Hello, fellow documentarians!
Welcome to my documentary, titled "Call Me Back"
QUICK ASIDE
[Here is an unfinished website with a glance at our (very part time currently) team: https://findingfatherfilm.godaddysites.com/team
Just added Allan Holzman, who won two Emmys and a Peabody. One Emmy for editing a Holocaust film with Spielberg.
This gives you a sense for the level I'm looking for in terms of paid positions.
I'm open to Internship arrangements if that works for you. You would get great training, etc.]
OK, back to the title: "Call Me Back"
Consider the double meaning of calling someone back after they leave a message and how this entire documentary calls the viewing audience back to the 90s, the "Before Times".
Get it? Good.
Yeah, I know this ad is long. But it will seem short for those for whom this project is a good fit!
Nevertheless, I'll get right to the heart of it all.
First, if I had enough characters to type my whole Craigslist ad title above, it would include that I'm looking for "cinema artists who can help co-design, co-conceptualize, co-write, and co-edit my documentary about my amazing 14-year archive of saved answering machine messages."
Or something like that.
The cinema world is about to get a beautiful surprise, hopefully by the end of 2025.
During the 90s (when I was in my mid-20s to mid-30s), I was, well, for lack of a better term, the most nostalgic person in the world.
I systematically saved 14 years of answering machine messages from 1988-2002.
Yeah. I did that. I sometimes can't believe it myself.
And rather than havinges after I die, ther reveal these tapes after I diee was an extraordinary opportunity to tell the story of these messages.
I realized there was an opportunity to design/create/write a film about my journey saving them, and more importantly, my friends' journey, as expressed in these tapes, in the 90s.
Here is some context for why I saved them, and how I "accidentally" saved some voices of the "before times" (before the Internet, cell phones, texting, social media, AI) history.
First, I deeply loved the sound of (some, to be honest) voice!
Whether it was music, the sound of actors in film and TV, or a subset of the people in my life leaving me messages, voice thrilled me.
Voice often transformed me, and took me to a sublime place of awe and wonder.
I'm someone who would choose to keep my hearing over my eyesight.
My past has a lot to do with this.
I tragically lost my father when my parents divorced when I was 5. So there's that. Thud.
Yeah, I know I'm not the only one. Especially in our modern era. But it sure felt that way at the time.
Chances are probably significantly above 50% that you, the reader, had some version of a parent loss in some form. If you did, I'm sorry, and depending on your circumstances, I can empathize.
But damn it, dad. He found a new wife, who was jealous of me and my sister. They chose to live (what seemed very) far from us in Napa Valleythey settled in Arizona.
Ouch. I was devastated.
Now, I'm aware that there are way more traumatic stories and more significant losses, especially in other countries with deep economic issues, wars, etc.
But in my subjective world, it was quite a loss and one that will soon explain the motivation for saving my answering machine messages.
It was quite challenging to see my did in person, given the circumstances. I got to visit maybe 4 days a year.
Overnight my relationship with Dad became relegated mostly to the phone and many answering machine messages.
I felt like the boy in the French children's book "The Little Prince". I was alone on the moon, scarf flapping, a rose in my vase, and could only see my dad with my little telescope.
If you suspect that some of what I'm writing here might be good material for the film, thank you, and most of it is already in my script!
So, phones were my lifeline to my dad. Weirdly, Dad's voice sort ofwellWAS himat least in my emotional world.
It did not help (or hurt?) that he was a former college-level actor, singer, and stellar storyteller. I thought it fitting that my dad was in several Shakespeare plays at the University of Connecticut.
So yeah, my dad left me these delightful messages that I'd run home to listen to after school. It's pretty pathetic. I'd listen to them 5 times.
Then, like most parents, my mom would eventually press the delete button.
But unlike most kids, that deletion felt like it also deleted my heart out for the next 15 minutes. And I'd go to bed sometimes dreaming about what the next answering machine from my dad would be in, say, 5 days.
