CITY SYMPHONY

Robert Stevenson sees the buildings for the trees

By Eric Wagner

The Iron Forest: Watch the entire film (3:31)

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When Seattle filmmaker Robert Stevenson started to work on his first project, he was asked by the odd security guard or cop, “Why is it that you’re so interested in taking pictures of tall buildings?”

“They were just curious about what I was doing, and wanted to make sure that I wasn’t a terrorist,” Stevenson says. “Once I explained myself, it was fine.”

Stevenson was shooting his urban “film poem” The Iron Forest, an exploration of the city and its forms, and how those forms mirror the natural world. “I was interested in the parallels, the similarities, and how many there were,” Stevenson says. The film is about movement through time, following the city from day to night and back again.

Using digital video and high-resolution timed/sequenced stills, Stevenson filmed Seattle from a number of perspectives, sometimes staring up from the base of buildings, sometimes high over them. He would set up his camera at intersections and sit there for hours capturing the frantic blur of traffic, either with a friend, or with a book by himself. He took a sightseeing flight by himself (“Next time, I’d like to go in a helicopter rather than a Cessna.”) and stuck his camera out the window of the plane. Then he set all that footage to music that he wrote and played and mixed himself.

“It was actually the music that came first,” Stevenson says, and, in a way, it was also music that led Stevenson to try his hand at film in the first place. Originally from Detroit, he played in rock bands in both the Motor City, and later in Los Angeles, before moving to Seattle in 1992. Once here, he worked as a printing tradesman while continuing to make his own music at night. But he also was interested in film, and before long he had completed a certificate in filmmaking at the University of Washington. He started doing commercial work, among other things recording music for spots of a well-known local coffee magnate, before taking his “humble first crack.”

With The Iron Forest now complete in all its solitary joy, Stevenson is interested in collaborative work, especially in film music, as well as projects with more of a traditional narrative. “It was fun trying out different techniques, using all the tools, seeing what they did,” he says. “But I’m looking forward to working with people.”

Robert Stevenson behind the camera.

CREW BOX
Director: Robert Stevenson
Cinematographer: Robert Stevenson
Editor/Motion Graphics: Robert Stevenson
Audio Engineer: Robert Stevenson
Composer and Orchestration: Robert Stevenson
Performer (Acoustic and electric guitars): Robert Stevenson