Paradise is There: A Memoir by Natalie Merchant is a feature length documentary released as the visual component to Natalie’s 2015 album, Paradise is There: The New Tigerlily Recordings. Directed by Merchant, we worked closely together to weave together archival 16mm films, photos and fan interviews with performance footage from her summer 2014 tour to tell the memoir of her career through the release of her critically acclaimed 1995 album, Tigerlily.

One of the coolest parts of this project was spending parts of the summer of 2014 following her on tour, joining her and her band in the studio for the recording process gathering as much footage as possible. The most unique part of the production can be seen in the live footage – instead of using myriad camera angles, Natalie would opt for long, uncut takes from the steadicam, which brings the viewer on stage with her, and in some cases, standing in for her POV.