Could I have asked my mom to save them? I guess. But to be honest, she did not care so much to hear his voice if you know what I mean.
So I went for years with those little heartbreaks.
So many of our childhood wounds get alchemized into our greatest talents; we compensate for those wounds and some things that are expressed in some creative form.
I have a Master's in Psych, another in Education, and a BA in History, so I think about, study, and write about these topics.
So when the time came, and I had more agency and choice, I started doing a bold thing: saving every one of my friends and family's answering machine messages!
No more delete button for the precious voices of my life.
And maybe, just maybe, there would be a day that I couldyou guessed itput the "voice pieces" of my life back together again.
Maybe that sounds cheesily trite, but I've always thought that when something sounds hackneyed, it's usually because so many people could relate to that experience. There's something almost archetypal about it.
Those universal experiences of growing up on this spinning ball of dirt called earth.
So I first saved them all in 1988.
What did that look like? Each day (or maybe 200 of the 365 days) I'd put a microphone up to my audio cassette tape recorded and I'd save those sets of 2 days of messages.
After that year, I asked myself if I wanted to continue. And I did!
Something felt quite internally fulfilled by saving them, even if I thought I might not ever listen to them again.
I just felt compelled to secure them, just in case.
Sometimes it was just like watering plants each day; a habit, routine, or ritual.
And I liked hearing them a second or third time, anyway!
And so I went ahead with 1989. And it continued to make me happy, to soothe something inside me. I rested better at night.
And so my "garden" grew. And grew. And grew.
For 14 freakin' years.
Obsessive? Well, maybe a bit. It depends on how we conceptualize that term. Can we call it "obsessive light"
And didn't we all kind of have our thing? What's that epic line from the Beatles song Nowhere Man: "isn't that a bit likeyouandme-e-e"
If you don't mind reading more, I'll continue to elaborate.
Let's seemy documentary script so far is about:
1. The "back story" (what I just shared) that provides context for me saving the messages (eventually told better and more artistically and beautifully in the film, of course, than I just did!)
2. Certain carefully selected messages (maybe 100-200 out of over 2000) that are deeply compelling, perhaps because of their content, but also because of a tone or inflection of inspiration and magic.
3. Occasionally my commentary before a message to provide context. Although there is talk on my team of doing this sparingly, allowing the messages to just speak for themselves.
4. Sometimes tearfully or laughingly giving my return message to them, 30 years later, that I wish I had left for them. And usually, in so doing telling them how essential they were to me. Telling them how much I loved them, and that if I'd only known this or that, then I would have
5. Soon-to-be attained footage of some friends and family's reaction to hearing their messages, 30-ish years later! Can you imagine? Wow.
6. Some carefully written and edited philosophizing by me and others about what it means that we don't leave (long) voice messages anymore, how tech is changing the way we relate to each other, how "The Medium is the Message" relates, where AI is taking us, and much more! In a fun way, not dry and overly academic.
7. Interview footage of me sharing about what a profoundly transformative process it was to go back (over the 2024 year)) and listen to every message of my life over 14 years. I'm a different person. I'm still processing it and probably will be right up to the end of the formal completion of this documentary.
This will be a story like no other that has ever been told, since no one else (that I know of) saved years and years of their messages.
And since the era of long answering machine messages is over, mine is probably going to be the only authentic story about this topic.
And here is the kicker: my innocent nostalgia and obsession resulted in the existence of a rare time capsule collection, of that time just before "everything changed" (turn of the century and millennium).
I am in an unexpected position of being able to "call you back" to a time that is increasingly seen as quite exquisitely special, before cell phones, the Internet, social media, etc.
And for that matter, the time before the dark era of terrorism, environmental degradation, and maybe even dire threat to humanity of global warming, AI, etc.
See where this unusual doc is going?
It kind of defies the category of documentary since it is such a unique form of memoir.
It is more like a "you-moir" since it was my friends' messages that became my record, not my messages.
