A Los Angeles filmmaker and Freemason named Johnny Royal has crafted a beautifully shot film about the fraternity, The Royal Art of Freemasonry. He just released a one minute teaser last week (click the image above).
From a release on marketwired.com:
The feature length documentary presents never before seen footage of the world’s oldest and most powerful secret society, the Freemasons. The film provides insight into the unique culture surrounding the fraternity, asks the question of why people join, explains in depth the entire masonic structure including the Blue Lodge (degrees 1 – 3), the Scottish Rite (degrees 4-33), and the York Rite (Royal Arch, Cryptic Masons, Knights Templar), and where members feel their ancient society is headed as the future unfolds.
“It feels like everything I’ve ever done in my life has gone into making this film,” says Writer and Director Johnny Royal. “It has been the most challenging thing I’ve ever done.”
This year, the United Grand Lodge of England, founded in 1717, celebrates its 300th year anniversary. However, Freemasonry has roots that reach much further back as evidenced by the recorded minutes of the Lodge of Edinburgh No. 1 in Scotland in 1599. Never before has a documentary been able to tell the story of all of the Masonic degrees and provide a glimpse of what happens in the masonic allegory after a candidate achieves the Master Mason or 3rd degree.
“One of the reasons The Royal Art of Freemasonry took so long to make was figuring out the actual overarching narrative. Eventually, I realized that the story arch was the hero’s quest. What begins to surface is a realization that we [the candidates] are able to be the hero or the villain in our daily lives, based on the choices we make. Freemasonry truly is a progressive moral science interlaced throughout the narrative structure of the Hero’s Quest.””“Royal’s team on the film are comprised of a powerful lineup including Music Supervisor, Composer, and Re-Recording Mixer Sean Beavan (The Lost Highway, Nine Inch Nails, Marilyn Manson), Ernest Chapman and Juliette Beavan, both who are credited as composers and associate producers, Robert Doan as producer, Dene Anderberg as Executive Producer, Jason Pachomski as Supervising Editor (Game of Thrones), and Zach Brinkerhoff as Visual FX Supervisor (Thor and X-Men First Class).”For updates about its release dates, see the film's Facebook page HERE.
In related news, the five-part Sky1 documentary made in cooperation with the United Grand Lodge of England, Inside the Freemasons, premiered a week ago and is continuing (Episode 3 airs this week). Unfortunately for those of us in the U.S., there is no (simple) way to see it online. Plans are for a DVD release once all episodes air in the U.K.