It’s been a big few years for salted caramel hasn’t it?
When I was a kid in the late 80s and early 90s, we had salt, and we had caramel, but I don’t remember much overlap. The circles became a Venn diagram around 2009.
Before then, almost nobody Googled salted caramel; since then searches exploded.
Cards on the table, salted caramel is delicious. But it’s a delicate balance – lean too far in either direction and it doesn't just not work, it’s sort of nasty.
The same thing happens with storytelling when you bring you two contradictory elements together (I’m aware that even by this newsletter’s standards, this is a roundabout introduction…)
Of all the unusual combinations, humour and pathos is my favourite, and perhaps the hardest to pull off. The potential pitfalls are numerous and eclectic – too saccharine, too manipulative, too jarring, too flippant.
Step forward then Ben Knight and Felt Soul Media’s Denali (2015), which combines these elements in the most deft, delightful way. The film tells the story of photographer Ben Moon, his eponymous dog, and their respective battles with cancer.
It’s funny, poignant, and in the end, heart-burstingly uplifting. As the voiceover explains, we can learn a lot from dogs.
“When someone you love walks through the door – even if it happens five times a day – you should go totally insane with joy.”
Here’s my interview with Ben – you can see more of his work on his on the Felt Soul Media site.
Why did you want to tell this story?
So to be completely honest, I was the second person who took a shot at Denali.
Ben Moon came to me after what felt like a failed first attempt to him. Our friend Skip Armstrong had already shot all the beautiful footage of Ben and Denali together.
I didn't know Ben well at the time, but he seemed incredibly sincere when he said that he thought I was the right person.
Essentially, I was handed a hard drive and asked to give the story some thought. I fucking toiled over it for months with nothing to show for it.
I knew the tone had to be dead-on and I couldn't figure out the recipe. It was clearly pissing off my business partner at the time because it paid zero dollars, yet I was consumed by it.
I eventually called Ben and told him I was flailing – he urged me to please give it one last try. I sat down at my desk and wrote the first few lines from Denali's perspective on a whim.
Next thing I knew I was laughing, with tears streaming down my face at the same time.
I was confident it was the right tone, but I was scared shitless to show it to Ben – so I didn't. I waited until I was completely done to even send it to him.
I had recorded my own voice as Denali in one go, fully expecting Ben to hire some fancy person to re-record it, but he wanted to leave it alone. I was pretty shocked, honestly.
What was the biggest challenge?
With the biggest challenge out of the way, the only scary thing left was to figure out how to pay for the music rights. Ben wrangled a couple of smaller sponsors on board and I quietly back-channeled it to my friend Monica McClure at Patagonia.
She watched it and replied "How much do you need?" I think I said $2,500, and she said "Done." I slapped their logo front and centre as the credits rolled and we were good.
I suppose in retrospect, $2,500 was a pretty good deal for something that, unbeknownst to anyone, was about to be getting millions of completely unsolicited views a day. Tens of millions, ultimately.
Oprah even talked about it on her show – it was insane.
What would you do differently if you made the film again today?
I suppose I might have tried to find a way to get paid for my time spent on it. I think I got a little, but it wasn't much. It was hard on my relationship with my business partner at the time, so ultimately it did take a toll.
I might have also had a contract of some sort made, but I'm terrible at that sort of thing. Ben went on to get a book deal and apparently an upcoming Hollywood movie deal.
I'm thrilled for him, but I can't help but feel like I played a small role in helping those opportunities happen, just by creating something that was able to go viral. Ben has always been incredibly grateful, so that's all that really matters.
What are you most proud of?
Hmm... proud is a weird word for me. Ben was inundated with messages and letters for years from folks all over the world who saw the film and were genuinely moved by it in one way or another.
The eternal grief that is cancer has become all too relatable for way too many people – add the unconditional love of a dog on top of that and the themes almost become universal.
All I did was try to lighten it up a little and keep it from feeling self-serious. I think I wanted the whole film to feel as vulnerable and self-deprecating as Ben did, going through cancer, if that makes any sense?
How did making this film change you?
Well, I'm still a cat person, so there's that.
It did try to change me. It was fucking ridiculous. The biggest advertising agencies in the country were flying us to New York and LA, wanting to represent us for commercial work (that was capable of making you feel something beside the mute button on your remote).
I hated the meetings. I hated the cities. I hated the pitches. I think a toilet paper commercial was the first thing one of the agencies brought our way.
I was even nominated as Saatchi & Saatchi's New Director of the Year. I never returned a single call after that.
All I did was do a favour for a friend. When we do favours for friends, we do it because we don't want to let them down, not to advance our careers.
I’m really interested in the creative click that Ben describes here – the moment that a hitherto impossible idea rearranges itself into something perfect. Stand-up comedians talk about this a lot – how changing one word, or phrase, suddenly finds the funny in a section of their set which hadn’t been working.
Thanks to Ben, and to you for reading. I’ve been trying out Substack’s notes tool a bit and will be sharing more half-formed thoughts there if you simply can’t get enough of the old Rob Alderson brainbox.