Day 17 - Tuesday 2/22 - Travel Day

1:15pm O'Hare International Airport

Leaving Chicago for D.C. Today. 6-day shoot begins tomorrow. I have 5 solid interviews lined up – with the people who were closest to the case. I booked the sister if the victim over the weekend, and along with the perp’s ex-mistress, the FBI agent who investigated the case, the lead detective, and the US attorney who prosecuted the case, I have a great cast of characters. Days 1-3 will be crucial as I need to knock 4 interviews out in that time, and get D.C. b-roll along with crime scene photos, surveillance video, and b-roll of my police in action.

Most of the prep work has been done, now it’s just a matter of executing in the field. Any number of things can go wrong, but I feel very good about where we stand. The last 3 days are pretty open, and I’d like to book two more interviews on the fly, but if they don’t come through, the show will still be good. I’ve made calls to the following potentials: TT (guy in surveillance video with perp), responding officer, 2^nd detective, and the perp’s ex-wfe. If any of those come through, the show only gets better. TT would be the biggest get but is also the most reluctant to do the show. My understanding is that he offered a gun to the perp who then used it to off someone. He eventually cooperated with the police, but took a lot of guff for it in his neighborhood.   I at least got him on the phone, and asked him to think about it. Then I left him a VM offerin $$$ to him since he’s a criminal by trade and that’s what criminals respond to. 

The other 3 I’ve made calls to – but haven’t gotten any calls back.

I’m not worried at all about the interviews themselves. I know the visual format, my understanding of the story is strong, and I’ve allocated enough time to go through all my questions (that said, I should actually write up a question list on the plane).  My chief concerns are getting strong b-roll with my characters (FBI, police, and two women) and getting visual archive. Since this case wasn’t covered at all by thelocal (or national ) media, there’s a big question about what we’ll actually show during the show.  With news station crime scene footage or shots of police tape, you can always go back to that because it’s visually relevant to the story. It helps the viewer identify with the crime scene and keep it fresh in their mind. They relate to the victim more. Without that, we’ll be heavily dependent on re-creating the crime scene with actors and reinforcing the events through photographs. That’s very doable, but I NEED those photos from the police…or attorney, or whoever has them. Sometimes, they’re skittish about releasing such things for several reasons. Sometimes the photos are just gruesome and they don’t want people to see those, or sometimes they don’t know if they have clearance to release them and don’t want to cause a shitstorm.  I’ve discussed this with both the police and the US attorney and they assure me that they have photos for me, but until I actually see them and copy them over to my hard drive (and my RAM…haha) I won’t feel at ease.  So much of the show will be recreations already that without some authentic visuals, the audience will get tired of watching actors.

The other thing to get is strong b-roll with my main police characters. This is important because there’s so many lines in the show that start with “investigators searched for clues…” or “authorities had to find answers…” In this instance, “authorities” and “investigators” are my FBI & police guys. I need to get them “working,” i.e. going through papers, doing computer work, looking at files. This would seem to be easy, but it’s actually hard to make any of that stuff look interesting. Acting on camera is very difficult for suit-types, and they tend to look fake. It’s also challenging because visually it’s very boring. No one gets off by seeing a shot of someone sitting at a desk.  

First snag of the shoot: I failed to get a driver’s license since losing my wallet two weeks ago and realized I will need one to pick up the rental car. I brought my passport to use as an ID, but I was just too lazy to go to the Chicago DMV (one of the worst places on earth) and didn’t even connect that I would need it until I was in the cab on the way to the airport.  Solution: have my cameraman pick up the car. Pretty easy solution, but techinically I won’t be on the rental agreement as a driver so I shouldn’t be allowed to drive the car. That won’t work because I’ll need to drive the car while my cameraman shoots out the window. Solution: drive it anyway.