Jamie Catto
// Filmmaker, Musician & WriterJAMIE CATTO is a creator, director, filmmaker, musician, producer, and writer based in London, England. He is also co-founder of the double GRAMMY-nominated and multi-award winning global music and film project 1 Giant Leap. Jamie Catto is former founding member, art director, and music video director for British electronica band Faithless, plus creative catalyst, international photographer, and script editor. Jamie Catto also leads transformative workshops drawing from his ground-breaking productions and weaving these creative techniques and exercises to spark professional and personal breakthroughs.
Websites: www.jamiecatto.com, www.1giantleap.tv, and www.bondageforfreedom.com
Photo: Jamie Catto
Interview:
One of the great things about music is that it crosses all boundaries, and it really opens up the heart. When I first listened to lyrics, particularly Peter Gabriel, even though I felt alone and even though he was far, far, far away, that feeling of connection to someone miles away whom I’d never met really opened my heart, and it was that massive heart-opening moment that made me fall in love with music. Everyone has their connection to music based in the intimacy that it gives them, even if they feel alone. It crosses all borders as well. You can be at a concert and the music doesn’t know whether you’re a brick layer or a high court judge—when you feel the opening chords of the song that you all love, you’re all one and you all roar together in appreciation.
Music joins us, and it brings us into our hearts, and that naturally makes us forgive. Music is like the instrument of the divine goddess that brings us into “we,” not “I” and brings us into collaboration, not competition. I, for one, want to be an instrument of the divine goddess through my music, through my films, through my workshops, through all the things I write. It’s all about bringing that sense of unity and intimacy with each other to a tangible experience for everybody.
I always talk about this in my project-building workshops “What About You?” Your project, your output, the thing you’re working on becomes your ashram. It becomes the curriculum for your soul, especially if you’re doing this forty hours a week or more. All the challenges, all the places where you’re stuck, all the limiting beliefs, they’re all going to come up loud and proud and be mirrored to you during your work. My working life, and my creative life, has given me so many opportunities to see all the places that I’m stuck, all the places that I’m believing the limited, and to face the limiting beliefs about myself.
All the great challenges of being a human are available to me in my creative work—travelling around the world, sometimes too busy to try to get the footage or write the chorus for the song and not actually listening and watching what’s actually going on around me, missing what’s right under my nose and missing a great opportunity to connect with someone or even offending someone sometimes. All my scarcity addictions about Will there be enough money? Will I be able to feed the children? How does this go on? Because being an artist isn’t like being in a bank, where you know the path through the company, you’re going to get promotions and this and that, and it’s all going to be smooth until you retire. Being a musician, you’re up one minute and then you’re down the next; no one loves it, everyone loves it. You’re constantly faced with your scarcity addiction—is there going to be enough for me?
“It’s all about bringing that sense of unity and intimacy with each other to a tangible experience on Earth for everybody.”
– Jamie Catto, Filmmaker, Musician & Writer