So is this a "Doc-You-Moir?" Sorry. You did not deserve that. lol.
I genuinely believe (yes, I'm biased) that this will not only win awards but even win those awards that one is not supposed to mention lest they seem boastful or worse.
(Humble whispershhhI even think it could be one of the most important films of the decade, perhaps the main period piece about the 90s, calling the audience back to the "before times", which is a profoundly relevant and important conversation taking place in many parts of society right now. The timing could not be better!
Now, please only continue if:
you get the essence of this project;
the possibility and dream of a documentary like this blows you away, opens your heart, and inspires you;
you are very accomplished with documentary script writing, designing, concept-ing, editing, and hopefully with memoir/memory films (but that last part is not an absolute requirement);
you can provide links that show evidence of your skills through websites, IMBd, LinkedIn, links to write-ups, etc.
you are willing and excited to write me a COVER LETTER in an email that demonstrates that you read this whole ad, get/grok it, and present some of your ideas and inspiration in reaction to reading this ad.
you can demonstrate some SPECIFIC ways in which you would be a good addition to my writing/editing team (which is about 3-5 people so far)
Oh, by the way, I'm a former college lecturer and group counselor, so we will be collaborating, and devising, in a group (which may include someone who wrote a book about devising in the performing arts!). It will be a lot of fun, I promise.
WANT TO READ MORE CONTEXT?
OK
My name is Scott. I'm 58 years old. Gen-X was raised mainly in Berkeley, with time in NYC and LA.
I was raised very much lower-to-middle class by a single mom who needed welfare for a few years while she went to school for nursing. We lived in a small (10 people) semi-commune for 4 years, doing Montessouri, Waldorf, etc.
I'm a UC Berkeley (BA History), Harvard (MA Social Studies Education), Pepperdine (MA Psychology), and Columbia (EdD in Education, Media, Storytelling) who did almost 30 years of teaching, coaching teacher, and director of school, school counseling, and specializing in teaching film and developing video-enhanced Social Studies curriculum and pedagogy.
Somewhere in there, I was a Director of a School for the Performing Arts and consulted for education leaders.
I'm particularly in love with how film is the most interdisciplinary of the art forms! Brings it all together, and brings it home.
I see disciplines as analogous to "perceptual lenses" (each answering machine message is like a little perception window, right?)
This year I attended Sundance (3rd time), SxSW (3rd time), and Tribeca (5th time) all while going through my messages.
We can have Zoom meetings if we are not in the same city. But I prefer LA-based folks.
Some of the images I provided for this ad include images that are in the doc script. And there are about 500 more.
And yes most will have to go to the cutting-room floor. But in the meantime they are like placeholders, or storyboards, to guide the team for the final script and film.
A NOTE ABOUT AUTHENTICITY:
With AI bizarrely have so much fake news and fake everythingsoI'm more than happy at some point to let you bring an old-school audio cassette player, select any tape (as if you are taking a Tarot card), fast-forward it to a random spot, listen, do it again a few time until you confirm for yourself that the collection is authentic.
Of course, it will be essential to do the equivalent of this toward the beginning of the film, to get full audience buy-in that I did save them and have this collection.
Way, way below (in the optional section), you can find:
1. Video footage of me, my dad, and Paul, a Pulitzer Prize-winning team member showing a letter sent to my grandfather from John Steinbeck
2. A link to a 13-minute doc short I did 10 years ago on the topic of the SF Bay community (for which you can also find a link below).
I'm making this film with the help of 4-5 other filmmakers, including some award-winners.
This docudrama is very memory and memoir-heavy, for obvious reasons.
Originally (about 5 years ago) my then-team was going to make a doc spanning an 80-year period that included four main pillars (below), including my father, Denis. It was going to be about a son-father-grandfather relationship during a time when technology has not only disrupted but actually (in some cases) fractured our family lives and society.
