Sun Ra: Do The Impossible

Poet, philosopher, Egyptologist, bandleader. Jazz visionary Sun Ra was all of these – and more. With his ever-evolving band, the Sun Ra Arkestra, he stretched the boundaries of free-form jazz while weaving ancient Egypt, interstellar metaphors, and scientific musings into a singular musical and spiritual vision of Afrofuturism that continues to reverberate across generations. 

Herman Poole Blount was born on May 22, 1914, in Birmingham, Alabama, and departed this earth on May 30, 1993, as Sun Ra.

Along the way he became a conscientious objector, forged a vision of a Black Space Age future, pioneered the use of electronic keyboards, published volumes of broadsheets/poetry, and created a big band that continues to tour the world today.

After premiering at the Tribeca Film Festival and a long run of screenings at other festivals and events around the country, the film is now available as part of the long-running American Masters series on PBS.

Afternoon Inc. handled the film’s intro, title, typography, archival montages, poster, and selected collage sequences.

Design/motion: Directly inspired by the energy, spontaneity, exhuberance, and the uncategorizable visual style of Sun Ra’s Arkestra’s output (see the reference material at the bottom of this page) across the decades, I improvised my way through the massive pile of assets and sequences, allowing my first thoughts to be final thoughts where possible, holding tight to that first burst of energy. Gravity optional.

Sun Ra’s greatest achievement may be that he made belief audible. That he turned metaphysics into melody, galaxy into cadence.

– Marcus J. Moore

Typography: IDs are the only consistent graphic voice in the film. Everything else is dictated by context.

Director and Editor: Christine Turner
Editor: Steven Golliday
Executive Producers: Stanley Nelson, Michael Kantor, Bradford Smith
Associate Producer: Talia Moore
Archival Producer: Peter Nauffts
Art Direction, Animation: Matt Eller
Cinematography: Othello Banaci
Additional Editor: Adam Kurnitz, ACE

The possible has been tried and failed. Now it’s time to try the impossible.

— Sun Ra

Development

Early versions of the film were split up into 12+ chapters dedicated to Sun Ra’s biography, philosophy, and terminology. I used those as an opportunity to stretch out and see what was typographically possible/impossible. As the edit progressed, many were consolidated or eliminated, but the looseness/freedom felt during the initial explorations remained intact throughout the process.

Early logo investigations.

Animation of Sun Ra’s poem “In Orbit” (voiced by Jayna Brown) that didn’t make the final cut.