Monday, December 31, 2007

Closing out the year in great shape...

We close out 2007 in great shape and with great expectations (geez, wasn’t that Dickens?) for the new year. Since Dave and I cooked up the general concept (in October) we have received a commitment by local PBS to broadcast, put up a great web site (thank you, Liam), and had several successful shoots. The best was the most recent: Friday, December 28, when we were at Zam for most of the day. We interviewed two men who spent parts of their childhood there, and got them to walk around reminiscing after the sit-down ints. Jessica and Josh made great headway on scanning the incredible photographic archive that Zam has made available to us. A word for thanks to the Zam staff, who have been so welcoming, and to MHRH in general. We could not ask for more.

Oh – our first Zam-cafeteria lunch was an experience. I had the grilled tuna (cooked to perfection) and the white chowder, and everyone else, being younger and not yet familiar with the word `Lipitor,' God bless them, had fries and greasy shit whose animal (vegetable?) origins mystified me. But it was all delicious and cheap, about 40 cents for everyone, if I recall correctly. The coffee and tea are also free. Haven brothers, watch out.

More people with great stories keep finding us through the web site, our cool postcards, and the relentless positive coverage that Dave is getting (deservedly so, although we wonder if other forces might also be in play, but that’s a story for another time… or not). On Wednesday, we will be shooting an 89-year-old woman who was a TB patient as a young girl, and met and married her husband there. Her son also grew up there. We are big on the love aspect of the movie. This will not be another disease-of-the week melodrama.

We also have a European assistant producer who will be getting us the TB story from there, a small part of the film, but a deliberate attempt to broaden the audience beyond New England.

Dave, me and a small crew head to the frozen Adirondacks in a couple of weeks to film an old sanatorium that played a big role in the early fight against TB. Should be a classic road trip. We’ll be sure to fill you in…

A word or two about Bettencourt-Miller collaboration. Although this is our first film together, we actually go back almost 16 years, to when Dave was a junior at Burrillville High School. I was looking for kids to write about for a book about senior year, and I was allowed the opportunity to sit in on classes and watch and meet soon-to-be seniors. An audition, as it were. Dave got the lead role in about five seconds, and was the protagonist in my third book, COMING OF AGE (hey, maybe we’ll give away signed copies some day). We share the same quirky view of the world and a demented, albeit creative, energy. If only his mother could forgive me. In retrospect, it seems pre-ordained that we would do ON THE LAKE together.

Happy New Year to all!

-- G. Wayne Miller