Month: June 2022

Categories
Documentary oklahoma film S8 straight 8 super 8 super 8 film

S8: 22 – 5 Take Care, Tar Creek (Production)

Moving Towards Production

I was excited to get going with shooting the film. I coordinated, at a moment’s notice, to drive to the site the following weekend. But as the day neared closer part of me realized I wasn’t fully prepared. Then as the weather forecast materialized it became apparent that this chosen weekend wasn’t going to work anyway. In retrospect, it was a good thing that the shoot got delayed a week. It gave me time for more preparation, more planning, and additional clarity.

When the time came, I was able to talk my son into coming with me. it’s about a 3-4 hour drive from my home up to NE Oklahoma. Along the way we talked about the plan, the film, and all the possible scenarios.

The thing about shooting a film “the Straight 8 way” is that, no matter how much planning you do, there is always the possibility for error. Unlike other films/videos where you can go in “in post” and fix it, there is no possibility of that with this type of film. If it is in frame when you are pulling the trigger, it’s on the film. No matter what. If it’s out of focus, if it’s too dark or too bright, if the lens cap is on, if your “talent” misses the take – that’s it! No retakes.

That feeling, knowing that the opportunity for error is always present, and yet you still have to proceed, to the best of your ability, to capture what you want, how you want it, and get to a watchable end product…well, that is both nerve wracking and incredibly exciting at the same time.

You can have the entire film in your head, or you can have your mind clear and shoot on-the-fly. I have to admit, I do a bit of both.

It was good to have my son there and fun to work with him. In spite of the long drive, the hot Oklahoma summer conditions, and all the little nit-picky details of setting up each shot, timing it, and document it, he was steadfast. I’d go so far as to say, he might have been having fun, at least for a little while. His was there to record me filming each shot – for timing purposes. He was there as a chemical element character in some scenes. He was there for the audio interview recording session. Overall, he did a great job and I was happy and thankful to have him there.

Principle Photography

Shooting of the film took place on June 11, 2022. On the way into town, a funny thing; we passed an onion semi-truck that had some kind of malfunction with its trailer and lost its entire load of onions on the two lane blacktop. Traffic was backed up in both directions and the local fire department was spraying the remnants of squished and smeared onions from the asphalt. The pungent sulfuric odor of onion lingered in the air.

View of Tar Creek access point.

We arrived in the town of Cardin at about 11:20am after the long drive. We drove to an area I’d previously located on Google maps days before – I wasn’t sure exactly what I was looking for, but had in mind all the elements of the shot. It didn’t take long and we were setting up along the side of the road, chat pile in the background, a barbed wire fence, and an old relic of a sign. So began this non-stop day. Following is the shot list I wrote down – in order of appearance. Times are an estimate based on my own count as I recorded.

Shot list - in order of appearance

Started at 11:20am - Cardin, OK

5 sec - First shot S8 ID# on barbed wire fence
5 sec - Barbed wire, chat hill background
5 sec - U.S. No Trespassing sign 
(*At this point went back the LEAD Agency bldg to meet Rebecca for the interview. Picked up these following shots later, after interview and lunch.)
8 sec - Pan shot of chat pile 
5 sec - Concrete mine structure 1
5 sec - Another concrete mine structure 2
5 sec - Active mining equipment
>>May be 2-3 individual random frames captured here.
8 sec - Close up of chat material
5 sec - Picher water tower
5 sec - Picher-Cardin memorial sign
5 sec - Picher Gorilla mascot memorial
5 sec - Close up - Summit in Yellow (Pb) shirt
5 sec - Summit - same shirt - at abandoned gas station at State Line
6 sec - Summit in Orange (Cd) shirt - abandoned structure/pillars
5 sec - Long shot of abandoned bldg - “Keep Out
5 sec - Close up of same bldg. with Keep Out more visible 
5 sec - Close up of water in foreground - fish?
5 sec - Summit on chat pile (shirt color?)
5 sec - Long shot of chat pile
5 sec - Quapaw sign on fence
5 sec - Tar Creek - water flowing at E Street/Miami Nursing Home access
5 sec - 2 kids in the water moving large concrete/rocks
5 sec - Rebecca at Tar Creek in pink (As) shirt
5 sec - Daniel at tar Creek in red (Pb) shirt
5 sec - Summit at Tar Creek in Yellow (Pb) shirt
5 sec - Aaron at Tar Creek in Orange (Cd) shirt - filmed by Summit
10 sec - Bridge over Tar Creek at Rockdale location
?? - Rebecca downstream shot
?? - Rebecca and Daniel facing camera together in shirts
?? - Water barrel close up at LEAD Agency garden
?? - Rebecca watering garden
?? - Summit back of shirt with title “Take Care, Tar Creek on shirt” follow-shot past a Lead Free Yard sign into the garden

END
Drove home.
At Tar Creek location.

As noted in the shot list, we’d only just begun the film shoot portion when the time came that we needed to go back to Miami to the LEAD Agency office to meet for the interview.

*More about the interview in a future post…

Categories
Documentary Film film shoot film update oklahoma film principal photography S8 straight 8 super 8 super 8 film

S8: 22 – 4 Take Care, Tar Creek (Research & Planning)

Research

Screen capture from US EPA website.

