Last month I had the extraordinary privilege of attending Werner Herzog’s Rogue Film School, where the legendary filmmaker told me: “If something is really fascinating, just do it.”

I became fascinated with this signature Seattle event 2003, when I first gathered with  a few dozen other cyclists in my friend Sabine’s basement in Roosevelt, to slap on paint and ride fast across town to crash the parade. It was an exhilarating, scary, transformative experience that I’ll never forget. Since then, the guerilla event has grown to more than 500 riders annually, severely testing the commitment of organizers.

But the biggest test of all, of course, is faced every year by first-time riders who must overcome a deep-rooted fear: being naked in public.

My vision is to make a participatory film in which we go in search of four relatively normal people who have never been naked in public before, and challenge them to ride in the 2011 parade. Will they actually go through with it? What are their biggest fears and where do they originate? In the film we’ll explore these fears through dream sequences, intense conversations, and first-person camera work.

This will not be a journalistic film about the history of the event. Nor will it simply be an event film. This will be an adventure film about how four people transform their fear into action and what happens as a result. If more of us were willing to confront our deepest fears and express ourselves creatively, might the world be a better place?

“I am very suspicious of making the world a better place,” Herzog said. His more modest goal in making films is to provoke “a shift of perspective.” Similarly, my goal in making this film is to take the audience on a journey most will never otherwise take, one that leaves them with a fresh perspective.

And, it will be entertaining. I promise you that.