It’s the winter of 2022, and Vinny Sereni (aka Sereni Ace) and his team head to the Poconos for a week-long celebration and musical journey. They’ve made music together before, but something about this album is different. It might be the way they’re collaborating, it could be the cold, snowy weather, or something else entirely–but the vibes are good and this feels like it could be their best album yet. Get Lost: The Documentary is an up-close-and-personal telling of the making of Sereni Ace’s newest album, a journey into the musical minds of friends and confidants.
I’ve known Vinny for some time, since I was seventeen or so–but this is honestly the first time that I’ve seen him like this. I know he’s been creating music for years, but to see the process play out in front of me was a unique experience. For those of you familiar with the Poconos, you know that they are beautiful, vast, and wonderfully intimate–making it a spectacular place for any film really, so heading there to shoot a documentary about music just seems obvious. Get Lost: The Documentary quickly sets the scene, presenting viewers with an accurate depiction of where The Crescent Boys are headed and where the entirety of the film will take place. Interestingly enough, I don’t think it’s essential for Director Mike Burns to set the scene in the opening seconds, but doing so is inviting–almost making viewers part of the journey with Vinny and his team.
The entirety of Get Lost: The Documentary footage is a tad shaky. It’s a low budget film, and it’s more than likely that this group wasn’t spending thousands on filming equipment (not to mention the documentary’s main purpose seems to be to supplement the release of the album “Get Lost”). That’s, however, not a critique of the shaky footage–but rather a testament to the fact that this aspect of the film, much like the opening montage of footage, allows the film to become more intimate, further inviting viewers into Get Lost: The Documentary. This is simple, but with the way the camera moves, it feels like we, the viewers, are standing behind it (maybe a couple shots of Fireball deep like the ones being showcased in the film). Everything about this film works toward developing a relationship with its viewers–and I think Burns is successful in his endeavors in this regard.
A show called Songland was on television not all that long ago, and it discussed the process of altering pitch, tone, etc. of a song to work for the artists for which it was created. I can remember looking at my wife and telling her how uninteresting hearing about this process was to me–and I don’t think I ever watched another episode. When I turned on Get Lost: The Documentary and heard Vinny narrating, my mind immediately jumped back to that aforementioned conversation–and I was worried that this, too, would be difficult for me to appreciate.
I am not, by any means, musically inclined–but I love words (if you couldn’t tell). While people like Matt Nardone talk about this aspect of song writing to a degree (and honestly, I found Matt’s knowledge of the programs he uses to be one of the most interesting aspects of Get Out: The Documentary), what is showcased even more is the development of the lyrics. Hearing The Crescent Boys, and more specifically Vinny himself, playing with words in order to create music is what ultimately appealed to me regarding this process. To hear the words so quickly pour onto the page, to see them manipulated, and to eventually watch them become the songs that made it onto the album was so incredibly interesting and the veritable star of the show in a lot of ways.
Get Lost: The Documentary isn’t supposed to be groundbreaking, and as I mentioned before, I seem to think the only reason it was made was to supplement the release of the album. However, I think the film does a lot of really interesting and technically sound things that allow it the potential to exist on its own. While the film and the album likely will work as a pair, I think the way in which Burns sets the film up will allow each entity to exist on their own; and they won’t necessarily need one another in order to find success. I enjoyed the process of seeing this music come to life, the passion present in each and everyone on screen is apparent, and Get Lost: The Documentary exceeded my expectations.
Directed by Mike Burns.
Starring Vinny Sereni, Matt Nardone, Dan Blanton, James Duvak, etc.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/10
