Dave
These are some words that were written by Tony, Sarah, Stef, and myself that were read at Dave’s funeral in November 2014:
Rather than talk about what happened to Dave, I’d like to talk about who Dave was, and what he meant to us. Lately, with everything that’s happened, it’s been a little difficult to do that. I considered Dave my best friend, but many others also claimed the same thing. It’s the sort of guy Dave was.
I met Dave on the first day of college. He struck up a conversation with me, and this conversation proceeded to last seven years without pause. Dave was a kind and generous person, and he allowed me to sleep on his couch for all four years of college, refusing to let me leave. Dave often refused to let you leave, especially not before your conversation had ended.
Dave was composed of pure energy, always thinking, always absorbing knowledge and relaying it to any soul that was willing to talk to him. You couldn’t escape a Dave Kendricken conversation. You wouldn’t want to. When he was speaking, he required all of your attention. He would lure you in, ensnare and captivate you with his words, and soon enough hours, days, years would pass. The sun would be rising, you would have class in an hour, and you and Dave would be communicating via animal grunts and drum noises over breakfast.
Dave broke down the very fabric of communication in such a way that entire conversations could be had in drum beats. Or song lyrics. Or in Scottish accents. Or in movie quotes. Dave pioneered the “post-conversation” in that ultimately you both ended up essentially talking about talking. What words meant, why we said them, how we said them, and where they came from, were all questions Dave would ask aloud to himself. But also you. Because while Dave talked so very very much, he was always just as interested in hearing you talk. And he would challenge you to talk. He was relentless in hearing your perspective, your opinion, your story.
As a filmmaker Dave was a mad scientist. Like most things in life he had no problem questioning the way things worked, taking them apart and mixing up the gears, slapping it back together just to see what would happen. Whether it was degrading video signals or transmitting timecode from a phone over the air into a camera just to see if he could to it, Dave wanted to challenge the way that we thought about everything. But no matter how crazy we thought the Idea was we were all there just as excited as he was to see the beauty of what we had created together, Even if the gears only turned for 5 seconds, those were the most beautiful 5 seconds because we made it together with our own Daveishness.
Dave was a shepherd. People flocked to his word like birds to a bath. He had no social fear, because he was not afraid to be himself in front of anyone. That kind of magnetic energy irradiated outward constantly and if you knew him or even just met him you felt the fear fade, you could be yourself. Not only did he engage you in being your own self, he pulled the best qualities out of each individual his life touched, embracing who they were to the core.
Dave was a Mentor to many in his constant need to spread and share information. Many considered him to be the smartest man they knew. His continual strive for absorbing and repackaging knowledge and information informed many people on a variety of different topics. Many people in our group of friends learned as much about filmmaking from Dave as they did from any class or lecture.
Dave was everyone’s Muse. As an explorer of the unknown and the creative spaces of the human psyche Dave naturally was there to hear and cultivate any idea or concept. Even if you weren’t 100% into your own idea for a film, story, or painting by the time you finished talking to him, your inspiration had been rekindled due to his encouragement and motivation.
What happened to Dave was tragic and unfathomable. But it is not the end of Dave’s story. What he left behind- the amount of unfinished projects and inspiring ideas, embody him and his personality to such a degree, that even though we all may have to help complete them, they will still be Dave Kendricken’s work. Beyond that, any film, any painting, any song, any experiment that we attempt to make, he will still be apart of due to the motivation and innovation he inspired in all of us. Dave’s body may be gone, but his spirit floats among the cosmos, exploring the universe for new knowledge to pass on. His soul remains within all of us, pushing us to be strong, to be fearless. To be us.