But NOW, as a result of the advice of many, I'm focusing ONLY on my collection of messages. Makes sense, they are the core of the documentary gold.
For those who want more description/commentary/explanation, here you goI say some of the same stuff, but differently
Title: "CALL ME BACK: ME AND MY FRIENDS' ANSWERING MACHINE MESSAGES FROM THE 1990's"
Or alternate more clever and funny title: "CALL ME BACK: ME AND MY FRIENDS HANGUPS IN THE 1990"
I did the unthinkable, the incomprehensible, the inconceivable (Wallace Shawn's reference from Princess Bride, and we will have one clip of him saying that in the film). I saved every single one of my answering maching messages fordrum roll14 consecutive years (1988 - 2002).
Let that sink in for a moment.
Let me be more transparent and specific.
I persistently, but joyfully, transferred/recorded EACH of my messages from the voice box on the table (yes, with those tiny tapes inside) onto those famed and nostalgic 90-minute cassette tapes. And I have upward of 80 of these 90-minute cassettes.
Sorry to bring you back to middle school, but let's do the Math:
80 tapes x 90 minutes per tape = 7200 minutes of recording.
But considering silences, gaps, and sometimes the outgoing messages themselves (which we won't count), let's round down and call it 6000 minutes of actual messages.
That's 100 hours of messages or over four full days' worth.
Note: To re-listen to them, at the rate of 2 hours a day (that was listening, then I needed to transcribe them, which took another 2 hours each day), it thus took 50 days of listening and transcribing to complete the 14 years of messages.
These messages include the most personal of shares, "regular" messages, comedies messages, and many references to the historical and cultural events of the time.
The Berlin Wall fell.
The Soviet Union ended (in most of its forms).
The Clintons took power.
The freedom of Mandella and the end of Apartheid.
Rodney King-related events/riots, etc.
Madonna rose in the music charts.
The films Forrest Gump and American Beauty (of course, many other great films came out; I'm just mentioning 2 for brevity).
Cell phones, email, and the masses getting Internet (just that little thing).
The Supreme Court handed the 2000 election to Bush.
9/11 (side note: part of the 9/11 memorial museum is hundreds of the final cell phone calls from those in the towersheartbreaking).
Yeah. Kinda crazy.
Messages from family, best friends, friends, acquaintances, and yes, those random calls from, say, the phone company calling to remind of bills due, or an annoying "Invalid Number" or "Your Number Cannot be Completed as Dialed," with that machine voice we all abhorred (which will add some humor to it all!), etc.
According to the opinions of over 100 documentarians I've met in LA and NYC, this is a priceless time capsule of the intimate voices of the 90's.
It is, if I may humbly say so, absolute DOCUMENTARY GOLD.
No one has done a film about the topic "the era of answering machine messages".
And we have "proof of concept", in that people just loved their phones, loved messages, and they made their wai into the comedy of Seinfeld, Friends, Sex in the City, Office Space, Gilmore Girls, and so so many other TV shows and movies.
Ira Glass from NPR's "This American Life" (whom I met and talked to at Sundance) wants to do a piece on a romance story in the tapes, other podcasts have expressed interest, and a friend at the Smithsonian American History Museum wants them to be part of their collection after I'm "done" with them.
I imagine people like Linklater, Ethan Hawke, and Malcolm Gladwell would be interested. We'll see.
The most important part of designing and editing this doc, by far, is the messages themselves.
Selecting the right messages, with the ideal "preliminary setting context commentary" before each message (if it adds to the story) and my or others' commentary after the message (if necessary), is where it's all at!
It will mostly be first person narrated (me), intertwined with the messages, and some talking heads and B-roll.
To make it a truly charming period piece about the 90s, we will want to showcase some movie scenes, some jingles and songs, broadcast news events, etc, and yet we'll have to get rights and pay for those. If done sparingly it will beautifully add to the story asa little reminder of those times!
Oh, and for the fun of it and heck of it, here is more possible content for you to chew on.
