The Sarasota Experience
How’s this for a pandemic “silver lining”? Sarasota County officially turned 100 years old in 2021, and PBS member station WEDU wanted to create an ambitious historical documentary for the centennial of the county’s founding. Like innumerable film projects that year, WEDU’s documentary was put on hold. But as it simmered on a back burner, local motion picture company Triforce Pictures released Original Splendor, another centennial documentary, commissioned by the Sarasota County Courthouse.
“The courthouse documentary is the reason WEDU called me,” says Shaun Greenspan, who started Triforce Pictures in 2005. “They were searching for someone who knew the area and could do the work.”
In Greenspan, WEDU found their ideal documentary filmmaker. Greenspan will never forget the conversation after The Sarasota Experience’s premiere at the Sarasota Opera House last April:
“They said, ‘We knew you would do a good job. We didn’t know you were going to do this good of a job.’ That was the best compliment, you know,” Greenspan says, “I put my heart and soul into that movie.”
Greenspan grew up in Sarasota during the ’90s, and his first artistic love—music—propelled him to national renown as a DJ in the techno underground.
“I always loved cinema, so I asked myself, ‘What is similar to DJing?’ To me, I was taking the audience on an emotional roller coaster with the way I tracklisted my sets, so I thought, ‘Well—filmmaking is like that, except it’s more intricate.’”
The hour-long Sarasota Experience opens with the project’s most complex and expensive scene. A single continuous shot down Burns Court launches Sarasota’s story with a breathtaking revue by prominent performing arts organizations that all call Sarasota County home. In just under three minutes, the opening credits illustrate Sarasota’s sizzling reputation as a small city that hosts an arts and culture scene of major-metropolitan caliber.
With fascinating and often moving commentary from 24 community leaders and experts, The Sarasota Experience not only delves into Sarasota’s history but also searches out the unique ingredients that encourage this place to thrive. The film also refuses to ignore parts of Sarasota’s past, present, and even future that don’t make pretty postcards, such as Spanish colonizers’ brutality to the land’s indigenous people, “wade-in” protests of Jim Crow laws barring Black Sarasotans’ access to local beaches, and the existential threat posed by climate change.
“The city of Sarasota didn’t get to be as beautiful as it is by chance,” Greenspan says. “For over 100 years, people have put their blood, sweat, and tears into creating and investing in it. There’s almost no other place like Sarasota in the United States because it’s brought the perfect people together in the perfect environment. I’m not saying ‘perfect’ as in ‘all good,’ but whether or not you know the names of all these people who came to Sarasota—artists, philanthropists, educators—we’re here in a really special town because of them.”
You can watch The Sarasota Experience on WEDU’s website (wedu.org/shows/sarasota) and on YouTube, where it’s racked up more than 30,000 views. Those hungry for more Sarasota knowledge can look forward to Greenspan’s Voices of Sarasota video series out early this year, with each video showcasing the documentary’s participants in extended director’s cuts of their interviews.
