(note: Jonah was the Director of Photography for this film. He was in charge of one of the cameras, cinematography, and was an editor for the film. Will was the Assistant Director, in charge of the other camera, and also an editor for the film. I met both last year in college, Will (my roommate), Jonah (kid down the hall). Along with Sean (jack of all trades and Music Supervisor), the four of us last year got together and decided we were going to try and make this documentary happen).

A million and a half people have helped greatly since this meeting (both before and after it), and we will soon try and put a page up to mention all of these people—we certainly asked for a ton of favors (good time to mention Noah, of TNIntegratedSolutions.com Made this incredible website)…

We were looking back on some of the footage last night and spotted an astute comment by the always astute, Will Godel. He noted that on any given day, a resident could have a bad day—a cough, a cold, etc—and really fall seriously ill. Even something like tripping on your shoelaces can be life-threatening. There was a very strong sense of enjoying everyday because the ambulance outside, as Carl said, “will one day be out there for you”. In the next couple of days I am going to see if Will and Jonah want to post some stuff up here. They’re both pretty smart, much better writers, and even better looking—so you’ll get much more bang for your buck.

About 1 of 6 celebrating National Singles Week were 65 years of age or older.

Sex is a topic discussed in the film. I don’t know of anyone who celebrated national singles week, but I hadn’t even heard of this week until I saw the statistic…

So I am going to avoid talking about the issues covered in the doc. Maybe more of what you don’t see in the film…

I think a huge facet that we simply did not have time to cover (or a camera to cover it) was the experience both Will and Jonah had behind the scenes. For literally one month, they lived everyday behind a rusty, used, Panasonic DVX-100A. They also were in control of the boom microphones (microphones that are intended to be held by a long pole but since Will/Jonah only have two hands, each carried the microphone with their non-camera hand and pointed it wherever there was valuable noise). Now don’t forget, they had their headphones on; if they wanted to hear anything, they could only do so by maneuvering their microphone into the correct position. And that position always had to be where the best content was for the film. They had it rough—not to mention they weren’t exactly going back to a party every night—they lived in the “independent living” building next to me. For one month, we all really did live, breath, and get the feel for what it was like to live in a retirement home.

I remember filming some footage here and there, and really couldn’t even keep my arm up for more than ten minutes (even a pez dispenser is heavy after you hold it with one arm for ten minutes). Every time they turned the camera on they had a long checklist before they could even look through the viewfinder: white balance, color balance, various wires, audio levels, headphones, tape, focus, zoom, etc. We were not familiar with many of these features so Will and Jonah had to teach themselves as the film shoot went on.

This could have made for an entirely different film. The documentary is really about Bill, Tammy, and the other residents at HP (harbor place).