Years after I stopped saving them (in 2002) still had them!
One week, during the holiday in about 2017, I dug through my family attic storage space, pushed aside a mountain of boxes, cleared away some cobwebs, opened a box, and with a jaw-drop and gasp, I saw that there they were!
I instantly realized that I'd "accidentally" discovered a time capsule of gold (in the form of "the private phone messages of the pre-cell phone and pre-internet 90's America"), featuring many messages from my dad, but more importantly, the messages of my bright, fun, funny, vulnerable friends from the 90s (when we were in our 20s and early 30s).
And when I knew this was a film, I started crying. Right there in the cobwebbed and dusty attic.
Now, one more topic to include about a possible collaborator.
A quiz: What filmmaker makes great films about fascinating characters (mostly in their 20s), and even took 12 years to make a film?
You got it, the legendary Richard Linklater!
Richard Linklater took 12 years to film his Golden Globe masterpiece Boyhood!
His film often focuses on people in their 20s (college, just out of college, or "slackers" who just did their own thing).
Let's look at his five most relevant films to the one I'm making:
1. "Tape" (obvious connection!);
2. The "Before Series" (focus on the depth of connection between actors Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy, as well as playing creatively with TIME
3. "Slackers" and "Dazed and Confused," which depict Austin, TX characters from the '80s (my messages capture Berkeley characters in the ''90s);
4. "Waking Life," which plays creatively with time, imagination, and dreams.
5. "Boyhood," which he filmed over 12 years (I saved my messages for 14 years)
I include Linklater because we hope to eventually either bring him on board as a consultant, and/or have him suggest someone else who is available, or just model this film around some of his great methods/processes/tropes! At the least, I think he will agree to read our script, and I've got a couple of possible connections with him.
Now, here are some other updates that will be useful for you to know about "Call Me Back: Me and My Friends' Answering Machine Messages from the 1990s."
A. I recently finished listening to ALL of my messages. What it did to my emotions and consciousness is another story. It transformed me and rearranged my sense of the past, time, and, most of all, my relationship with my friends.
B. I already edited out about 1/3 of my messages, which I knew would not cut this extraordinary film. I'm in the process of another edit, leaving my "children on the cutting room floor", is not easy at all! Arduous!
C. With those messages that I feel confident will probably stay in the film, I'm doing elaborate Google Image searches to find the best image (so far, of course) to accompany each message. This process has been transformative, too.
D. The final version, of course, maybe my current image, another image, and/or stock footage or footage we film).
E. I'm super close to being able to take the most edited set of messages, the most edited set of accompanying images, and (after an interview that goes well) have you sign an NDA and meet with you to show you the current script, and play some of the messages (keeping absolute anonymity of my friends, of course) so that you get an authentic feel for them, how they sound, and how I'm going about designing the "script" of the messages themselves.
Remember, there are already 4-5 other members on my team (whom I've selected from over 400 resumes) with whom we/you will eventually be interacting and co-script writing and co-editing.
I am a former group counselor and small-group Social Studies professor, so my team meetings are genuinely wonderful, transformative, and enrichingwe connect and laugh together before we jump into any kind of writing and editing!
Fun fact: Over 75% of the "outgoing messages" are fun fusions between my voice and well-known jingles from TV shows and heartfelt songs (from the 50s-70s) designed to bring about the feeling and humor that result in more interesting messages on my machine! They are so much fun!
OK, thank you for reading this far. If you can see yourself joining our team, remember, please, please, please:
1. Be a very experienced and even accomplished doc film writer and editor in the industry.
2. WRITE ME A ONE-PAGE COVER LETTER THAT SHOWS YOU ABSOLUTELY "GET" WHAT ME AND MY TEAM ARE DOING HERE (and even a bit of inspiration, or "What I'd add is" stuff)
3. Provide links to sites, such as LinkedIn, iMBD, etc., showing the references to your work.
Finally, please BOTH email me (sph854@mail.harvard.edu) AND text me (646-696-9021) with an alert of your email (which, again, should include a cover letter and links outlined above)
Thank you, and I look forward to receiving your information!
