This time on Film Maker.

This program is brought to you in part by Friends of South Florida PBS.

Hi, my name is Julie Powell.

I am the writer and director and also editor of After Mountains.

My film is about the story of Ellie, who is a 11-year-old girl, and she's going through a very hard time in her family because her grandpa is sick.

And while visiting her grandpa at the hospital, she meets these other kids of her age and his name is not.

And the movie is about their relationship and how she's going to go through grief and this very hard obstacle in her life.

Seeing nothing around me and hearing no sound.

Alone.

Unknown.

Back bent.

Hands crossed.

Sorrowful.

And for me they will be as night.

Hmm.

Mhm.

Thank you.

Mom.

Bye, dad.

Are you okay?

Are you okay?

Ellie, go get the nurse.

He's right there.

Outside.

Go!

My grandpa needs help.

Uh, it's probably best if you wait out here.

Freezer.

Turn you in.

Very funny.

I'm Noah.

Ellie.

Does it hurt?

Sometimes.

I think I'm going to die.

Mom.

At what time is dawn?

Tomorrow at dawn.

When the countryside brightens, I will depart.

You see.

I know that you wait for me.

Can you please be quiet?

I just.

I just need silence.

You've been so cool.

She just.

You're going away.

Boy, if I win the next one, you have to tell me a secret.

Never.

Not even when you were like a baby.

Baby.

I mean, obviously, but it doesn't count.

Why?

I don't know why I can't, I just can't cry.

Uh.

That is not normal.

When the countryside brightened.

I will depart.

You see, I know that you wait for me.

Are you breaking the word?

I will go past myself.

I cannot.

Watch after mountains.

I'm sure she's looking for you.

What?

No.

After mountains.

Your mom?

I'm sure she's looking for you.

She's not.

Just tell me the next line.

She just.

She doesn't tell me anything like I don't exist.

Really?

I cannot remain far from you any longer.

The line.

I cannot remain far from you any longer.

But yes, I will walk, I said upon my thoughts.

You know you can ask me anything, and I'll always answer truthfully.

YouTube.

Why aren't you more upset at your mom's and sad for your grandpa?

What?

I mean.

My grandpa is not going to die.

I didn't say that.

He's recovering.

You will too.

Let's go somewhere.

What you need to hide.

You should be careful.

Ready.

What are you doing?

Making the bed.

Ellie.

Come on.

Stop it!

Please.

Noah, you're acting crazy right now.

You're sick.

We can't go anywhere.

No wonder your mom says you ruin everything.

Ellie.

Hey.

Ellie, I didn't mean it.

I just want us to have some fun.

Mom.

Mom.

He was waiting to be alone.

More time.

Can you say Brighton's?

I would, You see, I know that you wait for me.

Can I sit?

Ellie.

I'm sorry.

I don't want to hear your stupid apology.

Noah.

Ellie.

I was scared.

You stopped coming.

If.

If I told you I was fine.

I just I needed you.

Ali.

This film is very personal to me.

It comes from some of my personal experience, and really it's kind of a reflection of my younger self.

I think going through grief and putting myself into this child's eyes was really, you know, cathartic for me.

I wanted to pay homage to my grandparents, who are really important to me and whose loss was really hard for me when I was younger, and also to share this experience through a child's perspective, a child's point of view.

I think the locations were a big part of the film.

The Miami landscapes were really important for me and the film.

We have like a bay side and, you know, like the cemeteries, like the trees.

The nature for me was something that's very Miami and that I really like about about the film.

Hi, I'm Dana Rush, and this is my film gearheads.

My film is a short documentary about a local couple that makes and fixes audio equipment and everything they've been through to get to where they are right now.

Browner Sound was born originally out of a desire to own the best equipment in the world.

I wanted to have the equipment to record my music, but I could not afford $150,000 console.

Every piece of equipment that browner sound makes is assembled and manufactured in Florida, with the exception of the components which are sourced ethically.

He had talked to me about a business that he wanted to start repairing equipment, and I remember he asked me if I would go and pick up some channels for a console, unbeknownst to me, how big a console we were talking about.

And I brought them to my little attic apartment so that we could repair them together.

And that was the beginning of Brownish Sound.

So this was one of the first things that we engraved.

We did both sides.

Yeah.

Painted it.

And we never finished it.

We never finished it.

