- Every Wednesday night for 10 weeks in the summer, there's a community band that gathers at this crossroads in the town of Calico Center and the all volunteer band assembles kind of magically, and then they play for an hour and then they disappear and back into their own homes and lives.

It is kind of magic because you see the little bandstand during the day and a building is nothing until you have people in it.

And in this case, people in music.

I have a place, a house there being rebuilt hopefully as we speak.

And I was developing my friendships with the band and I said, "I've only been coming here for 50 years."

So every time I went to hear the band, I would start to cry.

And I didn't understand why it was just so emotional for me.

They start with the Star Spangled Banner, they have a same tune, opens and closes the band every time.

And so I just would become overwhelmed by feelings and I thought, "Oh, I think I have to make a film about this."

This is what happens when you need to make a film.

You just get so compelled and you need that to push you through the process, which in this case, it actually took 10 years to make this short film.

And that's my process.

I work slowly and I've had to come to acknowledge that and appreciate it.

My family was making it with me.

My daughter's a cinematographer and so part of the part that's shot on film is my daughter's work.

And we used a man that was living up at Tenana Lake as our kind of our helper, our gaffer and production assistant.

And so I really wanted it to be, to come from the place and my love of the place.

And we got sidetracked for a couple of years.

We had a pandemic.

I had the editor died of cancer just after we finished the film.

So it has many levels of meaning to me.

This film is not only about love of craft, whether it be music or filmmaking, but it's also about family working together.

It's also about people coming from the area and coming together.

And then this wonderful editor, it's a tribute to her work that she was very high level professional editor and she also fell in love with it.

And she kept saying, "I want to do it."

We were at our sound mix and we had a place where she could lie down and listen, that she was that weak.

And I just get chills thinking about it, how much this meant to her and to me to be able to finish it with her.

I want to, in some way thank the band members who allowed me to make the film, because most of them are very private people and it's not their idea of fun to have somebody following them around with a camera.

I think one of the hardest things for me was actually to prove that I was sincere in telling the story, that people there don't really have a big need to be on camera or to have their life filmed.

And I don't think Fred would mind me telling this story that Fred Freeze was a trombonist.

And so when we were first calling up trying to set up interviews, Fred said, "No, I don't think I wanna be interviewed."

I said, "Okay," and so then five years later, I'm still working on the film and Fred finally says, "Yeah, you could interview me."

And then I think the other thing was for me, just fundraising 'cause I really wanted to do the film in a professional way.

And I think that was a little bit disappointing or surprising to the band people, the band members, because I think people are used to a reporter coming in and doing a story and you're done in two or three days and then it pops up and you get to see it.

And I wanted to do something in a little bit more depth.

And so it was a longer process and there was a kind of impatience about, well, where is it?

You've been here all this time.

And I was hoping to really hire this very high level professional editor and have her help elevate the story.

And I think it came from my respect and love of the story that nobody was quite good enough for me and so finally when Julie agreed to do it, I said, "Oh, this is the right person," and that was important to me.

It used to be a tradition that every town had a band, a live band.

And that tradition has really disappeared as we've had more and more live music and that people are able to tune into Spotify or anything like that and be able to get any tune they want in the world, any orchestra at any time.

And so this little band is really sort of one of the last reminders of that time when everybody played a musical instrument.

Everybody participated in some kind of group activity that created community.

And that's my feeling about this band is that music brings people together.

And that's why it's so important to continue having art and music and these things in schools because it's a way we all communicate and not everybody communicates through pictures or writing.

Some people communicate through sound and the songs that we have that we share together.