big hair, big glasses, big smile

Michael encouraged me to share the rocker chick photo of myself that I thought would make him laugh, but I have no idea where it is, so instead I scanned this one, which is, I have to say, the biggest my hair ever got, and don’t you love my nerdy glasses? I really had it all going for me.

I’m supposed to be introducing myself and instead I’m sort of riffing off Michael’s post. I think that’s okay – you’ll get to know me as we go along.

Michael talked about those moments in life where so much is happening, and you’re taking it all in and really feeling those momentous shifts, and time slows down or speeds up in a way that those periods of time become distorted. High school is everyone’s forever ago, and your kids were born a few weeks ago even if they’re on their own way into high school.

And then there are some moments that get frozen, or repeat, or echo through time.

I went on a month-long trip through Great Britain, courtesy of my mom, the summer after I graduated from high school. I guess when you spend that amount of time away from your normal life, without the same responsibilities and daily grind, and when you spend those days making epic memories, well, those things tend to reverberate around in your personal space-time continuum. Back in 1987 during that month of travel, I saw so many places that have a lot more known (to me anyway) human history than anywhere in the United States. One place in particular stuck out as pretty incredible to see with my own eyes, and that was Stonehenge. It knocked the wind out of me when I saw it in person. I was just awestruck at the almost tangible feeling of how long it’s been there.

I’ve always been grateful to my mom for making that experience possible for me. I was really excited to take her to visit some of the same places I saw in 1987 when we went to Great Britain together this summer, 24 years later.

But my mom had a knee injury during our second week that kept both of us from doing any traveling at all for about two weeks during our trip. We shared the experience of being scared at facing an unknown medical problem in a foreign health care system. We shared stress and frustration and a slow healing process, too. We felt happy and lucky to be together no matter where we were and what was happening. But we were both a little crushed that we didn’t get to see many of the things we had planned together.

On our last travel weekend, we managed to rent a wheelchair, and Mom braved the long train and bus trips, and we went to see Bath and then Stonehenge together. When I saw Stonehenge from the bus window I burst into tears. It felt like such an epic journey just to get back there, and such a privilege to share it with my mom. Goosebump city.

Why am I writing about this? I guess Michael’s post makes me a little sad that I don’t have kids of my own, but it also reminded me there are plenty of wonderful experiences and memories for me with the family and friends that I do have.

Mom and me at Stonehenge, 2011, yes the British wheelchair came with the plaid blanket

Oh, and you better believe I wheeled Mom all around the monument as I babbled out every single thing I could remember about it from art history and British history courses.

victory photo at Stonehenge, 2011 - smaller hair, smaller glasses, bigger hips... but still fabulous

Everything is a Remix Part 3 from Kirby Ferguson on Vimeo.

Creativity isn’t magic. Part three of this four-part series explores how innovations truly happen.

To support this project please visit: http://www.everythingisaremix.info/donate/

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Nelson and Valdez of Wreck and Salvage each produced videos inspired by Part 3. Check ‘em out:
http://vimeo.com/25379446
http://vimeo.com/25382384

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About the actual story

Many people are familiar with the story of Cesar Chavez and the United Farmworker’s Movement in California and around the nation. But because the movement was ultimately not very successful in Arizona, you rarely hear that part of the story. So we wanted to document the local farm labor law dispute, which culminated in an effort to recall then Arizona Governor Jack Williams. As part of this effort, Cesar Chavez conducted a 21-day fast here in Phoenix, and helped inspire the local community to take action to bring about social justice.

This should really be a half hour film. The events documented took place over a ten year period, and the political issues are somewhat complex. But those planning the exhibition relegated it to eight minutes, choosing to feature a film documenting the women’s movement in Arizona more prominently, so we did what we could with the time constraints. Which means there is an awful lot going on in the footage. And unfortunately, the local news reels contained more footage airing the point of view of those in power. Watch for contrasts between the voice you’re hearing and the footage you’re seeing – I had to resort to that kind of storytelling quite a bit. I even ended up narrating the piece, while the other project got professional voiceover talent, though this was partly because I could pronounce the surnames and Spanish words correctly, while the hired talent could not.

How we made this

With the exception of recording some voice over and scanning some old news articles, this piece is created entirely from 16mm film news reels from former Phoenix news station KOOL, which used to broadcast on local channel 10. KOOL donated all their film cans and log sheets to the Arizona Historical Society Museum at Papago Park. The museum has a big climate controlled room to store this stuff, and a makeshift film chain that channels the projected footage through an ancient but serviceable video camera and out to … any deck you can connect to the camera output.

Jean’s job directing this project was to do all the research, write the narrative and provide me with important dates on which newsworthy things probably happened. And just because I summarized her job in one sentence, don’t think it was light work.

My job was to check the news logs around the relevant dates in hopes of finding related news footage. Then, as part of the Exhibits Dept. agreement with the Archives Dept., I had to clean any reels I wanted to view. After cleaning, I would watch the entire reel and log it as best I could. If I saw anything related to our story, I’d record it to Beta-SP (best quality deck we had) and later transfer that to Mini-DV as well for a digital back-up.

Jean would review the collected footage, make notes, and often revise the script in order to work some of the best footage into the project. She would also do her best to identify people appearing on the reel, especially those on the MOS B-roll shots, sometimes bringing in people she’d interviewed for oral history to see if they recognized anyone.

The script was rewritten several times, and then I’d re-edit the project. We’d still be over budget on time, so we’d tighten it up some more, reorganize, figure out what to leave out – you editors out there know the drill. The look of the subtitles is inspired by Barbara Kopple’s Harlan County USA.

We were on a treasure hunt together. We were armed with facts. The actual events occurred before we were born to when we were kids (1968 – 1978). Some of the original footage noted in the logs had gone missing. Sometimes we found unlogged material. It was a trip seeing how Phoenix looked back then compared to now.

Even though the end result is imperfect (you’re never finished editing, right? you just stop at some point), I’m proud that this piece is on permanent exhibition as part of Arizona’s history.

If you have any questions I’ll happily answer in the comments.

Now, here’s what this is:

In 2002 and 2003 I worked with local historian Jean Reynolds on this project for the Arizona Historical Society Museum at Papago Park. It’s part of a permanent exhibition called Desert Cities, which chronicles the development of the Phoenix metro area from the end of World War II to the present.

In its final form, the project exists as two separate videos stored on a media server at the museum, and presented on a flat screen built into a section of the museum exhibition. This piece, the intro piece, repeats on a loop to attract museum visitors over, let them know there is a video available, and give them a reason to watch it. If interested, visitors can press a button to make the main video play.

I’ll tell you more about the project in tomorrow’s post, but in case you’re curious about the appearance of the introduction:

• it’s a way to present some facts that had to be left out of the video to bring the running time down
• the colors and fonts match surrounding exhibition graphics
• there is no “old film” effect in use – all the footage is from 16mm news reels