April; Planting Seeds

"Dirty Work: The Story of Elsie's Farm is now out on DVD!!! I like to think of each one as a seed with wings; bearing ideas, a discussion among friends, a neighborhood get-together, or maybe the inspiration for an organized screening event with panel discussion. Or even a simple gift passed on to a friend.

My hope is to see the film bring about community, and new connections. This a film with grass roots!!!

Public screenings scheduled for April include:

Saint Joan of Arch Church's Eco-Spirits group will show the film as part of their ongoing series of environmentally engaged films on Friday, April 13, 7pm – 9pm in Hospitality Hall in the Church Basement

On Earth Day, April 19th, the Seward Co-op on Franklin Ave will screen the film, that's at 7PM in the classroom.

Also that same evening, on April 19th, the Kingfield Neighborhood will be showing the film at Solomon's Porch, at the intersection of 46th and Blaisdell. There will be a reception for Don Roberts and Joni Cash at 6PM with the screening to follow.

DVDs are available by emailing Deb redeyevideo@mac.com or calling 651-216-4610.

Happy Spring!!

Screenings Available

"Dirty Work: The Story of Elsie's Farm" had a sold out premiere screening at the Trylon in May. It's since been shown at the Flyway Film Festival in WI, at the Seward Co-op, at the University of Minnesota, and at the fabulous Mabel Tainter Theater in Menomonie, WI as part of UW-Stout's "Food for Thought" film series.

If you haven't seen it yet, there are more opportunities coming up. It will screen in Fergus Falls at the College on January 25th. Screenings are being worked out for the Frozen River Festival in Winona, Saint Joan of Arc Church in Minneapolis, and there'll be another screening at Seward Coop in the spring.

Rick Nelson in an article the Star-Trib called it a "must see" for anyone interested in the local food movement.

People tell me that it's one of the few documentaries where you walk out feeling hopeful, with a new respect for food that is healthy, wholesome and real.

Emmy award winning producer John Whitehead had this to say "I love the way that it moves beyond considerations of the "plant kingdom" to ruminate on birth/death, failure/success, nature, time and the cycle of life. The film has the look and feel of a lovingly crafted, hand-made object. So kudos to you, and the rest of your crew!"

If you are inspired to host a screening of "Dirty Work" in your neighborhood coop, your classroom, or theater, you can contact me at 651-216-4610.

Rough! Rough!

There's a little scene in the film, Dirty Work, where one of the worker's dogs, who is tied nearby to the field where they are planting seedlings, begins barking. "Ruff ruff ruff! Ruff ruff!" It's one of those things, I could have edited the sound out, but instead I edited a shot of the dog in, and he has a little cameo.

That comes to mind because we're ready to screen the Dirty Work rough cut, and for weeks and months I've been cutting little scenes like that, making spontaneous decisions like that, and soon we will decide what makes the actual final cut, what's in and what's out.

Being so close to one's film, there's always things that slip under your radar, and screening the rough cut helps to determine whether the story line and details are clear to an audience. Mike, my trusted companion, who shot the film, was, of course, the first person to see it.

What we have right now is a film that is 62 minutes, and it will have to be cut back to about 52 minutes for broadcast on public television, so we're soliciting audience reactions in a session, a laboratory, as it were, of interested people, at the Independent Film Project's Docu Club.

Docu Club was founded by Melody Gilbert, of "Married at the Mall" fame, and many of those who attend are documentary producers, actively engaged in their own media adventures. So it will be an interesting and hopefully lively discussion about what works and what doesn't, what's loved, and what's missing, what could be pruned or moved around or made more clear, or dropped altogether.

Anyone and everyone who is interested is welcome at this session.

Docuclub is scheduled at IFP MN (2446 University Ave. West, Suite 100, St. Paul/651-644-1912) on Friday, February 26, 2010.

DIRTY WORK is an hour-long documentary about a dream. The film follows a year in the life of the people who invested their sweat, hopes, and tears into Elsie's Farm; a little field of vegetables that just might change the world.

Potluck snacks and drinks begin around 5pm with the films starting around 6:00pm. It’s free and and open to all.

Progress Report

I haven't been blogging, mostly because I've been editing like mad. Making hay while the sun shines!

Or let's say you are planting seeds, getting your hands in the dirt, and you finally get to the end of a row and then another, and you just ignore the aches and pains, bend down again and again, and keep on task, and suddenly, even though it seems like forever, you've reached the last row. All your work is not done, there's weeding ahead, insects to fight off, and down the road, a harvest, but it feels good to look back and see all the little sprouts waving their green flags behind you, in their orderly processions.

