Go Public in your private place (altadenablog)

Rosie at the lower left tries to go through a day of school while being filmed for a documentary May 8, 2012. The other children's faces have been blurred to protect privacy.

"Go Public" is a project to tell 50 stories about a day in the life of the Pasadena Unified School District. We found out what that looked like up close

by Timothy Rutt

It's tough to tell your kids to keep a secret, but somehow ours managed to.

We'd been privy to that secret for a couple of weeks now, facing it with a mixture of excitement and dread.

The secret was that Tuesday, May 8, was Go-Day.

Actually, the name of the project was "Go Public: A Day in the Life of the Pasadena Unified School District." The brainchild of producers Dawn and Jim O'Keeffe of Blue Field Productions, it didn't lack ambition: mobilize 50 film crews to follow 50 subjects on a single day in all the schools of the Pasadena Unified School District. All school campuses would be involved, and anybody who keeps the PUSD running -- teachers, administrators, students, security guards, cafeteria help -- would be represented, cogs that makes the machine run. The end result would be to tell 50 four minute stories on each subject, stories that would be available on their website (http://gopublicproject.org/) starting in July. Those stories would also be woven together into a two hour film seeking theatrical release.

Our particular trepidation about the day was that we were going to be subjects.

Or more particularly, our daughter Rosie.

Her special place
Rosie has attended the combined K-1 class at Sierra Madre Elementary School for three years (she's repeating first grade this year). Our son Jacob has also passed through this class, where a flock of kids under the guidance of teachers Lisa Spigai, Jamie Griffiths, and Kathy Martin, with the assistance of fellow Altadenan Tammy Smith and Cecelia Gonzalez, ride herd on 60-some kids, including some with special needs who are fully integrated into the classroom activities. As parents of two special needs children in PUSD, this class is the reason we fought to make sure we went to this school.

At 6:30 in the morning, editor Jay Chapman, director Gina Long, and cameraman David Gaz figure out how to set up in Rosie's bedroom without waking her up.

But the credit or blame as to why we were involved in Go Public rests with Gina Long. Gina is a tremendous ball of energy in human skin, an attorney, former television producer (she handled missing children segments for "America's Most Wanted"), photographer, and supermom. We got to know her a couple of years ago when her son was in the K-1 class, and there was some danger of the program being dismantled. Gina and I formed the tip of the spear to mobilize parents to tell this story of this amazing classroom, which culminated in a presentation to the school board that seemed to energize them after a long meeting, and we think helped preserve what could be preserved of this class in a time of serious budget cuts.

A Sierra Madre resident, Gina's son Nolan now attends the Pasadena Waldorf School (which is in Altadena), but she's still involved as an advocate for public education, particularly Sierra Madre's K-1 program. When she was recruited to be a producer/director for Go Public, she told us, K-1 was all she wanted to do, and she wanted to tell it through the lens of Rosie's life.

Logistics
We've written before about Rosie's magnetic qualities, and agreed that she would make a good subject, not only for the K-1, but as part of our own advocacy to lift up people with Down Syndrome in a world that more often than not disposes of them. But, in a meeting in our dining room a few weeks ago with Long and her cameraman, David Gaz, she said that this shoot would be a major commitment.

As Rosie snores, David Gaz prepares to film her waking up.

It meant a film crew would follow Rosie around everywhere. All day. School and home. Starting from when she woke up, and ending when she went to bed.

So on Go-Day Tuesday Gina and her crew showed up at our house at 6:30 in the morning for wakeup. The crew consisted of Gaz, editor Jay Chapman, and soundman Aaron Eberhardt (assistant Matthew Martin would join them later in the day). In order for the day to start, they set up in Rosie's bedroom -- two cameras and a microphone boom, all put in place in her bedroom as she blissfully slept on. I don't know how surprised she was when she woke up to this -- I wouldn't have taken it well -- but as in everything, she took it in stride. "Hi, Gina -- Hi, David," she said, calling out as she rubbed the sleep from her eyes.

They followed us through breakfast, and as Mom put Jake and Rosie in the car to drop them off at school. After cleaning up breakfast and writing a few stories for the morning, I set out to Sierra Madre Elementary to see how it was going.

Everybody's working
And it was going fine. The cameras were Canon SLRs that also had video capability, so they were unobtrusive as the crew moved around the room to follow Rosie on her day (Aaron's microphone boom was more of a problem!). Her first grade teacher Mr. Griffiths said that he'd never seen Rosie apply herself so studiously as she had that day, knowing the cameras were on her and rolling. Maybe we'll hire a film crew to follow her all the time.

Rosie in class

Mid-morning, the crew set up in the playground corner as Rosie had her physical education class. With everything going well, I returned home to do some more work and prepare for pickup.

At 2:15 dismissal time, I collected Jake at one end of the campus and went to pick up Rosie at the other. The crew followed us as we walked down the street to our car and drove off.

Then there were a couple of hours free as our babysitter, Elsi Valle, arrived to help with homework and snack and I prepared to go to the community center to collect the names of town council candidates. Sometime during that period Bob Harrison himself, the former school board president and owner of the Green Street Restaurant, showed up at the door with the crew's boxed dinner. I don't think he usually does the deliveries.

It's a wrap!
When Mom arrived from work, we fixed our dinner and decided to have it in our front yard sitting area. it's unusual to have dinner alfresco when a film crew is watching you, but we managed. Then it was time for bath, and up to bed.

Rosie, as is her wont, hugged everyone goodnight, and sat on her bed as her mother and brother read stories to her. Then it was light's out. "Goodnight, David -- Goodnight, Gina," she said.

(What didn't make it on camera is that she was too wound up to sleep, so she got up again and we had to give her a snack before bed -- bedtime sometimes is only a suggestion for Rosie, not a fact.)

Filming recess.

Later, downstairs, as they copied the day's work onto a MacBook, Long effused about the rich experience she'd had. Soundman Eberhardt, who at 22 admitted little experience with young children, said that he came out of the day with a whole new perspective, a life-change.

It certainly was that for us, too. But life changes can be tiring, so we think -- after 15 hours for us, 17 hours for the crew -- dealing with that change is better after a night's sleep.

Pasadena Star-News story is here.