Roger Leaves Providence

After days of scrolling through the Providence Journal on microfilm, I finally located the final news item about Roger in the May 26, 1903 issue. The small headline in the middle of page 3 read "Baby Roger has Gone" and described his departure by train to Yonkers where he was going to stay at an animal dealer's place. My heart cracked.
"He was loaded on a freight car at the siding at the park and started on the 1:30 rain for Auburn yesterday afternoon, for Yonkers, New York where he will have his home for the present... There were few spectators of the loading, as because of the uncertain temper of the beast it was decided best not to have the time of his departure too generally known."
Though I continued to search the papers for the next week, there were no "Letters to the editor" or editorial comments on the once beloved baby...
So that's the end of that part of the story.
Will I ever find out for certain what finally happened to him? Was he, indeed, sold to a circus? Was he put down for killing another elephant in Georgia? Where did I run across these stories in the first place????

In the meantime, I am beginning to get review tapes from VO talent, and today checked out the studio where we'll be doing the auditions next week. I'm really jazzed about all the support I've been getting lately. Have also had some more helpful feedback on the script as it stands.

The core of making this documentary is that to do it right, I need to be juggling events all of the time. Sometimes it's a little scary. Sometimes I lose faith in me. But mostly, I just keep doing the next thing and, with my increasing and much-needed support system, I keep thinking, "Holy cow! This will get done on time!'

More as things progress...

Zing went the strings of my heart

I was hunting down more info on the adorable Roger, and came across two major discoveries-

1) It was not a Projo reporter who suggested that the kiddies raise the needed dough to ransom the pachyderm prince. It was a concerned citizen by the name of Mrs. WHT, who wrote to the paper-
It has occurred to me that the school children might raise the amount needed. Could some responsible person be appointed in each of the public schools to receive donations…? In addition to this, would the Journal open a subscription so as to allow children other than those attending public schools to hand in their little gifts? If some such plan could be carried out, it would not be long ere a large part, possibly all of the $1500 would be secured. What a source of pride and pleasure it would be to the children to be able to say, “We Bought Roger!” And so it began...
2) One of the first people to donate money to the project was a 76 year old fellow from rural RI who wrote that he used to love it when the "travelling menageries" came to town to show their bears, camels, and, usually, and elephant. My heart stopped.
If he was 76 in 1893, he would have been born in 1817. He lived in rural RI on the travelling animal circuit. That meant- holy hamburgers!- he would have been 9 years old when the tragic Bette was killed in Chepachet. A real living link here. If only I could go back in time and talk to this guy! But, as is so often the case in RI, stories mesh and generations meld. A man who saw the tragic beginnings of elephants in RI was also a player in the redemption of elephants in Providence. I couldn't have fantacized a better character.

And now I am now in the process of auditioning voiceover actors and getting more pix...

More as things progress

Baby Roger on the Move

It's been an eventful two months, Roger-wise, and I think the estimated date of premiere at the end of September is pretty realistic. Here's what's happened on the project since the last posting.

I auditioned a lot of really talented kiddos to read the poems throughout the film. Since the original reading, though, I've found a few more pieces I want to include in the film and need to have some re-reads and new auditions. That's on deck for the next few weeks. Just need to call back some folks and get the space booked.

I spliced together a quick DVD of the piece, giving the general tone and some examples of the work which I presented to the doc group of RI Film Collaborative. Got a lot of valuable feedback there, and reworked the script based on the best advice and brought it to my mentor in Boston the next week for another set of eyes. We went over the script and really tightened things up.

At that point, I put out a call for VO talent in NEFilm.com. So far the response has been lively and I continue to hunt, but I need to contact all the original respondents to get them going on solid auditions. I'm mainly looking for mature voiced actors, who aren't as easy to come by as you might think.

In the meantime, I've visited the Roger Williams Park Museum archives and have had some marvelous help there from one and all. Great images of the park and zoo really make the footage pop! Am arranging to get back up to the Park sooner rather than later...

And lastly, I went back to primary sources for the Roger story, spending a day with the archives of the Providence Journal, 1893. I was shocked. I thought I had done a thorough research job, but found that I hadn't gone back quite far enough before. Everything I thought I knew about how the fund raising got started was a lie!!! Now I have to rewrite that into both the book and the script. Am scrambling, as I have given myself a rough cut deadline as the end of next month.