The Making of "Puppies to the Rescue 1"

Pearl came to me Sunday morning saying she wanted to make a DVD. She needed help.  Okay, I said. How can I help? I want to trace a circle onto this paper.  Would you cut it out for me with scissors?

So I cut out a circle of white paper, and Pearl drew puppies and sunsets with colored pencils. 

Now I need some glass, she announced after the picture was complete. Oh, and the DVD will be called  Puppies to the Rescue 1.

Glass?  Yes, Pearl said, a circle of glass so I can make the DVD.

I guess that because DVDs are shiny, she assumed they were made of glass. Also she seemed to assume that if she attached this picture and title onto a DVD, she could insert them into the DVD player and see the entire story unfold on the television.

Let's see, I said. We can make a DVD, but there might be a few steps more to it than it might seem. 

So I took dictation for her in her 100 page book,explaining that to make the DVD we would need a story first.  Pearl told me two stories, "Puppies to the Rescue 1" and "The Elephants Will Be Kings."  She rattled them off so fast that I only jotted down a third of the words.  I read them back to her, but she was--in her mind--on to the next step.

Marcia is the family filmmaker, and she helped Pearl videotape and edit the story that afternoon. The story that Pearl narrates in the video is different from the one she told me.  In neither version of "Puppies to the Rescue" do the puppies rescue anyone.  Perhaps we must wait for Puppies 2? 

As I mentioned in the previous post, she was disappointed in the results.  But she has responded well to all the encouragement from the family.  Carrie has watched the clip dozens of times. If a sequel does surface, you will be the first to know.

Comments

[Alexis Quinlan]

I was looking for your April 30 poem and found this. What a poem your little ones are....xoxoAQ

[susos]

Fascinating - the 'making of' is as interesting as the film!

[elswhere]

I was just thinking of how artists of every age are often disappointed in their finished products; it's so hard to embody what one imagines when the idea first sparks. Even if everyone else likes it, they can't see what the artist saw when imagining the work.

Pearl is part of a great tradition.