In the latest Old Stories, Sam tells the story of spying on a female boarder having a middle-of-the-night adulterous tryst at his house when he was young.

characters, Old Stories

I highly recommend reading Marc E. Agronin’s article, “Old Age, From Youth’s Narrow Prism”, which a friend of mine forwarded to me after reading it and thinking of Life’s Waltz. As a doctor, he writes about how our (and his, as it’s a first-person story) perspective and presumptions about old age were upended when he visited a newly widowed woman of 93 years of age at a nursing home in Miami. It’s brief, and it’s spot on, carrying the same message that Life’s Waltz aims to demonstrate.

in the news

In the latest Old Stories, Morris remembers the day he was held up at gunpoint at his pharmacy in Manhattan.

characters, Old Stories

Here’s a nice, fun mix of young and old for all of you Michael Jackson fans out there!

fun

I have no interest in belittling seniors or playing into stereotype of marginalizing them, but I feel the following joke that was forwarded to me by a family friend resonates as truthful:

A group of 40 year old buddies discussed where they should meet for dinner.

Finally it was agreed upon that they should meet at the Ocean View restaurant because the waitress’s there had low cut blouses and were very young.

10 years later at 50 years of age, the group once again discussed where they should meet for dinner. Finally it was agreed that they should meet at the Ocean View restaurant because the food there was very good and the wine selection was good also.

10 years later at 60 years of age, the group once again discussed where they should meet for dinner. Finally it was agreed that they should meet at the Ocean View restaurant because they could eat there in peace and quiet and the restaurant had a beautiful view of the ocean.

10 years later, at 70 years of age, the group once again discussed where they should meet for dinner. Finally it was agreed that they should meet at the Ocean View restaurant because the restaurant was wheel chair accessible and they even had an elevator.

10 years later, at 80 years of age, the group once again discussed where they should meet for dinner. Finally it was agreed that they should meet at the Ocean View restaurant because they had never been there before.

fun

In the latest in the Old Stories series, Shirley recounts her years when she received her own education as a door-checker in the dining hall at John Carroll University in Ohio.

characters, Old Stories

On Saturday night, I hosted in Dallas the first of what should be numerous rough cut screenings of Life’s Waltz, which we’re now experimenting with a new title: The Mayor. It was a major milestone in the progression of the documentary project, because in order to have a film worth screening, I needed to edit the film to a point that it was worth seeing! This actually entailed editing all day on my birthday (January 28) and all night, getting only a few hours of sleep each night leading up to the screening It took me back to the good old days in film school, haha. At any rate, I had finished a first cut back at the end of October, which had clocked in at about 2:15 hours. While it had its own strengths and weaknesses, I suggested something radical, which may not sit well at first with some of y’all reading this: what if we focused this movie on just one character? For the longest time, we had been operating and filming under the assumption that we were making a documentary generally about “life in old age, inside of a retirement community”. But as we knew deep down, the strength of film lies in the characters and their stories. There was just so much material that had already been left out of the first cut, and it was still so long, that we decided to go in the opposite direction for the next cut. And voilà!

The second cut of the film, clocking in at 1:32 hours, was almost like a new first cut in terms of having to completely re-envision the approach, the story, and the narrative. Let me clarify: this doesn’t mean that there’s only one character in the film at this point; in truth, there is currently one main character, Sam (known as “The Mayor” of TVN), and two featured characters, Dorothy and Ceil. In addition, plenty of other people appear in the film, and going forward, I will work to incorporate other voices into the film. It has been the right approach to try to make the film very focused, about just one man, and then to build out from that core, rather than the original approach, which was to try to include everything and everyone. Moving forward, we will try adding more voices to the core of the film. In fact, this was the overwhelming demand during the discussion at the rough cut screening. We haven’t forgotten about the other characters, it’s just that there’s so much material at hand that it would be easy to make a really diluted, topical/conversational film. But if there’s one thing I learned in film school, it’s that film’s strength is in its emotional impact. In order to carry emotional weight, to reach out and touch an audience, you have to let the audience get to know a character, get involved in their life, and go through a journey with him/her. So this is the current plan. I will continue to refine the film, probably expand it out some to more voices, and I will post more later on specific directions, characters, and scenes.

I’ll aim to have a trailer done by the end of this month that everyone can enjoy and start getting excited about. I realize that it’s been a long journey and you haven’t gotten to see any of the actual film yet, but we thank you very much for sticking around. Because there’s so much amazing material that will inevitably not make it into the film itself, we are considering releasing a lot of content online and as DVD extras. We want to get as much of this material out as possible and tell as many stories as possible; we just need to take it one step at a time. Stay tuned!

P.S. If you are interested in participating in future rough cut screenings, be they in Dallas or LA, please let us know!

post-production, status update

In an article at Mashable, a social media news site, they reported that in 2009, whereas Millennials (Ashley and my generation) maintained the same levels of internet/social media (Facebook) site engagement, only increasing by 1% of the demographic, Baby Boomers and Seniors led the pack far and away, with a gigantic 47% of Baby Boomers now maintaining a social media web profile, 73% of those on Facebook. And, of all of the Seniors (older than baby boomers, and the subjects of our documentary) using social media on the internet, 90% are on Facebook. Check out the article for more here: http://mashable.com/2010/01/28/baby-boomers-social-media/.

Do you use any social media sites, such as Facebook? If you’re a Baby Boomer or at least older than us Millennials, how have you found the experience? If you’re a digital native (most Millennials pretty much are – we grew up with the internet for a good enough chunk of our lives for it to be a natural/native thing), how has it been having your family, parents, grandparents, etc. join Facebook and find you in the social media realm? Personally, I’ve discouraged my parents from joining, not because I would care if I were friends with them, but I don’t think they’d get anything out of it. But a few of their friends have friended me on Facebook, which is fine with me; I just warn each of them: “What you are about to experience may shock you.”

fun, in the news

In the latest Old Stories, Ernestine tells the story of how, as a teacher in small-town Tennessee, she got a lesson from her children on picking strawberries under the hot sun.

characters, Old Stories

In the latest in the Old Stories series, Millie lets us in on the innocent kissing games she and her girl friends used to play as a young teenager with some guys they met at Hebrew school.

character, Old Stories