June 14, 2006 - Bob
Scottsdale, AZ Screening w/ Health South
Dad and I were fortunate enough to be invited back to Scottsdale, AZ by Karen Christiana of Health South again for two purposes:
A) To meet and interview the riders of a dynamic group, "Amputees Across America" (AAA). When I spoke Karen at the after party for "Boys of Summer", the cross-country bicycling trip I took came up. She mentioned that AAA was also a cross-country group. She immediately said I had to meet the riders from AAA.
She was right. What a great, enthusiastic, funny, inspirational and hardworking group with "IT" in their attitude. The core group is three riders who are amputees riding 30-35 miles a day across the country and sharing their story with Health South medical groups. They have tremendous support from the Health South staff and have gotten proclamations from Mayors in many of the cities they've gone to (including Scottsdale yesterday).
Big, big ups to AAA and we wish you much luck, health and love.
We got to show "Boys of Summer" a few hours later at the hospital and had a phenomenal response. This trip to Scottsdale has brought forth an astonishing number of ideas and opportunity.
With the extra day on either side of the event (on Tuesday), we contacted our other PD friendlies in the area.
The first is Jim Reed, a lawyer who we met at the Phoenix Film Festival. Jim is an incredibly bright and passionate man who specializes in health/disability related issues. He has worked with several presidential campaigns and is getting more involved in films. He is very interested in "Boys of Summer" becoming "THE" PD film. In meeting with him on Monday, he suggested we needed to make some changes to the film in order to make that happen. Dad and I had discussed that before and are very open to that as we'd like nothing more than for "Boys" to become "THE" PD film.
So what does that mean? It means we need to up the PD content for one. So we began to strike out in that direction and doors have flown open quickly. We have an interview with neurologist Holly Shill at the Muhammad Ali Parkinson's Research Center today. Jim has helped with the questions and Dr. Shill is a very pertinent expert in the field. The other nice thing, content-wise, is that Phoenix is the first stop on the "Boys" trip (when we came to see the D'Backs). That means I'll be able to put her interview right up front in the movie to up the PD stakes/information from the get go.
We also (completely unrelated) got a call from the New York Post yesterday (through Alicia Marks, PR rep with NPF) and they want to do a Father's Day story on us! That's great pub that, again, will hopefully give us the eyes we’re looking for to find a buyer.
Yesterday, after our screening with Health South, Karen, Melinda and Barbara (staff, Therapy Experts and Wonderful ladies) sat down with us and discussed the possibilities for how they could help get the film out in a wider distribution. It was a very encouraging conversation, details of which need to stay on the low-low for now.
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