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We arrived at Rich’s house around 11 and began taping. Rich’s ability to recount his experiences are emotional and succinct. We continued taping until 5 and finished with his interview a day early. Rich was one of the more active members of the steering committee and has some great suggestions for future interviews for the film.
With most interviews, we allow the first day to be an icebreaker and mostly talk in an “overview” format, saving more detailed and sensitive information for the second and third days. Rich started and before we knew it, he had retold his accounts of arriving at and staying at Mamou in graphic detail. A really powerful first day.
We covered much more ground than expected. We had a nice lunch at a local diner and talked some more afterward, but the first half had wiped us all out. We sat on the back porch and unwound. We all went out to dinner and Luci and I gat back to the hotel around 10.
Another road trip day. This time, to Joliet, just south of Chicago. Great weather for a long drive. A cool front has come through bringing the temp down to a cool 70. We got to the hotel around 4:40 and called Rich. We met him at his house and talked for an hour just getting to know each other.
We went to Cookies restaurant for dinner and then back to his house. It got down to the 50’s and made for spending time on the back porch kind of chilly, but no complaints. We talked until 10:00 and came back to the hotel. We’ll begin taping tomorrow around 11:00 and we’ll have plenty of time through Wednesday to interview.
We got David’s around 10:30 and were taping by 11:00. We broke for lunch around 1:30 and finished up around 6:00. Even though it was a short time, we all felt everything that needed to be said, was said and David did a great job.
He also played a couple of songs for the film on his grand piano. He played a couple of versions of “Jesus Loves Me” and “Jesus Loves the Little Children”. Sounded great and hopefully will work perfectly in the film. We all went out to dinner in the Easton area, said good-bye and Luci and I headed back to the hotel.
We really enjoyed our time here in Columbus and the time spent with David and JR.
We went to David’s place after he got off work at noon. We set up quickly only to find that we had problems with the XLR cable and the lavaliere mic. We call around and quickly get a number to Bartha Visual who came through with both for us for $16 bucks for 2 days.
Despite the trip there and back and a deadline of 5 o’clock, we were able to tape for an hour and ½. To Fletcher’s credit, I called them and told them of the faulty equipment and they’re going to ship replacements to the hotel in Joliet so it’ll be there waiting for us for our shoot on Monday. A gracious recovery of a bad situation.
David had something to take care of and we met up with him afterwards for dinner. An awesome place, RJ Snappers, in the Short North area of Columbus. Ahi Tuna cooked to perfection. We had a great time and a great dinner.
Tomorrow will have to be marathon taping. It’s our last day with David before we drive back to Illinois.
Luci and I woke up, checked out of the hotel and drove to Fletcher Chicago to pick up the equipment. We got our first glance of downtown Chicago and turned back around to drive to Ohio. The Corolla drives like a champ. We get there in there in 6 hours as planned.
We check into the hotel and David comes to meet us and we all go to dinner at a place called Mohawks in the German Village District. Great beer and sandwich place. We head back to David’s apartment and scope out the apartment to set up to shoot tomorrow.
Travel day. Let the adventure begin!
Luci and I are out the door at 11:15, Buster is packed and we’re driving down the BQE. Luci asks me if I remembered to pack videotapes. Seemed like an obvious thing to pack for a trip to tape interviews. I forgot. We had to turn around, go back home, get the tapes and start over again. Fortunately, traffic wasn’t too bad.
LaGuardia’s long term parking was full (standard) so we proceeded to off-airport parking, this time armed with a “free day” coupon for air park. A nice attendant at the airport gave us this card with all the off-airport prices written down. Air park was the closest, but also the most expensive. By like $5 a day more. We went to the next lot, Clarion (1/2 mile) and saved over $50 for the trip.
We decided to bring our light kit to save having to rent one. We were a little worried that the measurements would be larger than allowed and they were going to charge us the $80 extra each way (still cheaper than the rental). As luck would have it, she didn’t measure it at all and passed it on through. She did, however, get me to lighten 7 lbs. out of our suitcase.
We began watching “The Bourne Identity” on the laptop, but the flight was so short, we barely got through the first act. For what it is (spy thriller done Hollywood style) it’s pretty good. We were expecting delays in Pittsburgh (the connection) going on to Chicago because of the weather. When we arrived, they had changed the gate and delayed it 3 times ½ hour by ½ hour until they finally cancelled. Luci and I took the opportunity to grab a bite of food and continue watching the movie. We got on the 6:35 flight to Chicago. They held us again out on the tarmac for about 45 minutes or so. We watched the third installment of the movie. We finally took off around 7:30 and were able to finally finish the film.
I can’t remember what time we landed in Chicago, but by the time we picked up the rental car, a very nice and very new Toyota Corolla and drove to the hotel it was 11:00. A 12-hour travel odyssey. We ordered pizza, Chicago style, delivered, watched a little TV and fell asleep. Although it was long, it went by all right.
We pick up the equipment tomorrow in Chicago and drive to Columbus, Ohio to interview David Darr.
With everything finished, today we will spend preparing for our trip tomorrow; laundry, packing, post office, etc.
Sent the proposal packet off today. We'll hear something in October.
