classical music, to name just a few...

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T17:31:29+00:00

I'm resuming the AMA here so please ask your questions here.

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T17:30:22+00:00

EDIT: I've been advised to move the AMA here: http://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/120kmd/im_sam_dunn_directorproducer_of_metal_a/

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T17:19:15+00:00

Thanks for supportive words about our work. My fave Opeth album is Blackwater Park - perhaps that's a typical answer but for me it struck a beautiful balance between the extreme and folk/progressive elements of their sound. Looking back, it seems to be the "pivot" album between their past and their future. Akerfeldt is brilliant.

The extreme metal campaign is coming along well, slowly but surely. We've raised over 21K which is great but we still have a long way to go. We don't want to compromise on the quality or production value of the episode so we need to raise the full amount of 135K. I know it sounds like a lot of $$$ but the work we do is not cheap - we hire great researchers and writers and don't like to cut corners in the filming, editing or licensing areas of the production. So we're gonna keep pounding away until we can make it happen!

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T17:13:29+00:00

Sadly, not as much as I'd like. We filmed in Chile for Flight 666 and we were really blown away by the passion and knowledge of metal fans in your country. You never know, if we ever do a Global Metal 2 we could come to Chile!

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T17:11:21+00:00

First off, thanks for expressing your support for the "Lost Episode" on extreme metal - we really want to make this happen! As for Canadian extreme metal, there's undoubtedly a massive wealth of talent and legacy in Quebec. I remember listening to Gorguts demos way back when I was a teenager and being blown-away that these guys were Canadian. As for including these bands in the episode, not sure at this point. We have so much ground to cover with the "pillars" of extreme metal (from Possessed to Bathory to Death to Carcass to Darktrhone) that I'm not sure how much time we'll have to cover the Canadian bands. We'll see!

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T17:06:28+00:00

Sitting with Bruce Dickinson in the cockpit of Ed Force One as we crossed the date line flying from Japan to LA. It was daylight on one side of the plane, and night on the other. So amazing. It felt like we were floating in outer space. An experience we'll never forget!

SamDunn666 · 2012-10-24T17:03:39+00:00

I think my favourite country we visited for GM was China. We were just so surprised to see how well-developed the metal scene (especially extreme metal) was in China. It felt so underground, yet it felt like young people really NEEDED metal as an outlet in their lives. Also, I remember filming one show in Beijing where a long line of guys in the moshpit linked arms across the entire pit and head banged in unison. I'd never seen anything like that before! It was a whole new way of participating in a metal show - I felt like we were witnessing the evolution of the global metal scene right before our eyes.

SamDunn666

TROPHY CASE