DESCRIPTION:
Sometimes the most rewarding experiences come when you least expect them. Case in point: this video inspired by Pharrell Williams's HAPPY. Here's the story...

My friend asked me to direct a video for/with the elderly residents at the senior living facility where his wife worked. Since I'm in the middle of a project, when the alarm went off on the day we were shooting, I was regretting my offer to help as I "didn't have time" to do it. However, it turned out to be an amazing day due to the residents: I met a man who was wounded among the first wave of soldiers storming the beaches at Iwo Jima. I met another man in his 90s who was so full of life despite losing most of his family in the Holocaust. I met a woman who'd just turned 100 but seemed decades younger. I met another woman in the Memory Ward who at first didn't want to dance because she said she couldn't. But once she started, she didn't want to stop. And as we were leaving, she came up to me, grabbed my hand, looked me in the eye and a in a moment of total lucidity said, "Thank you so much for coming here and visiting us."

Anyhoo, that's the backstory of this video. Big thanks to Kurt Kuenne (I couldn't have done it w/out his help), Mark, David and Lauria but especially the residents at the Meadowbrook Senior Living facility for an incredible experience.