That was the first thing that we ever built.

I'm very lucky because when I was in Seattle, there's an amp builder there.

His name is Ben Verellen.

I stopped by his shop and he was the friendliest guy.

I would bring him these messes that I would make.

I don't have a formal education I've taught myself, but I spend probably 14 hours a day on electronics because I just can't get enough.

I have never met anyone in my life who will spend so many hours reading articles and books and, you know, going online and researching.

It's amazing.

It's amazing.

When I came to Miami and I reconnected with the musician network that I had already been a part of, and I slowly started to make the transition of like, oh wait, Omar, he's repairing amps now.

Your close friends are the ones who are willing to lose an amp.

These people are taking a chance on me.

Folks who bring me equipment sometimes have an emotional connection with it, and they're very familiar with how it functions.

So if you give it back and it's not what they expect to get back, there's a bigger loss.

You know, I'm not a big fan of all those corporate sayings.

Teamwork makes the dream work.

You know, let's let's get to develop some synergies.

Let's hit some home runs.

The whole team is a bunch of rock stars, you know.

Yeah, all of that stuff.

I don't like that stuff.

The whole corporate culture, they've adopted words that don't belong to their culture, like phrases and terms to try to like to humanize something that is not human.

The corporate culture is toxic.

It's not healthy for anybody.

And that's why I think that the browner sound kind of developed out of all of that, because I could not I couldn't function in that corporate environment anymore.

It's too hard because it's not a healthy place.

That's my opinion.

Naomi has been my partner at Brauner almost from the beginning.

Working with Omar has been as effortless as breathing.

We've always seen eye to eye, and the areas that maybe he doesn't want to deal with are the areas that I feel like I'm strongest in, and vice versa.

I don't know that I would have been able to put it all together without Naomi's support, because there was a point that I gave up.

I couldn't manage to keep the business going and to follow music and the things that my soul needed.

Because I went through a divorce, my mother passed away.

I was experiencing depression.

And as challenging as things got, Naomi never abandoned.

Even if it hits the fan, even if things go bad, you've both got to be completely, 100% in it, knowing that you might fall on your face and be dedicated and to make it out the other side.

Growing a business takes a long time.

If you plant a bunch of seeds of the kind of fruit you like, many of them will die, but some of them might start to grow.

And if you're able to nurture those, then you might find that something comes out of it.

It must have been, I don't even know, 2004, whatever.

We wanted to play the Warped Tour, but the Warped Tour came to Miami and, um, and we knew that there were bands on the tour that were not getting paid.

So we set up a table behind backstage and we it was called dogs for the underdogs, and we made hot dogs for all the bands that were not getting paid for the thing.

So it was great because we met fat Mike and we met, you know, we met, uh, The Exploited.

We met, you know, and they all came over and, you know, they were like, man, that's really cool.

You guys.

Are doing.

And they had hot dogs and stuff, and then all the bands that were that were there were coming back to the table to, uh, to have hot dogs.

And it was nice.

We met everybody.

It was it was a great experience.

And honestly, it was the nicest way to do the warped Tour as a band, you know, because you met the other bands or whatever.

And, you know, they're not everybody's a rock star, you know?

But you still got to eat, you know?

Yeah.

It's true.

I.

We try to support as many nonprofits as we can.

I've gone to schools to record Miami Girls Rock camp.

We also repair equipment for guitars over guns.

Any help that you can give, it feels fantastic.

When you're working with a community that is electric, that's kind of what it's all about for me.

Everything just felt very natural, honestly.

And, you know, it was a small team, so everything was very organic.

It just felt like hanging out with friends.

Um, and I would say that the coolest thing was that I'm basically doing interviewing two people.

When I interviewed Omar, Naomi was in there and then vice versa.

But when what they said would like back up everything perfectly.

So they just have a great chemistry.

And I feel like that shows in the film.

And it also helped with editing.

You know, the story was like it just really made sense.

And they had a great chemistry.

And that shows on the final product, I think we did an interview, a pre-interview a few months before we started filming, and then, uh, average day for me was, uh, sit down interview.

So set up everything, uh, sit down interviews, and then I would just hang with them.

Um, this is a mix of sit down interviews and verité, which is just basically seeing what develops.

I want it to feel natural and organic, just, you know, trying to make it as natural as possible.

This program is brought to you in part by Friends of South Florida PBS.