Scott
The following, below the mark, is more context about my dad, why I was so delighted and moved by who he was, and info about my diplomat grandfather and my dad's Alzheimer's. But note that this first doc is not going to focus on my dad and grandfather; it is going to be about the answering machine messages (mostly left by friends).
So to be clear, it is OPTIONAL READING precisely because I've decided to focus on the preliminary shorter doc about JUST THE ANSWERING MACHINE MESSAGES.
One (meaning me) should not bite off more than they can chew. So I'm focusing on the messages for now.
MORE CONTEXT ABOUT MY DAD AND GRANDFATHER (OPTIONAL READING)
It did not hurt that some had described my dad as the most interesting, charismatic person in the recent history 50-year history of Arizona.
Even if he is in the top 3 or 5 in Arizona, it's still story-worthy!
He was not the wealthiest, most powerful, most politically savvy, or most ethical.
Just the MOST INTERESTING (an admittedly subjective term, but let's have fun with this!).
And here is why (and we have ample testimonials to back this up).
My dad grew up the son of an American diplomat (who observed the Nuremberg Trial and was part of the Marshall Plan), and got to travel all over the world as a kid. His dad was an assistant to the American Cultural Ambassador in Switzerland.
During this time, his siblings and parents lived in a castle overlooking a valley near Bern. He and my uncles and aunts remember diplomat parties similar to the famous dance scene "So Long, Farewell" from the Sound of Music.
His family returned to Berkeley in 1952-5, where he was the Sea Scout boy and newspaper boy whose friends instinctively crowded around to hear stories of world travel.
Fast forward to his 20's and early 30's, my dad hung out in famed Laurel Canyon, which one associates with 70s LA (parties with Neil Young, Tom Petty, etc)!
This was, of course, a time when people experimented with many different kinds of drugs. During this time, my dad also made several trips to India and Nepal, at about the same time as the Beatles were"experimenting".
When he eventually settled in Phoenix, he slowly built a real estate business and landlord-ed (at different times) a youth hostel, a trailer park, a rooming house, and an apartment complex with 30 tenants.
But most important and relevant is that his stories from growing up abroad (and seeing a tattered Europe), several years in Berkeley, several in LA, and a year total in India/Nepal, combined with audiences made up of his Phoenix tenants and friends, led to him being almost a professional storyteller; people crowded around him to hear his tales and humor.
He organized and ran the Phoenix Humanists group each week. He also went once a week (for over a quarter of a century) to the vast local auction in Phoenix, where a community of friends met up EVERY SUNDAY to buy rare vintage items and to tell stories over coffee.
He constantly was surrounded by people socializing, making music, doing drugs, and telling stories.
One could make a direct analogy to Jack Kerouak and the Merry Pranksters…but the Arizona version! And we may make that analogy in the film.
Now, since my dad was the most interesting person in Arizona, you can imagine how LITTLE ACCESS to him I had.
Combined with two fiercely jealous wives (the two after my mom), my time with him was limited to just a couple weeks a year, if that. All other communications occurred on the phone, often when his wife was not home.
I saved every letter and photo he sent to me.
And oh, how I treasured, even more, each conversation I had with him!
I wanted to remember them all, but how would that ever happen?
When he called but I was not there to answer, he left the most extraordinary, lovely, magical, witty 2-4 minute messages you can imagine.
I often LET IT GO TO THE ANSWERING MACHINE rather than pick it up so that I had a record of his 2-4 minute "messages in a bottle" (the machine being the bottle) to me.
Then, I'd usually pick up at the end of his message or call him back in a few minutes, pretending I'd been occupied with something or had just walked in.
Then I'd listen to his message 4-5 times before deleting them.
