by TImothy Rutt
On May 8, 2012, 50 film crews descended on 50 members of the Pasadena Unified School District -- everyone from students to Superintendent Jon Gundry and then-board member Ramon Miramontes -- to capture a day in the life of pubic school.
And exactly one year later, it was ready for its close-up.
The premiere of "Go Public: A Day in the Life of an American School District" sold out two theaters at the Arclight in Pasadena's Paseo Colorado Wednesday night. The film stitched together 50 short documentaries from the crews into almost a two-hour kaleidoscope of activity that shows public schools in action and what makes them tick.
Produced by Dawn and Jim O'Keeffe of Blue Field Productions, the film premiere brought together the fifty crews and their fifty subjects -- teachers, principals, volunteers, students, and staff of all kinds, including Felix Lopez, custodian at Washington Middle School and, to judge by his part in the final film, apparently the hardest-working man in PUSD.
Each crew finished a short documentary about their subject, which has been available for viewing on the Go Public website. The O'Keeffe's edited together all the raw footage to make the finished documentary.
We were invested in this, not only as public school parents, but because our daughter Rosie Rutt was the subject for Go Public's Team 13, led by director Gina Long.
A big crowd gathered at the central courtyard of the Paseo to eat from the food booths and be introduced to the filmmakers. (We want to Rubio's Fish Tacos instead, because the vendors' lines were quite long and the natives, i.e. our three children, were getting restless.)
After introductions of the crews and subjects, we all went into the Arclight, where some of us then had to endure the sight of ourselves, 40 feet high. The film was busy -- some of the handheld shots were dizzying -- but it was a good picture of the beast that is public school, from wakeup to day's end to the school board meeting going far into the night.
The end result: very impressive, a good look at the work involved and challenges facing our public schools.
But the line of the day: during the drive there, Rosie was talking about "my movie," and we explained to her that it was a movie made about a bunch of people -- it wasn't just about her.
"Why?" she asked.
Already a diva.
Links about "Go Public":
