Linda Who ?

So, we had just gotten back to Toronto. We now had amassed 6 hours of tape. The doc was beginning to take shape. I’m famous for irritating people with my metaphors, but I’d like to call this the “moment of conception”. We had found our “egg” and we were in phase one of making our “baby” ; but our cell phones bills were high and our pockets were empty. We needed help. (and I continue to need “help” for my over/misuse of quotation marks).

The next interview we were excited for was with Linda Schyler. Many of you might say “Linda, who?”. Linda was the creator of the original Degrassi Junior High.  As the story goes, Aaron Spelling was interested in buying it and revamping it to take place in a school in Los Angeles, but Linda wasn’t interested in glamorizing high school, instead wanting to accurately reflect a high schooler’s life. (can you see the tie in to Hughes?). Spelling ended up making his own series set in high school that never really took off , 90210…

Another tie into our doc, is that Kevin Smith (who gave us an awesome interview) is a gigantic fan of the original series and when it was brought back with a new class a few years ago (and a huge hit), they did a MOW with Kevin and he has since returned to direct a few episodes.

Unfortunately, Linda’s interview didn’t make the final cut, but she had amazing things to say about stories for teenagers, Kevin Smith and of course, John Hughes. And now, through this blog, you can watch it here . * You’ll see that I was still figuring out the aesthetic of how the key interviews were shot. It was after this shoot I realized that how I was shooting wasn’t working and I then changed my approach to have them framed a certain way and ON A TRIPOD.  My bad. Lesson learned. Best film school ever.  

Sheedy

Out of the four of us, Lenny was the only one with a "real job".  He works for a wine company , spending most of his time on the road, so it was exciting to have him with us on our first star interview with Ms Ally Sheedy. As he wouldn't have an opportunity to speak to many others during the course of the documentary, I handed the interviewer reins over to Len and stayed behind the camera.  Nerves abound, he did a fantastic job. To give you a bit more perspective on how the interview went down, I hand the blog over to Len.

"The Ally Sheedy interview was memorable for me for a number of reasons. It was the first official interview and well, my first interview asking the questions. The team had been in New York for a while doing their thing and I was making a one day appearance...literally. I flew in at 9 am and we were driving back to Toronto that night. So, I was in for a long day.  From the time I landed in New York, it was as if everything moved in fast forward.  I left the airport and met up with Kari. From there, we went to the location to meet Matt and Mike.  I had questions planned but by the time Ally showed up, I drew a blank and it was autopilot from then on. Now, keep in mind we probably did over 200 interviews for this film. This was the first! No template, no mistakes to draw on or change. When the nerves were going, I went back to the basics. I asked Ally about the things that had really got us to this point, the relevance of Hughes today, the unique magic of his films, the mystery etc. I basically did not have to speak.  Ally went on talking, touching on all of the same things Matt, Mike, Kari and I had been discussing for months. It was amazing to hear Ally Sheedy say that her and other actors, directors felt the same way we did about John.  This was a good starting point. I knew we were onto something special."