After many years of wishing I'd saved my dad's extraordinary messages, I started to do so in the late 80's.
In addition to my dad's messages, I also saved messages from my friends (each of whom had their charisma, many of them actors and storytellers).
Systematically. Every single message. for 14 years.
MY GRANDFATHER (optional)
My grandfather, Stuart L. Hannon, the American diplomat and Democratic presidential consultant
NOTE: I recently self-produced/published (Snapfish) a 90-page coffee table book with all his full-color documents, along with my commentary on those documents. This will serve as a guide, a storyboard, for you and/or those who go on to make the film!
As mentioned in the videos below, we have about 130 documents from his life so far.
And like any well-designed film that covers a considerable period, we must look back at the past (thus my grandfather) to understand the present.
My grandfather was raised in Seattle, and he met his wife in a Russian class in his 30s.
He loved the radio.
His wife, Mimi, had her radio show in SF Bay.
He combined his love of radio and his political savvy to forge a career in which he:
a. Broadcast a show from the SF Bay called "Above the Battle" with updates about the state of WW2.
b. Help out diplomatically with WW2 and the Marshall Plan
c. Be an official observer of the Nuremberg Trials
d. Support the President of Greece during one of their most turbulent times (1948).
e. Be the assistant to the Swiss-American Cultural Ambassador
f. Be the #2 man to the Director of Radio Free Europe (see reference above to "Video Killed the Radio Star")
g. Advise and correspond with Adlai Stevenson in his (losing) campaign against Dwight Eisenhower
h. Advise and correspond with LBJ both while he was a Texas Senator and while he was President
i. Resisting Soviet aggression while also resisting the McCarthyist witch hunt scare frenzy.
j. Help to bring an end to the Vietnam War (letters document this)
h. MOST INTERESTING: Correspond with John Steinbeck in 1958, writing about Pasternak, the Soviet Nobel Prize Winner in Literature. Pasternak wrote the script for the famous film Dr. Zhivago.
In this climate, my dad and his siblings were raised, sometimes living with their mom away from the action, sometimes along with their dad on these diplomatic trips.
At the risk of this being too long, I'll sum it all up by it leading to some exciting life experiences for my father, combined with also not having much access to a personal relationship with his father, often having to compete with the other siblings, as well as media who came into their home.
In fact, my grandfather was gone so much of the time, and my dad missed him so much that he asked for access to his dad's radio broadcasts so that he could at least get to know him from his VOICE.
If you didn’t see the glaring way in which that last sentence gives away the key to this entire film, well, perhaps you do now.
We hope your mind is filled with inspiration for this future film, one that (if done with your expert help) could be one of the top films ever made (with plenty of authentic humility all along the way).
MY DAD'S DESCENT INTO ALZHEIMER FROM 2016 - 2023
My dad Denis' descent into Alzheimer's, 2015-2023. He died on November 12, 2023. And just so you know, I'm doing pretty good with my grievingit's a process.
His passing is why I finally have the time and inspiration to press the accelerator on this documentary.
In this section, I will reveal that I documented my dad's descent into Alzheimer's just about as systematically as any Alzheimer's patient. The footage is as raw, authentic, and entertaining as any you could imagine.
Remember, during these 7 years of Alzheimer's, I recorded someone who had accumulated (up to the start of the Alzheimer's) 75 years of one of the most interesting lives in all of Arizona, and he did not shy away from telling those stories, even as he lost his memory.
IT IS THE FACT THAT DAD WAS ONE OF THE TRUE LOVERS OF STORY AND MEMORY (AS MOST STORYTELLERS ARE) WHO THEN LOST HIS MEMORY (THUS HIS CAPACITY TO COVER ALL THE DETAILS) THAT MAKES THIS FOOTAGE SHOCKINGLY RELEVANT, POWERFUL, AND BEAUTIFUL.
I'll remind the reader that Alzheimer's is one of the most relevant topics in all of medicine and psychology at this time, the 5th ranked killer and perhaps the most mysterious. With much money going toward research about it!
