Working On The Middle

While we are now smack in the middle of the shot schedule for Pull Stops we have been looking at the direction the interviews are taking us, and trying to get a handle on the story. I am still trying to weave the elements together in my mind and so I have been bouncing some ideas off of some of you. The cool thing about the project is the number of surprises that have popped up while shooting and researching.

It is these surprises that are the ingredients to a compelling story line... at least that is my way of looking at it. I heard it said one time, "that the more personal and private the thought you have the more universally shared it is." When I am lucky enough to catch an ah-ha moment on tape... a moment where I have just learned something... these are the moments I dearly want to keep in the project. The most memorable so far was when David Dahl was asking me why I was doing a documentary on pipe organs. While I was explaining that our church was getting a new pipe organ that had come from a church in San Francisco, closed because of earthquake proofing expenses, he asked me, "which church?" Since I didn't know at that time he started asking more questions about the pipe organ we got. David Dahl was so sure the church that we got our organ from was one he grew up in, his parents were married in, that had a 20-rank Wicks.

It turns out this was the same church Golden Gate Lutheran when it closed a couple years ago, had been renamed. This pipe organ wasn't the one he first heard growing up. That was a Wicks about half the size. In 1965 that Lutheran Church replaced their smaller Wicks with this one. That was while he was at college at PLU. When he would go back to visit mom and dad, this was the organ he was hearing. The organ had three ranks added for Holy Trinity and has just been finished being installed.

This type of serendipity is priceless and must be somehow woven into the story. There are more of these that must somehow be stitched together into a coherent story. And this is what I mean by Working on the Middle. And before we get done with the shots (Feb 09 most likely) I would like to have a third or tenth draft under my belt. So any comments or questions or advice will most certainly be helpful.