The Art of One Came Home

I knew I was ignorant going into this project. I just didn't know how ignorant I was. Working on a limited number of films before - a very few narrative features and shorts, but mostly corporate training, marketing, and the like - I had seen my share of continuity issues in Hollywood feature films: Jet streams floating across the sky of a western based in the late nineteenth century, actors leaving from two different sides of a car in the same scene and on and on. You've seen them too. And, Willy and I were constantly warned about the little things. Continuity! Continuity! Continuity! Okay, we heard their warnings. But I, for one, was not prepared for all the details. Thank goodness we had the people on the set who were prepared, from the details of wardrobe (thank you, Meriwether Nichols and Kim Howard - more about you two later) to the details of the number of 'taters at dinner, the amount of tea in the glasses, how the flowers were arranged on the table, the arrangement of the items over the fireplace, how Mama Grace's pen should be placed on her desk, where Mazilli's suitcase would go in every scene, how the mail should be piled into Harley's truck, and all the other "little pictures" that go into the mosaic that creates the movie's total backdrop. Rachel Boulden and Joe Fragale served as the principals of our Art Department. They had help, to be sure, but they were there every day, designing, fretting and shuffling to do the last minute touch-ups. They did marvelous work.

And, while I promise that Rachel and Joe will find more space in these blogs before this journal is complete, I want to call attention to one of the finer details that Rachel helped pull together. Throughout the scenes we shot in the Hodges' parlor, bedrooms and other home locales, framed informal photos of the family often appear. You may not see them clearly all the time, but they are there, adding detail to the story. The photos that feature shots of Murphy, Savannah, Grace, and Little Murphy as an infant, were all created by Rachel. They created the necessary atmosphere of unconditional love the family had for their fallen son and brother. The photos, small and placed incidentally, tell the audience that this was a special man, someone they too should love. The photos were created masterfully, with wonderful composition, imbued with the right attitude and mood. Samples of the photos are now available on our Facebook Fan Page.

Rachel Boulden and Joe Fragale were god-sends to us. They were there, watching, re-arranging bits and pieces of this and that, here and there, to make sure that our story did not leave viewers saying, "but, I thought the window was shut a minute ago." Ever-vigilant, to the point of driving us to the point of lunacy, they did their job and did not let us get away with doing it "quick but wrong." It takes those kinds of people on the set to make the movie all it should be. Thanks, Rachel. Thanks, Joe.