DAY 6
Saturday, August 15, 1998

On Location, Snohomish
11:12 AM
Jesse Moore, Director of Photography

Holding for a "major" sound difficulty. Tim Haupt (our recordist) and Paul are over at one of the bench tables here in the gymnasium - tools out and wincing. We've had a variety of technical difficulties since monday (camera power cable short, 'B' magazine not locking properly, dirty sound heads, etc...). Luckily, we have always been able to fix these things withing 15 min. Tim has a background in electrical engineering. His knowledge and extensive tool kit has been quite helpful so far. I hope this one fixes soon - were running behind today.

-Jesse

Cascade View Elementary, Snohomish
3:21 PM
Debra Friedman, Eliana's (Bitta's) Mother

"One Parent's View"

With some trepidation, I approach the sleeping Bitta: this is the fourth morning out of six that I have woken her before it is light. She is friendly, though, and anxious to wash the "crispies" out of her hair, the girls' name for hair matted with hairspray. Quickly she is showered, dressed, food packed. It is time to pick up the rest of the Seattle female "talent": Enna first, and then Abby and Shoolie.

We make our way to Snohomish, a drive that just days before was unfamiliar and now seems nearly routine. The day's scenes are to be shot at Cascade View Elementary School: it is "race" day.

The crew and equipment are in place, but not ready. Jesse gathers everyone together in a circle in the school's gym. The crew and talent introduce themselves, and Jesse quickly recounts the story of the scene that is to consume the day's work. But he wants a pre-meeting with Jesse Moore first. An hour passes. The kids cope. They are, in life, much like Jesse has written in the script: organized by gender, except at the fringes. The eldest of them have begun to cross the lines into the territory of the other. It is a tentative crossing, interspersed with lots of teasing and roughhousing. It creates a major distraction for the actors involved. The boys tire of it after a bit, and return to the familiar.

There is a flurry of activity at the beginning of the second hour, costumes are laid out, the makeup table is readied. Jesse rehearses scenes. It is a false start. Some essential costume pieces are missing. Now the technical crew is ready but those who were to attend to the actors' needs haven't done so. A moment of tension: disorganization and delay.

Another hour passes. During this hour the kids organize themselves for play. They use whatever is available. (I have, in the meantime called home to tell Michael to bring every available ball, Frisbee, and bat.) Some of them organize a game with a superball, bounced off the gym walls. Others swing in the school's playground. Some are attached to earplugs playing god-knows-what. A few girls read.

The technical crew works on, quite separate from the kids. There are two worlds here: one active, defined by where Jesse is; the other the waiting world, defined by wherever he is not. There is hardly any interaction between the largely twenty-something crew and the kids. They seem disinterested in one another. Occasionally a crew member will assert his or her greater age to reprimand a kid for being in the way or somehow distracting. I must remind the crew that kids need to play.

Finally the girls are called to the set. The boys play "butts" against the back wall of the school, out of hearing. The hierarchy of the players in the script is reproduced in their game, and they even call one another by their film names.

After lunch, shooting starts in earnest. The sound problems of the morning have been resolved. The actors hold their positions for what seems to be an endless amount of time. Their acting is a bit flat. They are tired. Jesse, sensing, but not understanding, entreats them gently but effectively: a little more, take it up a notch, just once more.

Give a little more, take it up a notch, just once more: this is how we all got here, kids, parents, crew. The siren of Jesse's dreams has pulled us all into his orbit and made stars in and of the children.

More trouble with sagging spirits. Charisma may not be able to overcome the effects of exhaustion. Jesse tries humor with an edge: "get the monkey out," he says; "that will be our new code word," he says. Maybe it will work.

Four more hours. Dinner is supposed to be a part of the schedule, but Jesse will have to be reminded to feed his cast and crew and himself. I can see already that we will have a mini-crisis at the end of the day: the day's work will not be finished, and there will be that great tension between the desire to finish and the lesson hard learned on Thursday about the cost of pushing everyone to their limit. It will be a recurring theme of this experience, no doubt.

None of this makes much sense, but that hardly matters. It is all about spinning gold out of straw. (And I've given up my first born to it, too!)

Snohomish, WA
11:42 PM
Cindy Lamb, Publicist/Production Assistant

Another day another...three square meals? Yes, it's true. The set does "cook" in more ways than one. Before I get going, thanks for your kind words as you were nodding last night at the keyboard. I am enjoying the first few days of sinking my teeth into this film as a publicisit. If I were a writer, and I am, I would certainly give your publicist a return call. I thoroughly enjoyed posting filming notice flyers for the street closure along the 2nd and B Street neighborhood today. People were aware and intrigued by the film crew invanding their city. They seemed genuinely excited about it--and believe me, they don't have to put on aires for a mere flyer poster! Regarding the heartfelt diatribe of the corresponding "mom" today, I feel that she has valid points but she's in the wrong venue. The intimacy that your brother has with his students is one thing, a movie set is another. I know, I hope, parents would become spoiled with this one-on-one attention that Jesse is able to give the kids in his class but it is a lot to expect of an acquired film crew to be able to follow through in the same spirit.

