Tragic

I'm not sure whether to thank my contact in Denmark or not with his links about Baby Roger. They included a trove of newspaper clippings that it astounds me I hadn't found during my year's research on Roger.
They chronicle his deteriorating circumstances at the zoo and are ripping my heart out. Although the city was aware of how bad things were, they didn't know what to do with their "Baby" and life became unbearable all the way around.
The articles that I had read only referred to the famous fishook incident, but there was so much more going on.
This, of course, means the end of the booklet has to be changed, and the movie has to be recut as well.
More when I recover...

Bombshell!!!

I had an unexpected email from Joachim Endres of the European Elephant group asking for info on all the Alices at RWP Zoo here in Providence. I told him I would go through my info as soon as I returned home. But, in our conversation he was able to give me some dynamite info on Baby Roger that I hadn't tracked down.
According to him, the species survival plan studbook shows- Baby Roger (from 12.05.1893 to 1903; transfer to Sig. > Soutelle Circus due to aggression)
. I had no idea what happened to him after he went to Wm. Bartel's exotic animal holding pens in Yonkers, NY.
In his next email, Endres gave me this bombshell link fingering Roger's last days... They came sooner than I had thought.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=inVcAAAAIBAJ&sjid=M1cNAAAAIBAJ&pg=4625,2091275&dq=elephant+roger&hl=en
Providence's "Evening Tribune" announced that "Baby Roger now listed as Murderer".
He also listed a number of links with records of Roger's misbehavior before the incident. Obviously this will require revising the Roger book and even the end of the film...
More as the story progresses...

Here comes the Press

Two articles in came out in the local press today bringing the elephants' stories to a wider audience. It shows how differently the same material can be covered.

I was thrilled with the South County Independent's survey of Roger and the whole project. I was delighted to meet the writer briefly at the actual premiere, and he did a bang up job of getting the word out to his audience. Read the story at http://www.scindependent.com/articles/2011/03/03/arts_and_living/doc4d6fbb0920be9932659438.txt

The other story, in the Jamestown Press, gave the story a more island-centric slant which was very cool to read. A few facts were off, but overall, I was delighted that it got Roger's story around the island. And I really loved the title.
See it at: http://www.jamestownpress.com/news/2011-03-03/News/Local_filmmaker_exposes_the_elephant_in_the_room.html

More as things progress...

Updates, updates, updates....

Best news in the world for The Ballad of Baby Roger!

Everything has been finished, the premiere is ready to happen, RI International Film Festival has accepted the application to consider it for their festival, the duplicates are being made, I will get the preview copy of the disc from the video on demand source that will make it possible to buy Roger from the web, the RI Film Collaborative gave it good marks when it was reviewed there, the IMDB (Imdb.com) has granted Roger its own page (and me and all my cast and crew as well) and, as of today, Rhode Island PBS has notified me they're happy to broadcast Roger once I finish jumping through all their hoops!

It is a long and sometimes frustrating process, but it feels good to see Roger in public.

And I have begun serious work on the story of Fanny the elephant! Her film will be called, "Uproar in Pawtucket".