MARK SCHIMMEL’S “SWEET HOME CHICAGO”
Published in Reel Chicago, April 2014
Mark Schimmel and musician on the set
After logging eighteen years on some of the most recognizable work to come out of LA, director Mark Schimmel got an offer for the type of job that he had dreamt about since getting into the business.
Although it had no budget, lacked the proper permits and required him to fill-in for the shorthanded crew, he describes the resulting four and a half-minute short, “Sweet Home Chicago,” as “a great opportunity.”
Schimmel’s version of “Sweet Home Chicago” is a video montage featuring nearly twenty local musicians singing and playing the famous song, originally written by Robert Johnson in 1936, in ten different locations throughout the city.
Among the artists he filmed was Crystal Bowersox, a guitar-strumming singer songwriter who would go on to release two albums, claim the runner up spot on the ninth season of American Idol and earn the starring role in the 2014 Broadway production, “Always, Patsy Cline.”
Completed as a pro bono promotion for the organization Chicago Street Musicians, “Sweet Home Chicago” was originally presented to Schimmel by a client looking for volunteers.
“I was on a project for Discover Card,” he remembers. “My client reached out to me and said ‘we’d like to do a video.’ Would you recommend a few students?”
As an adjunct professor at Columbia College, Schimmel considered the request to be nothing out of the ordinary. But when the client actually described the job and added, “We purchased the rights to ‘Sweet Home Chicago,’” he jumped at the chance himself.
“I volunteered to help and we went out and did it in one day.”
Crystal Bowersox
The day started downtown at five in the morning with “a camera on somebody’s lap, sound equipment in the trunk and no hair and makeup.” It went on to include an abrupt eviction from one locale and a covert take on another while members of the crew distracted a police officer who was asking about a permit.
“I felt like we were chasing the sun because we didn’t have any lights,” Schimmel recalls. “It was a long day.”
It was also just the beginning.
Since the tight schedule required him to focus on the performers, he did not have time to shoot the “street stuff” that had inspired him back in the days when he worked as a delivery van driver to make money while studying at the Art Institute.
“I went back on my own with a video camera and shot that on my own,” he says. “Subway cars and the water tower and people crossing the street on Michigan Avenue.”
When it came time to edit, he encountered another challenge.
“Every vocal and instrument was tracked,” Schimmel explains.
“I tried to cut it for about a month. Then I went to Gary Fry and said look I cannot do this. I asked him to put together an audio track.”
The efforts earned “Sweet Home Chicago” the INTERCOM Certificate of Merit. But for Schimmel, a Chicago native who sincerely wonders why “people want to take a jet out to LA,” the chance to work in the city he loves was a reward in itself.
“It was more about capturing the soul of the street,” he says. “God bless these artists who are willing to get out there and open a case and play no matter what kind of weather.”
Reel Chicago is proud to add Mark Schimmel’s “Sweet Home Chicago” to its permanent collection.