‘A Place to Grow’ re-released in Fairfield

FAIRFIELD – A documentary on agriculture in Jefferson County was re-released to the public Sunday, Dec. 29, after three months of editing following its initial release.

The film, 'A Place to Grow,” was shown for free at the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center. The film is the third in what producer and director Dick DeAngelis hopes will be a series of eight, collectively known as the Fairfield History Series. Each film will touch on a different part of the community's past. The re-edited film included 100 additional clips and animations from the version shown at the Fairfield Arts & Convention Center in September.

The film covers the major trends in farming dating back to the Native American tribes that once called the area home. It talks about how the natives would spend about 10-12 years planting seeds on a patch of land before moving to the next, and in their absence, that land would have a chance to regenerate its nutrients. The film talks about how natives learned to plant corn in the center of a garden, then a bean plant around it to let it climb up the corn stalk, and finally squash around the outside to provide shade and keep critters from eating the corn and beans with its prickly spines.

The documentary touches on the struggles the early European settlers faced upon their arrival, such as trying to plow prairies with roots 12 feet deep. The early plows they used were iron and driven by oxen. John Deere invented a steel plow that didn't need to be cleaned every few minutes like the iron ones, and this revolutionized the pace of farming. Next, horses replaced oxen as the main farm animals in the 1860s. Wheat, once a major crop in the area, moved west and was replaced by corn.

The film reviews the terrible harvests of 1933-35 ruined by chinch bugs. It includes interviews of 12 people aged 90 or over. They speak about what life on the farm was like before electricity and running water. One interviewee remarked that running water to him was when 'you run to get the water.” DeAngelis's film covers the farm crisis of the 1980s when farmers were paying as much as 21 percent interest, and many of them had to leave the business. Lastly, the film talks about the revolution brought by genetically modified seeds and how farmers have become more environmentally conscious, tilling their land less to prevent soil runoff and how some have pursued organic and regenerative forms of agriculture.

Fairfield residents Lynn and Judy Lauritsen said they loved the film and thought that it covered the history of agriculture in the county very well. Lynn said they came to Sunday's showing because they liked the film when it was originally released, and wanted to see how it had been updated.

Judy remarked, 'I think this is a great thing for Jefferson County to have a documentary like this. I'd like to get all three films on DVD to show to our kids.”

After the film, DeAngelis took questions from the audience. He mentioned that the film's editor, Ed Murphy, had been up all night making minor tweaks to the film, and continued working on it until just a couple of hours before it was shown Sunday afternoon.

Ed Murphy

Murphy has worked as an editor for the past 30 years. He said working on 'A Place to Grow” felt familiar to him, but some things about the experience were new, such as the subject matter, the crew and the budget constraints of a nonprofit.

'It's the first long-form project I've done in the past 15-20 years,” Murphy said. The film runs 83 minutes. 'It was a huge amount of work, more than any of us expected, but we were all striving for perfection and I think we got there.”

Murphy said DeAngelis was forgiving, generous and supportive of different ways of finishing the film in post-production. Murphy said he was glad to have the opportunity to re-edit the film since its initial release.

'I'm not going to let my name be on screen if I don't see the project through till the end,” he said.

Jason Strong

Jason Strong has been the director of photography for all three films, and has also been responsible for setting up the audio during interviews and other shots. He sets up the camera angles, and pays careful attention to the color tones. He'll inform DeAngelis if he feels that a shot is too dark or too sunny, or whether the noise from the highway interferes with an outdoor interview.

'Not only do I focus on the shot the director wants, but I also need to give him what he may need months later,” Strong said. 'That takes listening not only to the director but other camera people as well. We may have three people on site all with different ideas. So why not shoot all three ideas? Choices are great to have months later when it is impossible to go back and get more footage.”

Strong said that one of DeAngelis's great qualities is his ability to 'push you outside your comfort zone.”

'I can look back at our first film and see the difference in my technique, how it has changed and grown,” he said.

Viewers might be surprised to learn that being a photography director is a dangerous job. For one outdoor scene, Strong wasn't getting the shot he wanted with the camera mounted on a tripod, so he removed the camera and ran into a ditch to get closer to a passing farm implement. It felt like ditch grass was cutting into his arms and legs as he lay on the ground, but Strong thought nothing of it. Twenty-four hours later, Strong had a terrible rash on his arms and legs. It turns out he had gotten into a patch of wild parsnips, which he's allergic to.

'For a good three weeks after that, I was very uncomfortable,” Strong said.

Rene Holmberg

Rene Holmberg has been responsible for supplying all of the drone footage used in the first two films, and about 80 percent of the drone footage in this third film. His shots of tractors, rivers and fields from high altitudes showcase the beauty of Jefferson County.

Holmberg said that some of the shots where his drone was flying low over a field were taken a few years earlier and intended for the first film in the series, 'Life Before Fairfield,” released in 2017. In fact, one of Holmberg's drone shots of a field was used as the poster for that film.

Holmberg said the drone footage makes for good 'B roll,” meaning it is footage that is played while someone else is talking, such as DeAngelis, who did the narration, or one of the dozens of interviewees.

The drone footage is nice, but it doesn't mean anything without a producer or an editor, Holmberg said.

'I can't take credit for any of this,” Holmberg said. 'The editors look at the story, and they look at the footage, and put it together.”

One of Holmberg's shots was of a man re-enacting a harvest from years ago, driving a single-row harvester behind a 1928 John Deere tractor. Lawrence Eyre, a researcher for the film, said the way Holmberg's drone scanned the horizon showed how massive the fields are today, and that 'This guy will never be able to finish harvesting this farm. It's too big.”