AFTER HOURS

IN PRODUCTION

LIGHTS! CAMERA! ACTION!

By day, Jennifer Alton is a defense attorney with Alton & Allen. By night, she is a budding documentary producer who recently completed her first project, “Passion & Purpose,” which is an exploration into what it is that drives people in their chosen careers. Alton first conceived of the film a year ago during a conversation with a friend which started with the question, “Why do you love what you do?” The answer was intriguing and she suddenly felt compelled to talk with others in the community about their chosen paths. Before long, Alton had lined up a dozen or so Central Coast professionals to find out what made them tick.

Serendipity seemed to grace the project from the beginning, as Alton’s newly-formed company, Brighten Hall Productions, teamed up with Molly Kiely, whose similarly named business, Bright Age Productions, collaborated seamlessly. Along the way, a path continued to open up for the pair, at one point quite literally. After setting up her camera on a local peak at dawn one morning, Kiely was surprised to see Linnaea Phillips appear out of the darkness at the end of the trail. Following their conversation, Kiely called Alton to say, “You have to interview Linnaea! I just met her— she’d be perfect for this.” Phillips, who founded Linnaea’s Café in San Luis Obispo, became a key figure in the film as she shares a lifetime of wisdom.

The film made its debut in front of a packed house at the Palm Theatre recently, and while Alton is excited that it has been added to the SLO International Film Festival line-up, she also stresses that box office success is not necessarily what she is after. “It was such a wonderful journey, and I’m open to wherever it takes me,” she reflects. And, after pausing for a moment to collect her thoughts, she talks at length about how the subjects in the film inspired her. “Really, in the end,” Alton leans in and lowers her voice as if to pass along a secret, “I’m just trying to be a better human being than I was yesterday.” SLO LIFE