A relevant film clip of the hundreds that could be used in this film are the two below in SECTION D. Admittedly the first one needs the lighting adjusted with the help of video technology.
In it, you will see me and Dad listening (while looking at his own 1959 high school photo) to a famous 70's song titled "Cat in the Cradle," which, to some extent, captures the Zeitgeist of my dad's relationship with his father, and my dad's relationship with me.
The other short clip is of my dad discussing memory and time passing.
MORE NOTES ON THE LONGER DOC, TO BE DONE AT THE END OF NEXT YEAR
How is all of this pulled together in one paragraph?
Perhaps something like:
"An epic son-father-grandfather (with other important characters, but its focus is male parent-child issues), a tale spanning the last quarter of a century. The smash of modern society and technologies took them away from each other. And yet hidden in the cracks were breadcrumbs, in the form of recorded voices, that provided clues to knowing each other.
The son, yearning to understand, not wanting to delete an already much-deleted dad continually, surrendered to his nostalgia and saved 16 consecutive years of his answering machine messages, in the hopes of finding his lost dad and granddad.
Title: "I Miss You: Please Leave a Message"
This film will be, in a sense, a MESSAGE for humanity.
The audience will be invited to leave a message for us afterward if they choose.
Now, here are a few links that provide some sense of added reality to this project
A. A preliminary trailer (if you can even call it that) in the form of a 3-minute narration (in two parts) I made of my dad,
a Pulitzer-Prize-winning member of our team named Paul Brinkley-Rogers, evidence of the 200 papers that make up my grandfather's diplomatic career, and footage of the original 16 years of answering machine messages.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E-EjIQfvvfM
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/wjRIVUcR2Xc
B. A doc-short I made in 2015 about the community in the SF Bay Area that provides a small example of 2 of the approximate 10,000 messages I saved from 1988 - 2004:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcTJq9QrTa4&t=7s
C. For those who geek out about the period of my grandfather's heyday (diplomacy, resisting Soviet aggression, Radio Free Europe, etc), you might want to listen to only known (as of yet) audio recording of one of my grandfather's many talks. This one took place in September 1960, just before Kennedy beat Nixon, titled "The New Soviet Offensive".
And yes, this is PARTICULARLY RELEVANT as of Feb 24, 2022, when Putin invaded Ukraine!
https://www.commonwealthclub.org/events/archive/podcast/new-soviet-offensive-09021960
D. Two of a few thousand video clips made by me from 2015-2023 documenting my dad's descent into Alzheimer's,
which play a role in telling the larger 80-ish-year story.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wAQY0FvL8Cc
Here is just one of several hundred videos showing my dad's presence while he speaks, his tone,
and his simple wisdom. Just imagine what can be done with videos like this in the process of telling this story:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7qcjMM277c
E. This is (in 3 parts) a video I made explaining the content of the self-published 90-page book I made about my grandfather, Stuart L. Hannon. For anyone working intensely on this part of the film, I'll provide you with an actual hard copy of the book!
PLEASE FORGIVE ME FOR THEM BEING UPSIDE DOWN, YOU CAN FLIP YOUR PHONE OR COMPUTER.
I'LL TRY TO FIX THIS SOON.
Part 1: https://youtu.be/m44bGhCZ6F0
Part 2: https://youtu.be/34FBhaBHyqo
Part 3: https://youtu.be/oeQs67d5K9o
Finally, if you have made it this far (which demonstrates your true interest), and think you can help write/edit the script to profession standard, please reach out!
Please, in your email to me, in addition to your resume, include A PARAGRAPH OR TWO WITH YOUR REACTION TO ALL OF THIS!
Finally, I humbly ask you, please do NOT respond to this ad unless you are pretty accomplished and qualified.
My regular film team, which we might extend an invitation to join in the future, is full of award-winners and other extraordinary talents.
Thank you immensely,
Scott
