Case Study: Fire and Light

Trying to get in touch

“I saw an advertisement on a street post for one of the performances, a fire dancing group of young children. I thought how unique and interesting because fire dancing is not something you see in western Minnesota, especially not something you would see small children performing. I was not able to attend their performance, but a year later we were filming at an event where they were performing and I took several shots of their dance in order to put them in my segment. They left before I could talk to them. Several months after that, their mother called me angrily after she had seen the broadcast of our show about large scale fire pottery, because we did not credit the group (we had 15 secs of the dancing in the segment). Little did she know I had been trying to contact her for months to do a documentary specifically on her kids. So, after I explained the situation and told her I wanted to make a documentary just on their group, she was happy and we built a relationship from there.”

Finding a focus

“First we made a story for television that had a different focus, being about the Minnesota arts scene. Then we built a stronger relationship with the family members and were able to talk about Tater’s brain injury and their journey with autism. That was when we made the short film.. We had about 5 drafts and consulted a seasoned documentary filmmaker, Mike Scholtz, who is from Duluth, MN and runs the Free Range Film Festival. I wrote the script and he helped me refine the story to what it is now. We received funding from the state of Minnesota.”

Working with a team that knows each other

“We are a team of three people and have been working together for six years, making over one hundred short documentaries. So, my team already knows what kind of shots I like and the aesthetic that I lean towards. That makes a shot list easy for me because I know that they already know what I’m thinking. I shoot as well as produce and direct. They edit as well as shoot. I make a script for them and then we hash through it from the rough cut making tweaks and changes. I usually end up going back to shoot more specific footage some time during the rough cut. After we’ve gone through the interviews more thoroughly we can get even more creative with our shots.”

Emotional interviews

“I prepared everyone for production by talking them through the potential that I felt the story had. It’s hard to prepare when you are dealing with the symptoms of autism because you can’t fully plan how things will go. It’s just a more natural process. Indeed we had a difficult time with the interviews. There were a lot of long pauses and one of the kids was crying because she thought of something that made her sad. That lasted for maybe 20 minutes. It’s hard to get back on track after something like that but it worked out in the end. We only ended up interviewing the two older kids as the younger two were not comfortable enough to do so.”

Going into post-production

“Ben Dempcy did the editing and had probably made around 5 different versions by the time it was all said and done. For the sound we had stock music that we subscribed to and Ben picked out all the music. Furthermore we had a DCP made by SimpleDCP in Hollywood. We also made some minor color corrections on our own.”

After the final cut

“We’ve been at 10 different film festivals, mostly in the US. At the festivals we made special promo cards to put on all the tables, but we also went to all the events and tried to meet people and invite them personally.”

“I would tell directors to never give up on a story you want to see made. Sometimes it can take years for the pieces to come together but they always do if you are patient. Also, don’t over complicate things. Sometimes the best stories are simple.”