I'm very close to having a rough cut of the film. I've been just cutting scenes one by one, and now, soon, I'll hook all those scenes together and see what I've made of it.

I took that opportunity to call up Farmer Don and tell him where we are at. Don Roberts is a very vigorous and feisty seventy something year old, and he's had some health challenges this winter, which has kept him a bit low for a few months.

The good news is, he's successfully recovered, and sounded hearty, and jovial, much like his old self, it was a joy to hear!

Here's to Don and Joni!!

Continuity

"In a discontinuous world, I love continuity" Don Roberts declares, the day we filmed at the Kingsfield Farmer's Market. Continuity, as I mentioned earlier, rules my editing of the film about his organic farm.

Michael Pollan's book, Food Rules, just released and climbing the charts, is premised on continuity, the sayings and proverbs about eating that were passed down to us.

What is it about continuity?

Pollan is a writer worth knowing about. He's engaging, curious, literate, anecdotal; yet someone who relies on common sense to come to certain conclusions. He argues, in his latest books, that to be healthy one should eat food.

Remember that old televison ad, Lay's Potato Chips, bet you can't eat just one? Or even better, Pringles, the crisp that fits in a can? These are highly engineered corporate products that are designed, yes, people work on this, eight hours a day, day in and day out, to take away whatever little control you might think you have over what you put in your mouth.

Rule of Thumb 1, if your great grandmother cooked it, and your grandfather ate it, Pollan says, it's probably o.k. for you to eat it. If not, think twice about even buying it. When you feel the urge to eat a potato chip, he wrote recently, wash a potato, cut out the eyes and dodgy bits, slice it thinly, preferably with the skin on , fry it in olive or almond or sesame oil, and by the time you've done all that, and cleaned up after yourself, you'll have better nutrition, are less likely to overindulge, given the work involved, and I imagine also, that if there's any other human in range of the wafting scents of frying, they've probably already reduced your portion size by at least half.

If it grew spontaneously out of the dirt, it's probably got eons of history with the human race and is going to, in the long run, make you feel better, give you more energy, and save your life. Food Rules! That's the philosophy of Elsie's Farm and, ultimately, this film.

Continuity.

Reel Time

I was reading an interview with a filmmaker yesterday who said documentaries differ from fiction in that, not only do you have no script, you have to wait for the story to happen in real time.

Real time is exactly what I was wrestling with, the other day.

Early video artists once made a point of rejecting the constant cutting, montage, the manipulation of a viewer's experience that has come to characterize television and Hollywood narratives. Andy Warhol's six hour meditation on the face of a sleeping lover is the film of that sort that comes to mind. As you might guess, these films were easily forgettable, exercises in boredom. Real time still inspires artists, but, mostly as a place to start from.

We like our time collapsed, like a telescope. It's one of the pleasures of film, to view experience from afar, see more of it in a glance, than when we were immersed in it.

So a documentary, these days is all about cutting up time and reorganizing it, putting events and statements in an own order, the logic of which follows the heart, or sets up an argument, or makes sense to you in some way you can't explain.

Dirty Work, unlike previous documentaries I've edited, has a clear sequence of events to be followed. It's amazing to me how much time I spend cutting up real time to create the illusion of it, instead.

if the film works, all this intricate puzzle piecing to maintain continuity will embed the viewer in the story, so that we are swept up by the lives and challenges happening before our eyes, and see them in a larger context.

Is this organic editing? Or merely the illusion of it? Only time will tell.

Woof!

I learned a new word yesterday. I was listening to a radio interview taped a few years ago, the show Local Hero. Don Roberts, the co-owner of Elsie's Farm, and his son Alexander, the chef at Alma, were on air to discussing organic food, their relationship as grower and purveyor, health and healing, finding one's bliss, community supported agriculture and the cooperative movement, amongst other topics.

Don gave a rapid fire list of all the people it took to run Elsie's Farm, and mentioned wwoofers, a word the host, Brett Olson, quickly seized on. Having been involved with Elsie's Farm for five years, I didn't know the term either.

A wwoofer, it turns out, does not mean the bass resound in your audio speaker, but is an acronym for "world wide opportunities on organic farms." The WWOOF website puts people in touch with organic farms that could use their labor in exchange for housing and meals. Like couch sitting, only for those with a green thumb and a yen, not just to wander the earth, but love it, and get your hands dirty with it.

Elsie's Farm, the place, and Dirty Work, the movie, were enlivened by many young people that happened to be around at the time we were shooting; Jeff, Kristen, and William, in particular. I'm glad to learn about wwoofers because I have the feeling, after seeing this, others like them will want to get involved.

WWoof! Wwoof!