Born at O'Bleness Memorial Hospital 29 years ago today, director Megan Griffiths will return to her hometown to show her film at the Athens Film Festival next week.
I started writing the script for First Aid for Choking only a few months after moving to Seattle from Athens
said Griffiths, who graduated from Ohio University's School of Film in 2000. Coming back to town with the finished work gives me a sense of accomplishment and completion.
The main character in the film is Gillian Tremaine, a small-town girl who enrolls in a beauty school with her best friend in an attempt to jump-start her stalled life Griffiths said. But an old high school friend, whose affair with Gillian's father broke up her parent's marriage, complicates Gillian's life and forces her to confront and resolve the family issues.
The idea that eventually became 'First Aid for Choking' started out as a sort of magical realism piece in which a girl at a beauty school was able to read her customer's thoughts while she cut his or her hair Griffiths said about the initial intent for the film. The only similarity remaining is the setting of a beauty school.
Griffiths wrote and directed the film, which she said had about a $20,000 budget. She had a small crew and a cast of nine actors who worked for deferred payment, which means they will get part of the profit if the film ever makes money.
I told people when they contacted me that the film would be an unpaid
independent film
shot mainly on location in rural Idaho
and I still auditioned nearly 250 for nine roles
Griffiths said of auditions held in both Seattle and Idaho.
Four fellow Bobcats traveled west in August 2002 to help Griffiths shoot the film. Beth Fabian, an OU graduate student, was Griffiths' assistant director.
Megan's a peach
Fabian said. She's a Neil Diamond fan
and I have a Neil Diamond tattoo - from that we became very good friends.
Richie Sherman, who got his masters degree from OU and taught production at the film school, was Griffiths' director of photography. He and Griffiths co-own the camera used for the film.
Megan's great
Sherman said, as he added how cool it is that she is showing her film in her hometown.
Fabian said she never met the actors or seen the locations before arriving in Idaho, but she prefers to work like that.
I like to be thrown into shooting situations - I have gotten good at it
Fabian said. I don't like to spend six months planning and anticipating things because you worry about it.
The cast and crew made things work with only three or four movie lights and a sound recordist who had never done sound on location before this film, Fabian said.
The 100-page script was shot over 15 days in Moscow, Idaho, and for one day at some locations throughout Seattle.
The Seattle locations were more limited
