Cobb Field

Welcome to the Cobb Field blog. I’ll try to post an update on the project every couple of weeks or so. We’ll be featuring some of the fine photograhy of R. Dean Hendrickson, who documented the shoot in Billings, and generally keeping you up to date on the progress of the film.

We had a wonderful experience in Billings during our early July shoot. Everyone, from the players and coaches, to the front office staff and fans made us feel welcome during our stay.

We’ll have somewhere between 35-40 hours of footage to sort through, log, and get into the computer before editing can begin in earnest. Thousands of shots will have to be logged and recorded before the show can be laid out.

I’ll be returning to Billings on August 24th and 25th to do a last bit of shooting. It will give me the chance to follow up with a few of the characters in the film, and will give viewers the opportunity to know them a bit better.

-craig

Well, we’re early in the process of capturing the footage. There will be thousands of shots, and they all have to be labeled, logged, and organized so that the real editing can begin. It’s a long process, but it really helps to identify parts of the story. As you sit and watch the footage, minute by minute, story threads begin to emerge, and the story starts to tell itself.

When you watch every minute of the footage (and there’s more than 35 hours of it), you can kind of get a sense of what viewers will be interested in. If I find myself entranced with what’s going on, chances are viewers will feel the same way.

I’ve logged all of the footage, and things are looking very good. I’m headed back to Billings next weekend to pick up a few more interviews, and some extra shots to flesh out the story.

I just spent two wonderful days back in Billings. I picked up additional interviews with a number of our characters, and spent part of one morning getting shots of the stadium as art. I was just looking for light and shadow, angle and texture, things like that. It was a nice way for me to kind of say goodbye to the ballpark. Although our time there was limited, I think we all feel a bit nostalgic for Cobb Field as we get very close to the time she’ll be torn down.

Todd Frazier, one of the characters in our documentary, was called up to Class A Dayton just after I left last weekend. It will be fun to watch as “our boys” move their way through the system.

I’m back at the computer every day, logging and capturing footage. I’d like to say I’m getting close to half way through the footage, but that doesn’t include any of the game footage. Although this is a very tedious part of the process, there’s no better way to start discovering the real story than to simply slog through everything we have and just think as we go. I’m hoping I can actually start serious editing sometime in the next month.

I’ll be making a trip to Cincinnati sometime in September to do a bit of filming, but otherwise I think we’ve closed the book on the actual production phase of the project. Feels nice.

The end of the logging is in sight. I have about parts of about 10 tapes left to log, but I’ve decided to break off from that and do a little editing. One of the most difficult parts of this phase of post production is to decide what will actually be the parts of the story, and how will they come together. We’re working on the overall structure of the show, and we’re trying to discover just the right way to tell things.

I’ve been working on a promo for the show that will also serve as the opening “tease”. It’s a real challenge to figure out how to give viewers an idea of what’s in the show, what the tone will be, and kind of why they want to stay tuned in. It’s not easy, let me tell you.

I spent a few nights last week working on the music for the opener/promo. Recorded a bunch of it, and then found out when I started to edit that none of it worked. None of it. All over-orchestrated…it really fought the visuals and the narration. I came up with a very simple piano thing that worked well, but then Joe and I decided that the whole thing was too slow, too pretty to be an opening tease. I think I’ll re-work the music on it to give us an extra promo, because it really is beautiful imagry.

I’ve worked up a new musical approach to the intro, much more exciting, and with the opportunity to include lots more shots. I’ll start editing that tomorrow, and hope to have it done to take to Cincinnati when I shoot at the Great American Ballpark on September 24.

We’ll try to get the various promos posted on the website, along with the first batch of Dean Hendrickson’s terrific photographs as soon as Joe gets a chance to take a breath from all the work he’s doing as the Illinois Teacher of the Year.

I’m going to start editing as soon as I finish this blog entry. Finally. It has taken more than 2 1/2 months to get everything in the computer, but we’re finally ready to go.

The first layout of the film has 17 chapters, which will constitute the first cut. Obviously things will have to be trimmed down as we go, but we have a good place to start.

We have also found a poet who is willing to contribute her work to the film. Susanna Rich is a professor at Kean University in New Jersey. It’s a perfect fit, and not just because her work is outstanding. One of our main characters, Dan Zeffiro, pitched for Kean University through last year. He is a terrific young man, and I can’t believe we’ve hooked up with two people from that school.

Now that the official editing has begun, things will move along rather quickly for just a while. I have all or parts of 8 of the 17 “chapters” roughed out, so we’re beginning to see the show take shape. There will definitely be two distinct types of these chapters. Some, which will feataure poetry, will have a beautiful and elegant style, both in word and in image. The other chapters capture more of the moment to moment action in the stadium, and they’ll have a more conversational style, which will complement the images.

I chatted with Gregg Lohman, a former student of mine, the other day. He is a professional musician in Nashville, and we talked about a couple of music cues I have in mind. Gregg’s a great guy, and he and his buddies are ready to contribute to the score, along with the regular cast of great musicians who always breathe life into the notes that we give them.