It's like surgery--there's an ill person and a physician. It is between you and your doctor as to how you'll be diagnosed and healed...then, a certain group of professionals have to step in and do what they are trained to do so well. They don't often have a relationship to the warm body on the table, unlike the physician, but everything they do is for the good of that person and the reputation of their doctor. Nothing like a Christ-ish metaphor when you're trying to get the first sleep you've had in a week, huh? I'm just saying in my own diplomatic way--mom has a valid observation, the kids are somewhat aloof and in character and the crew are trying to get their sea legs as they venture into the second hour of gorgeous captured footage. Let me know if there's any way I can help. I'm a good diffuser and I enjoy young people, even when they don't enjoy me back. More on this and far more important matters later.Thanks for letting me be a part of your project.

Lambo

Snohomish, WA
11:44 AM
Todd Howard, Producer

Being a producer is the most interesting and challenging thing I have ever done. Jesse, my brother, and I have done a great many projects together, and he even said to me two nights ago (after our 15 hour day of doom) that "as hard as it is for me to say this, this is the hardest thing we've ever done."

Breaking a script down into its smallest parts and dissecting every moment and then creating them for the lens with the right lighting, characters living the lines, locations matching those in the mind, sound capturing just the right things (i.e., the dialog - not the planes that incessantly fly over...) The actual take itself is such a microcosmic moment. It's hard to explain. To have such an intense moment - for instance, one character saying "do you understand?!" - be scrutinized to the nth degree is a surreal experience. 20 or 30 people standing around staring intently in absolute silence waiting to see if this will be the one... the way that it feels when it's right is unmistakable. Everyone knows it. The actor knows it, the director knows it and I know it. Camera is happy, sound is happy, and everyone bursts into cheers and applause. Applause for one thing - a perfect moment. Captured in its essence: light and sound.

More soon...

-Todd

Snohomish, WA
1:47 pm
Todd Howard, Producer

I really have to say something about our actors. There are these 10 kids, see, and they are repeatedly blowing my mind. Watching dailies from Day 01 last night, I became increasingly aware of how good they really are. They look fantastic on screen, and their faces are so expressive of everything they are portraying. The degree to which they know their characters and what Jesse's ideas are about the way they ought to be portrayed is staggering to my mind.

Today, we are back at the school again, and we are fighting with the sun for the first time. The forecast called for rain, and this morning the local refined forecast called for a late afternoon clearing-up, and a sigh or two were exhaled in the room. Indeed, the sun keeps poking in and out and we need to maintain consistency of light so that when we cut back and forth between the different angles that we may be shooting for a given scene in the final edit, it can't suddenly be sunny and then a second later be dark and overcast. Karl, our gaffer - in charge of lighting everything - is working his butt off to keep it consistent from moment to moment.

I have to get back out there. More soon...

-Todd

Everett, WA
In my tent behind The Athmanns'
About 9:00 PM
Paul Westfall, Sound Designer

We have lived through 5 days of this. By tomorrow's end we will be a third of the way through the shooting schedule, minus pick-ups. Todd and I figure that in terms of sheer footage alone, we have now shot "Strike My Key," the short we finished last year, ten times over.

The impossible happens on a daily basis, and I stand in awe of our ability to be conduits of action. I look forward to looking back on this. Not for distance from any present discomfort, but for the perspective that such distance will allow. I feel myself being changed. Like the film, I too am being altered by exposure to light. I wonder what will develop? Will I come out dark and grainy. Will I have to peer through the darkness of time to make out shapes in the the grainy rain of memory? Or will I be a wash of grey, lost in the mist and noise? The process so far would seem to suggest that the product will have penty of contrast, high intensity and be of excellent quality.

Long about day 2 or 3 I was struck by how small the camera is with respect to it's importance to all of our actions. We daily engage in a worshipful dance around our idol; a rite of passage onto celluloid for characters anxious to make the crossing from the ethereal world of hopes and dreams. In the more stable realms of recorded media they lay in wait for the day when they can burn out onto to the screen, and, through a hundred-thousand flashes of light and sound, will live in others' hearts.

Now in my tent, there is but the flicker of a single candle. In the distance I hear the kids sneaking up to "pay me a visit". Time for a wrestling match. Gotta go.

-Paul

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