Now that I had an idea, my next step would be research. I had a lot of history to cover, a lot of catching up to do on the history of Tar Creek. I spent time reading, discovering scientific articles, news stories, videos, and more. Most of all I’d hope to discover someone to speak to, I needed to have a voice and a perspective of someone who lived in the area. During this process I found LEAD Agency and Executive Director, Rebecca Jim. I reached out to Rebecca explaining what I wanted to do and expressing my interest in meeting with her. This step alone felt like a big one, to reach out and share a vision and to ask someone for their time. In that email I expressed:

I want to focus in an artistic meaningful way on the persistence of life in a region that has experienced so much environmental impact and hardship. This film is not intended as a commercial piece, rather as a personal project of interest with the possibility of exhibition at international film festivals.  

I was pleasantly surprised that she returned my email quickly and enthusiastically.

Story & Planning

Roughed out narration/script from my Notes app. (Didn’t end up using this.)

After making contact and receiving confirmation that I’d have someone to interview, I was anxious to get going. Maybe a little too anxious. At this point I felt like there were some major piece in place to create a production but didn’t really have a fully fleshed out story yet.

So much of “story” comes from exploration, brainstorming, testing ideas out loud, maybe talking through them, sharing them with others willing to listen – and sometimes, for me, writing my way through a concept. My writings these days often take place spontaneously through the Notes app on my phone. If something strikes me, even a fleeting spark of an idea, I will often make a note of it. Often times I’ve found, the ones I come back to more than once are the ones that have staying power, and end up in the film.

Through all of this, I’d been pondering the angle I wanted to take. i think of this style of film; these short Super 8 films, most akin to a poem in many ways. Knowing that I wouldn’t have time to introduce the entire spectrum and breadth of Tar Creek, this would not be an all encompassing documentary of the area – that’s not what I wanted. This was an opportunity for a singular perspective – and what better than the perspective of Tar Creek itself?

And so I began to think in this way, as if the Creek could speak. Then to begin thinking about titles, because the title could be the essence of the story. So many ideas came to mind, so many titles, but the one that kept coming back up, was “Take Care, Tar Creek.” It was as if the film would be an open-letter from Tar Creek to the world, and then at the end would be the salutation, Take Care, Tar Creek. And credit where credit is due, my wife helped me to solidify that concept when she suggested that the film could begin with “Dear…”

With that, I felt that the film, at least in my mind, presented a bookended concept with what could be a clear beginning, middle and end.

Then, to assemble the pieces in a meaningful way. I’d need music, I’d need some narration and of course, some moving pictures.

More to come on the shooting day, music and more in next posts…

Categories
Documentary film shoot film update S8 straight 8 super 8 super 8 film

S8: 22 – 3 Take Care, Tar Creek (Backstory and Idea)

Colored pencil on brown paper. Illustration by me.

Lots of progress made in a fairly short amount of time. I have been keeping notes and have some information to share over the next few posts.

Backstory

First, a little bit of backstory on where the idea originated. It’s been over 20 years since I visited NE Oklahoma and Picher, OK. Last time I was there was as a student collecting soil samples for a scientific research project associated with my Masters thesis. In that work, I was investigating the relationship between particle size distribution and heavy metal concentrations in chat for extrapolation to potential exposures and health hazards. Even then, I remember feeling like the research I was doing, while useful in some respects, did not convey or communicate any real message, the way I wanted to. I recall having a discussion with my advisor once, about a documentary or story – but at that time it only felt like a pipe-dream, nothing more. Soon after achieving my degree I got my first career-level job, life took over and I moved on to other things. I never forgot about the place, kept up with the headlines, but always wondered if my work made any difference. I kept tabs on issues and followed stories about the area but it wasn’t until recently that I felt like maybe there’s something more to contribute.

Idea

Straight 8 is something I have entered a couple of times before. I’ve always embraced the opportunity to try and think of a concept from nothing, to something, to execution. This year I registered before ever having a real idea. I just felt like the pressure of knowing I’d committed to it would be a good driver of having to come up with something. Going into this one, my mind was actually headed in a completely different direction. I was thinking much more fictional and experimental. I went back to some old notes I’d made years ago and worked through the concept. But the more I thought about it the more I wanted to explore something in a documentary style. I started thinking out loud, talking through it, talking about ideas accessible to me, relevant to Oklahoma. And something that I thought an international audience might find unique or interesting about Oklahoma. This idea was in my wheelhouse – I’d known about Tar Creek, I’d known the challenges there, and the continuing struggles that the place has experienced. So the more I thought about the more it began to seem possible.

What I’ve found many times is that an idea that feels right seems to take on a life of its own. It grows legs and starts to move in a direction that wasn’t necessarily planned. It morphs and evolves into something more, something greater and sometimes, something different. Part of this feels like trying to bridle a mustang. It can get out of control. Trying to get my arms around something with so much weight, so much impact, and such a vast and storied past is difficult – and i felt that right away in approaching this idea for a mere 3 minute and 20 second film. My intent, from the beginning was to create a multi-part story, even a multi-film story. But I’ve since come to accept that I need to handle this one piece at a time. And while I could enter the Straight 8 festival multiple times and have multiple parts, I felt like I would be moving away from the intent of being able to tell a story with only one roll of Super 8 film. Arguably, an even harder task than knowing that I might have more time with multiple entires. The idea was then re-centered on keeping the focus on a single roll.

More to come on the idea in future posts…

Categories
Documentary S8 straight 8 super 8 super 8 film

S8: 22 – 2 – Film Notes

I have a film title. A subject. And a complete concept. Now, just to put it into action.

Going to be cautious in not revealing the idea or the title until I have some more solidified – so going to be a bit cryptic about it for now. But I am really excited about this direction and feel it has the potential for a must larger project.

Photo courtesy of wikipedia