After rough editing about half of the film, we’ve decided on a new direction. I just wasn’t sure that the pieces we were working on would fit together correctly, and some of the feedback we received confirmed that. We’ve decided to let the narration be the voice of the stadium itself. So much more of the story makes sense now. It means mostly trashing all the editing we’ve done up to this point, but it will be worth it.

When you think about it, who better to tell the story? The stadium is the hub for all the spokes of the story, and the stadium is the one piece of the whole puzzle that touches all the others.

I’ve also been working on some music sketches, and have three or four that I feel confident will end up in the finished show.

This phase of post production is the most difficult, by the way. It doesn’t feel like the busiest, because it’s the only part of the whole project that takes place in one location. Later on, when trips to the recording studio and post house mount up-that will feel the busiest. This is the toughest, though, because all of the decisions that will determine the content of the show are taking place. After more than a year of working on the show, it’s easy to feel too close to the whole thing.

I did some composing yesterday, and found in my sketchbook a theme that I wrote a year ago to the day. That theme will make the show for sure. It’s nice to see something from that far back that still fits. A documentary like this is such an organic endeavor-one that changes constantly as new ideas pop up-so it’s unusual for things to survive that long.

We’re a bit over half way to having a rough cut. Our goal is to have the whole show roughly laid out by the end of the year. The last two remaining sections are the stadium’s history and the actual game.

The game is the most complex part of the documentary. When we were filming in Billings, I really thought the game was sort of an afterthought to everything that went on during the day. As we edit, it has become clear that the game is more the apex of the day’s activities. The game, after all, is the point.

I’m going to be doing some test editing in the next few days, looking for a visual style for the game’s part of the show. There is a lot of stuff to cover, and we’re thinking about using a split screen style to get more things involved. Our worry is that it might be too much information at one time. We’ll see.

There is a section of the opening narration that goes something like this:

“If this old ball park could talk, it would say this day brings with it the promise of something good, something wonderful. This day brings with it the possibilities of everything that is right and good about baseball.”

It occurs to me, as I spend hour after hour with the footage we shot in Billings, that baseball represents a great deal of what is right and good about life. Baseball, at it’s best, is about family, and time, and friendly debates, and togetherness. It’s about sights and smells that never fade, no matter how long ago they were experienced. That’s a lot of what’s right and good about life, you know?

If we can capture that spirit we’ll do just fine.

It’s been nearly a month since I last wrote, but lots has happened. Except for a very important chapter on the history of the Mustangs, we have a rough cut! We’re very happy with the way most of the documentary flows, and very happy with the test viewings we’ve had.

We’ve employed a split screen of sorts during a healthy portion of the film, and that helps both with pacing and our desire to use as much of the great footage as we can. It’s a lot more work editing, though-when you’re using three or four shots at a time it really adds to the time it takes to make sure everything is in the right place.

I had a meeting with Gregg Lohman recently, a good friend and Nashville musician. It looks like we’ll be recording most all the music in Nashville, with musicians who are cohorts of Gregg. I’m really looking forward to both the experience and the resulting music. Should be fantastic.

Matt Passalacqua, a rising country singer, has also agreed to allow his music to participate, and I couldn’t be more excited about that. He’s a great guy, a fantastic musician, and a wonderful writer.

It’s been suggested to me that this is the perfect time for a documentary like this one. With so many clouds hanging over baseball, it should be a real breath of fresh air to see something that celebrates the essence of baseball. When you think about it, baseball is about family, it’s about sights and sounds, it’s about dreams, and it’s about a game that invites deep thought. I agree-this is a time that we should all be reminded why we love baseball, and I can’t think of a better illustration of that than Cobb Field and the good people of Billings, Montana.

This film will be unashamedly positive, and will be unapologetic in its warmth and enjoyment of the minor league baseball experience. We’re not denying the problems elsewhere in baseball, we’re just focusing on what is right and good about the great American past time.

As of about 11:00 PM last evening, we officially have a rough cut! We’re less than 15 seconds off of our 56:46 PBS standard length, so a few little adjustments along the way and we’ll be good.

Monday of this past week saw the recording of the narration, and Jeff Lynch carried the day with just the right tone and attitude. His excellent suggestions, along with those from his delightful wife Stacia, have made this a very tight script. One of my favorite parts of this whole process, by the way, is both the finding of exactly the right voice, and then writing specifically for that voice.

In our last documentary, An Uphill Climb, a great friend of mine, Kevin Cranston, was the narrator. His voice was the glue that held the entire story together. We looked very seriously into having him repeat that role for this film, but in the end, his voice is just too young. Maybe next time.

As I watched the rough cut last night, I’m struck by how beautiful this film is visually. Hope that doesn’t sound too full of myself. I had three other camera people who shot for this documentary, and their work is a key part of the whole thing. I have not tired a bit of looking at the images that we shot in Montana. They’re just stunning. I’m very excited about sharing that look with the rest of the country.

Next up is the addition of the 14 or so seconds to make the show the right length. By the end of the week I’ll be hip deep in writing the music. That will be another large undertaking. My goal is to have that process complete by sometime early March so that musicians and studio time in Nashville can be scheduled.

This music score will be quite a bit different from what I’ve done so far. Different musicians, music that will demand better performance skills than I have myself, and a studio I’ve never worked in before. Exciting.