My Secret Record

I was fortunate enough to see this documentary at the Nashville Film Festival. Being a big fan of Rob Thomas, I knew a little about Gillian Grisman's documentary work from a few other shorter documentaries she had done relating to Rob and Matchbox Twenty. I liked her style of presenting the content of the film and how she seemed to capture the myriad aspects of Rob Thomas as a human being and a singer/songwriter.

In "My Secret Record", we see more of Rob's personality and how he deals with his commitments to the practicalities of being in the music industry - while still keeping his integrity, sanity, and dedication to his music. We get to see how gracious and sweet Rob Thomas is to fans, friends, and his relationship to wife Marisol. But we also see how he must sometimes fight for his art and for being true to himself. There are many funny moments - just from Rob's personality and from interactions with other people in the music business. Some great concert footage!! I was also fortunate to be able to ask Rob at the Nashville Film Festival how it felt to be followed around being filmed all the time by Gillian, and whether he felt like he had to be "on" while being filmed. Paraphrase here - Rob answered that he felt comfortable and not like he had to put up any kind of front, because he considered Gillian a longtime. good friend - so it didn't feel weird to him.

For me, Gillian filmed these glimpses into one of my very favorite musical artists. I don't know how she went about editing all the many (250-350??) hours of footage into this one documentary. But she put it all together brilliantly. Even if you were not a big Rob Thomas fan, the film is just an enticing and fascinating behind-the-scenes work that pulls in your interest.

Highly recommend this film!!!