Sparrow Songs

Episode 1  Learning Music

John Wood writes and records one full-length musical album per month. Every month. And he’s done it since November of 2006. This seemed like a good place to start.

Episode 2  Untitled

During this recession we’ve heard a lot of numbers: Unemployment numbers, recovery numbers, sales numbers. None of this gets to the actual reality of being out of work or living with serious financial uncertainty.

We set up a backdrop at a Walgreen’s in Echo Park, Los Angeles and spoke at length with the people who passed by. All footage and interviews were then shot within the zip code of 90026.

Episode 3  Porn Star Karaoke

Every week porn performers, fans and others from the adult industry get together at a bar in the San Fernando Valley to sing karaoke.

Episode 4  The Puppet Maker

A marionette theater in downtown Los Angeles, the life behind it and what a puppet show can teach us about tragedy.

Episode 5  The Donut Shop

A portrait of one night at Tang’s Donuts on the corner of Sunset and Fountain in Los Angeles.

Episode 6  L'Arche

Forty years ago philosopher Jean Vanier founded L’Arche, a community of people of faith living and worshipping alongside developmentally handicapped adults. There are currently 137 of these communities around the world.

This is a portrait of one of these communities.

Episode 7  The Truth

Across the United States small groups of people have come together, bonded around the shared belief that they have discovered the truth about a particular event and that they must share this information with others.

Episode 8  El Circo

For 105 years the Ramos family has operated a business unlike any other – a traveling circus.

Episode 9  One Year

Weddings, cleaning the house, and the first year of one marriage.

Episode 10  The Farm

For every 25 players on a minor league team, maybe one will ever play in the majors — potential, ambition and pressure during two days with the Lancaster Jethawks.

Episode 11  The Campaign

Star Parker is running for office in the 37th Congressional District of California. With seven weeks before the election, her campaign holds their first town hall.

Episode 12  Fall Begins in Trona, CA

Trona is a hardscrabble desert town 130 miles northeast of Los Angeles. Despite all the challenges the town faces, every Fall brings the return of the one reliable source of pride.