The Sensation of Sight Production Notes

When life becomes a second language …

The Sensation of Sight, written and directed by Aaron J. Wiederspahn, was filmed over eighteen days in October/November 2005. The entire filming took place on location in Peterborough, New Hampshire, with key cast and crew coming from Los Angeles and New York. The supporting crew was brought in from the local New Hampshire and Boston, Massachusetts areas.

After forming a limited liability company in the summer/fall of 2004, Either/Or Films co-founders Buzz McLaughlin and Aaron J. Wiederspahn set out to raise the necessary monies for the production of their first feature film. In hope of having creative freedom with their project, they sought the monies door-to-door, so to speak, without the aid of any third party involvement—often a far more difficult road. Needless to say, being complete newbies in the film industry—Buzz having spent the wealth of his career as a playwright, professor of playwriting, and producing artistic director of a professional theatre in New Jersey; Aaron having spent the majority of his days in the independent music world based out of Orlando, Florida—they soon discovered themselves on board the ride of their lives and that, indeed, the learning curve in the road was sharp. However, embracing tenacity like a brother and with strong support from the New Hampshire film office, they pressed onward with several meetings with a great many individuals and the budget was at last secured entirely from sources of private equity.

Why the reason for such tenacity? Why the choosing of the difficult road? Why do many independent filmmakers endure this struggle? When actor David Strathairn signed on to do the film, saying of the story, “I loved it immediately … it’s about the big and small banana peels we all slip on,” Buzz and Aaron knew that there must be others who would understand why one embraces such a journey.  It comes down to the passion for the story. The Sensation of Sight is a discovery of hope amidst the wounded hearts of human beings coping with grief and despair. And in a world overwrought with cynicism, stories imbued with hope are simply in need of being told. It seems there is a lack of creation of cinema given over to the quiet places of one’s heart. Yet these are the stories wanting to be told, where there is room for the audience to stand before a work of art in contemplation of how we should live and why—that which truly brings us together.

Buzz and Aaron’s journey began with high aspirations. They ask, “Haven’t common human threads always been birth, life, and death, and how we manage to traverse through the grind of it all?” And then go on to say, “We must create cinema where there is room for us to explore the beauty that is man, and the world in which he lives. It’s who and where we are, after all.” So, to tell stories in original ways, with room for the audience to breathe, not infringing upon another’s moral imagination, respecting the journey of human life, reminding us of who we are as a people, who we have been, and who we can become, these are the stories, the cinema that Buzz and Aaron long to create. And their reason for choosing the difficult road is clear to them, “When life becomes a second language, somebody has to search for the hope.”

– Aaron J. Wiederspahn

The Sensation of Sight received a limited domestic theatrical release in numerous cities in the late summer of 2008, including New York, and since then has been nationally released on DVD (sales and rental) as well as in many TV/Cable and VOD/PPV markets in the U.S. and Canada.  The film’s distributor, Monterey Media, Inc., based in Los Angeles, is an established distributor of quality films and other programming, including being the largest independent outside supplier of programming for PBS. Foreign distribution is being handled by LongTale International.