Cristi Lamb, 17, directs the video history of her hometown, Apple Valley
Story by STUART KELLOGG/Staff Writer
Photos by Darrald Bennett/Staff Photographer
In the film and video studio at the Academy for Academic Excellence (AAE), Cristi Lamb, 17, peered into a ScreenPlay computer (a digital-video editing clone of an Avid).
At the Apple Valley Fire Protection District, Lamb shoots a video of, from left, Division Chief Art Bishop; Scott Nassif, president of the fire district board; early director of the AVFPD Don Ferrarese and AVFPD Fire Chief Doug Qualls. |
A few days before, she'd interviewed Roy "Dusty" Rogers Jr. at the Roy Rogers-Dale Evans Museum in Victorville.
Standing beside his father's co-star Trigger, Rogers had reminisced about his late parents, who came to Apple Valley in 1965. But in February, if all goes according to plan, the museum will move to Branson, Mo.
Adjusting the volume ("Dusty was soft-spoken"), Lamb cited the museum's relocation as just one example of why no time must be wasted in recording Apple Valley's history - indeed, the history of all the Victor Valley.
Lamb says every minute of screen time represents an hour of editing. |
Already she had interviewed Jean DeBlasis, Peg Mendel and Betsy Barry (about the glory days of the guest ranches), and several veterans of Newt Bass and Bud Westlund's Apple Valley Ranchos land-sales team.
"Tex, a man with blue eyes, knew so much that whenever he spoke, everyone else was quiet," Lamb said, referring to Mike "Tex" Meeken, who joined the Ranchos sales office in 1953.
According to Kate O'Rourke, screenwriter for the project, the idea for a documentary was born with the death of Eva Conrad, who edited the Apple Valley News from 1950 to 1983 and later wrote for the Senior News.
Conrad's sharp memory and salty sense of humor had long been a godsend to local historians.
"After Eva passed away," O'Rourke said, "(Apple Valley Fire Division Chief) Art Bishop, (Apple Valley Chamber of Commerce CEO) Heidi Larkin-Reed and I were standing around, talking, and realized there is so much history here, but we were in danger of losing it all."
"Bill Hansen (the former pastor of Church of the Valley) had the idea for a video, but by now there are 58 people working on it."
Taping video interviews on location at the Apple Valley Fire Department Headquaters Cristi Lamb in helped by Steve Orsinelli, instructor digital film department at the Lewis Center, Apple Valley. |
Heading the film's list of credits are AAE's president and CEO, Rick Piercy, executive producer; AAE's instructor of film and video, Steve Orsinelli, producer; and Cristi Lamb, associate producer and director.
A senior at the AAE, Lamb said the video history will premier in June 2003. "It's my senior project, so it has to be finished by then!" Lamb said.
Thanking a number of fellow students for their help (notably, Whitney Hynes, Kevin Zenka and Doug Myers), Lamb said, "Mr. Piercy, Doug and I met with many different local groups, then chose the people who seemed to be the most comfortable in front of a camera and also seemed to know the most about early Apple Valley."
The first interviews were taped on the stage of AAE's main studio. "But Kate said it was too 'talking head-y,'" Lamb said, "so now we go where the people live and work."
With a panel of four Apple Valley fire and city goverment personnel Cristi Lamb must zoom and pan to match the person talking in her video interview for her senior project at the Lewis Center in Apple Valley. |
For example, to the headquarters of the Apple Valley Fire Protection District.
There, on Oct. 2, AVFPD Fire Chief Doug Qualls; Division Chief Art Bishop; Scott Nassif, president of the fire district board; and Don Ferrarese, a former pitcher for the Baltimore Orioles and an early director of the AVFPD, had sat in front of engine 331A, recalling famous blazes (e.g., the Kiowa Fire of 1980 and the Willow Fire of 1999).
Heading the list for all four men was the Hilltop House Fire of 1967.
According to Qualls, "Juveniles broke into the house to steal Newt Bass' gun collection. Then, to cover their tracks, they set the house on fire. It was a spectacular sight."
Because the house had so little water, a number of fire engines were lined up 700 feet apart.
Water was fed from one to another until it reached the top of the hill.
Nassif, who was 12 at the time, recalled the Hilltop House Fire as a very emotional experience, "the loss of an icon."
According to Qualls, the AVFPD began in 1951, when Bass and Westlund converted an old savings and loan at the corner of Outer Highway 18 and Standing Rock Road into the first fire station.
"At first," Nassif said, "the board would meet in homes, in fire stations or at the Apple Valley Inn."
When Lamb asked about early fire-fighting equipment, Bishop said the first pagers measured 8 inches by 4 inches by 14 inches: "Now they're the size of a pack of cigarettes!"
He added that firefighters used to know they had enough water pressure if it pulled their feet off the ground. "Now it's computerized," Bishop said.
Now in her fourth year as a student of Orsinelli's, Lamb is already an old pro, having worked for two years as a DJ in Big Bear ("playing oldies for a televised radio station").
She's also produced her own Christian teen program, and been involved with HBO for Kids and the Film Fest at Cinemark.
As a student at AAE, Orsinelli said, "Cristi has made comedies, documentaries, commercials and short features - for example, a feature on hazmat, with Art Bishop."
Four weeks later, in the AAE digital lab, an excited Lamb said that Bishop had promised to reenact the Hilltop House Fire for the video documentary: "They'll use the original, '60s fire equipment and drop smoke bombs."
Asked if reenactments and special effects are toying with history, Lamb said, "I don't use special effects on every project - for example, the feature on hazmat - but I might with a commercial."
With that, she demonstrated some snappy "transitions" (the wipe up, miniblinds, barn doors, etc.).
When editing a sequence (for example, Dusty Rogers' reminiscences), Lamb starts by downloading the tape into her computer and viewing the entire footage. This helps refresh her memory of the interview.
"Sometimes I know during the taping what scenes or words just have to be included," she said, adding that every minute of finished film represents an hour of editing.
"Actually," Lamb said, "we're doing it backwards. I film first, and then Kate will write the script."
For a segment on the Vanyume (the earliest inhabitants of Apple Valley) Lamb had hoped to have students dress up as Indians.
"But Mr. Piercy said they didn't wear much," she said. "We want this to be G-rated, so it can be shown in schools, so we may just show feet or something."
Apropos of schools, Lamb said the documentary is conceived as three 30-minute segments so schools can show it either in three parts or straight through.
In closing, the young videographer said, "I've lived in Apple Valley nine years and am just now learning about my hometown."
Used with persmission by Daily Press, Freedom Communication, 2002