Yet still more rewriting and mistake finding in proposal. By noon, it was done!
Sent my 2 week notice into work. I can’t return and finish the film, so one had to go. A little scary, but also a load off my mind.
Luci and I both logged tapes into the night.
Spent all weekend writing and rewriting the proposal. Luci continued logging tapes.
We received the last tape from Mom's transcribing. We're all caught up! We continued logging tapes. Luci did more accounting and I did more writing.
Luci did major accounting for a budget for the proposal and I began writing the body. We also continued to log tapes.
Received a letter from the Cowles Charitable Trust inviting us to submit a proposal. Looking into the guidelines, this will be a complicated process.
Continued logging tapes.
Continued to log tapes. Watched “Boys of St. Vincents”, both parts. To get a gist of what we’re dealing with, watch the first film. It’s about one Catholic orphanage where abuses had taken place over many years. The kids break the silence and the cover-up begins. The second part picks up 15 years later and revolves around the trial. They are both very powerful films and I highly reccomend watching them.
Printed trip-tiks to and from for all our Chicago trip travels.
Our bad luck hit a few days late: Someone broke into Buster over the weekend and stole our stereo. It looks something like this. The only real damage is the door lock they screwdrivered open and of course the water damage from all the rain (they didn’t bother to close the door when they were through). Between the insurance, parking tickets and repairs, Buster has served us well, but he’s too expensive to keep and it’s time to sell him.
Logged more footage. This happens in real time, so it’s slow going, but a great reminder of just how amazingly open and honest everyone has been in their interviews. Reaffirming that we’re going to have a very strong film once we’re done.
Began watching footage with tanscription and logging time code for future digitizing.
Received a package from Bev with some absolutely amazing slides and video footage from their Pittsburgh prayer vigil for MK abuse. We now have actual location shots of Mamou from the time period and even pictures of some of the perpetrators. They’re in mint condition and will illustrate the film perfectly. Thank you Bev!
Talked with Harold Moss from Flicker Lab about doing a whole bunch of post production stuff for us. They’ve done animation/titles/sound and timing for Michael Moore’s last 2 films as well as doing some gratis sound work for me on a short film, among many other things. They’re super talented and will be a real asset to the film. Sent him over the ½ hour cut to get a gist of what we’re doing/going for. Hopefully he'll like the project and we'll be able to afford their services.
Sent another audiotape to Mom. She’s cranked through all the previous tapes and really brought us up to speed on transcribing.
Reserved equipment in Chicago at Fletch Chicago. Nice guys and decent rates.
No bad luck today.
Talked to Jason Guerrasio from indieWIRE at 3:00. A short and "sweet" interview. The column should come out the first or second week of September.
Scheduling conflicts forced us to juggle our Chicago-Columbus trip. We’ll be flying into Chicago and driving to Columbus, Ohio the following day to interview David Darr over 3 days, then we’ll return to Joliet to interview Rich Darr over 3 days. My Uncle and Aunt recently moved outside of Peoria so we’ll drop in on them for a night and spend the rest of the week in Chicago for tourism and celebration.
Plans for Chicago are starting to gel. We’ll be renting equipment there and staying in a place called Joliet, about 45 minutes south of the city.
Coordinating Chicago and Columbus trips.
Approached by IndieWIRE for an interview about the film for the monthly column called “Production Report”. We’ll set up a time soon.
Went to see Lucinda Williams in Central Park. Was given free tickets from some guy that was leaving (thank you), but was stopped at the security gate for having forks. Apparently, they are no longer eating utensils, but weapons. Weapons for Mass Consumption! We ate our couscous outside, hid the forks and enjoyed the show.
Fishing with Jeff. Beautiful day, but didn’t catch a thing. I got one real big bite, but I suspect it was a diving bird.
Formatted transcriptions and bound them by family in 3 ring binders.
Watched a great doc, “Outlaw Comic: The Censoring Of Bill Hicks” on TRIO. It’s playing all this month. I highly recommend it. The irony is, that the network had to censor most of what Hicks says.
The visuals were produced by Digital Kitchen and IOFilms. Among other things, Digital Kitchen did the opening sequence for “Six Feet Under”.
We’re going to approach a company here in New York that does similar work for treatment of our photos and Super 8 footage. Think: “The Kid Stays in the Picture”, but much, much more subtle. A company called Edgeworx did that masterpiece.
Wrote a stack of approach letters to foundations and got them in the mail.
Became online members at the Foundation Center and spent most of the day combing through foundations that match the project. Found a lot.
Finally saw “Fahrenheit 9/11”. I was in Germany when it premiered and my back pain prevented me from sitting in a theater up until now.
I’ll reiterate what I’ve heard so often: “Everyone, regardless of your political affiliation should see this movie before voting”.
I hope it makes it to cable before November so Republicans can shamelessly watch in the privacy of their own homes.
Heard from Richard Darr. Began trying to coordinate our visit outside Chicago. Looks like it’ll be at the end of August. We may try and combine the trips to him and David Darr.
After these two interviews we will have completed all the family interviews! A true milestone for us.
More of the same from previous days. Transcribing and grant research. Didn’t feel like being redundant with the entries.
