Theodore Roosevelt once said, “comparison is the thief of joy”. We’re all human, we’ve all done it- wondered if someone else’s life was just a little easier, a little better than ours, just enough to make us feel, well, not very joyous.
Heck, not long ago, after scratching out an all but illegible to-do list with the stump of a green colored pencil he found at the bottom of his daughter’s backpack, the sight of Ryan happily practicing cursive with a brand new, blue-inked Uni-ball Jetstream pen filled Joe with envy.
“Anyone could do perfect lower-case ‘j’s’ with that thing,” he thought. Not his proudest moment.
All jokes aside, if comparison is joy’s thief, isn’t it true that generosity can fill us with joy? We wanted to spread that message.
The result is our short film, “Someone Else’s Shoes”, featuring the lovely and talented Eleonore Dendy. It was shot over two days and four locations, in the fall of 2016 with a cast and crew of 20 people.
Some of the cast and crew on "Someone Else's Shoes".
The spot centers on a young woman, briefly imagining her life would be better in ‘someone else’s shoes’-literally-the heeled pumps, the running shoes, the fashionable sandals she spies on the feet of passersby. But she can’t really know what journey those other shoes are on, and realizing this, she gives herself an injection of joy via a different route- through an act of generosity.
We owe a big shout to Studio 2 Cafe, a full-service cafe nestled in the beautiful east Harriet neighborhood of Minneapolis (which has also served as our de facto office from time to time) and Gear Running Store, Minnesota’s premier shop for runners and walkers, located in Edina.
We thank you for your generosity, for taking the time to read this and for your continued support.
