New Documentary Tells 'A Burning Man Story'

Later this month, hordes of art and experience pilgrims will descend upon the Black Rock Desert in Northern Nevada for the annual Burning Man festival. The gathering -- which in recent years has attracted upwards of 60,000 participants -- is famous as a place where people can let their freak flags fly.

The new documentary, Spark: A Burning Man Story, delves inside the boardrooms and into the fray itself. Co-director Steve Brown joins Soundcheck in the studio to discuss the project and the storied annual gathering.

Steve Brown, the draw of the desert’s desolation:

You get to strip away all of your self-limiting beliefs from the society you come from and really have this fresh start. Be who you want to be, no preconceived notions. That’s a really beautiful thing: To see what happens if you take away all of the values of society and you replace it with values of collaborating on art.

On battling the stereotype of drugs at Burning Man by not including drug use in the film:

You hear that 60,000 people are gathering in the desert and building crazy costumes or wearing nothing at all and then building these huge structures and burning them down. You look at that and say, “That doesn’t happen in the real world. They must be on drugs.” But the reality is, at the core, it’s about art and self expression and being part of the community.

On the existential crisis Burning Man was under during filming:

The crisis that happened really wasn’t about tickets; tickets is sort of the symptom. It really was about what happens when this idealistic small community hits scarcity because it’s gotten really big. That led to some really existential discussions about: What does it really mean? What are the core values? They felt like they had a collision of values when scarcity hit.