New movie Clouds shows social media's power to amplify hope and inspiration
Director Justin Baldoni tells how the moving story of Zach Sobiech went viral, and how it's happening again in 2020.
- Jason is an award-winning journalist, editor, and video host with a passion for covering cutting edge innovation.
While more and more people -- especially those under 30 -- rely on social media as their primary source of news and information, two-thirds of people in the US now believe social media has a "mostly negative effect" on how things are going in America today, according to Pew Research. There's deep concern and mistrust about the disinformation, divisiveness, and prejudice that's being amplified on social media. Now What?
The work of director Justin Baldoni offers a counterpoint to the negativity about social media. That's why I invited to talk about his latest movie, Clouds -- which Disney released directly on Disney Plus on Oct. 16.
Baldoni has produced and directed two movies -- Five Feet Apart (2019) and now Clouds -- about terminally ill teenagers who used social media to amplify messages of hope, compassion and the one aspect of being human that unites us all: death.
The coronavirus has led to over 1 million deaths worldwide and over 200,000 in the United States. We live in a culture that struggles to talk about death, and it's rarely explored in depth in media or entertainment. However, Baldoni has built a career around tackling the topic of death head-on, first with My Last Days -- his YouTube hit series for Rainn's Wilson's SoulPancake -- and then with both Five Feet Apart and Clouds.
COVID-19 is making us all deal with death at an unprecedented level. But, if you ask Baldoni, his two movies aren't really about death. They're about what death teaches us about how to live. It's a theme that may remind you of Steve Jobs' famous 2005 commencement speech at Stanford University.
Baldoni met Sobiech in early 2013 after Sobiech's song Clouds went viral on YouTube. The upbeat lyric told the story of Sobiech's battle with cancer and finding peace after being diagnosed as terminal. Baldoni's 20-minute documentary on Sobiech was released on SoulPancake's YouTube channel on May 3, 2013. Zach passed away on May 20.
Justin Baldoni (center) on the set of Clouds with the movie's three lead actors.
The documentary and Zach's death led to an even bigger wave of viral interest in Clouds. On the day of Sobiech's funeral, the song shot to No. 1 on iTunes -- beating out Beyoncé's latest song. It was the first song from an unsigned artist to hit No. 1, and the proceeds went to the Zach Sobiech Osteosarcoma Fund to help find a cure for the rare form of bone cancer that Zach had.
Over seven years later, the movie has turned Zach's original song Clouds into a viral hit once again. After the movie debuted on Disney Plus last Friday, it led to Clouds climbing back up the iTunes charts until it hit No. 1 again on Sunday -- this time edging out Justin Bieber. And again, the proceeds will be added to the over $2 million already raised to help fund osteosarcoma research.
Baldoni shares the story of how it all came together, along with lessons learned about living, dying and finding hope at a time when so much of the world is struggling to find meaning and purpose during this global crisis.