Making a Movie Sounds Like Fun

“The film is about the founding of the Wichita Wings indoor soccer team that started in 1979. To say the Wings popularity grew rapidly would be a huge understatement. The new sport was like a tornado hitting town with coach Roy Turner and general manager Bill Kentling making it spin.”

—- Bonnie Bing, “’God Save the Wings’ played to a packed house,” Wichita Eagle, 3-1-2020

“Making a movie sounds like so much fun!”

—- Everyone, 2017-2020

Making a movie is…

…sitting next to the human radiator, and movie director, Adam Knapp on a very long, hot flight to London.

…learning that you have to spend hundreds of dollars on something called a “Carnet” in order to avoid foreign customs agents from stealing/holding-hostage your very expensive camera equipment.

…booking five tickets to Denmark so you can interview Erik Rasmussen and then, two weeks before you leave, finding out he’ll be in Africa, thank you very much.

…watching your mild-mannered producer Tori Deatherage turn into Tori DEATH-RAGE when confronted with a rude Englishwoman who steals her seat on an almost empty train.

…watching Tori clap as that lady exits the train.

…driving so many hours on your way to see Terry Nicholl that you briefly fall asleep during the interview.

…flying in or out of three different airports in England on your trip.

…marveling at the efficiency and beauty of European airports and then remembering you have to go back to using American airports.

…watching director Kenny Linn attempt to buy water on a budget airline from Denmark to England, but his credit card doesn’t work properly, so you see him begin to contemplate drinking his own urine to survive.

…being woken in the middle of the night in your AirBnB by your fellow crew members and after admonishing them, getting awkwardly stuck in the room with them after having the door handle to your bedroom fall off in your hand.

…putting up with producer Tim O’Bryhim constantly wanting to arrive ridiculously early to everything.

…dragging your 17 bags on and off dozens of trains, planes, and automobiles across Europe.

…trying not to lose any of your 17 bags.

…experiencing multiple 20-minute laughing fits by producer Mike Romalis in one trip.

…watching so many hours of Wings game footage (hundreds and hundreds) that Kenny Linn gets the Wings logo screen-burned on his eyeballs.

…watching Adam Knapp enjoy and then quickly regret his crabcake slider as we withdraw from one White Castle and then, 20 minutes later, deposit at a different one.

…learning that the glamour of Hollywood includes making fake porridge by mixing oatmeal with cat food. Yummmmm….

…making fake snow because your “winter” scene is being shot in the middle of the summer.

…figuring out which way is which on the Copenhagen Metro.

…quickly realizing that in Denmark, we are all very fat.

…also realizing that everyone in Denmark is extremely good-looking.

…understanding that Andy Chapman will NOT be reading those lines verbatim.

…discovering a lovely Mexican restaurant in Copenhagen.

…understanding that when you schedule a 45 minute movie meeting with your crew, it will probably last 7 hours.

…learning that you shouldn’t drink heavily and also engage in weighty discussions in our Messenger group chat.

…finding out that everyone in Denmark speaks English except Jorgen Kristensen’s wife (who lived in Wichita).

…discovering that you love Danish food despite much of it being composed of cold fish and lard.

…learning to live with Tim O’Bryhim’s snoring when you have to share a hotel room.

…glaring at Tim O’Bryhim while you are STILL WALKING 20 minutes after he promised it would only be a five minute walk from the train to our B&B in Caldicot, Wales.

…accidentally buying non-alcoholic beer in Copenhagen because you don’t read Danish.

…drawing the complete attention of every human being in Caldicot after rolling 17 bags across their cobblestoned streets for 20 minutes.

…being told (very politely) in Danish-accented English that no, you can’t lay up against that tree because this is a memorial garden honoring war dead. (whoops)

…visiting Denmark during an unprecedented heat wave (and they’ve never heard of AC).

…tripping (approximately 478 times) on the thresholds in your Copenhagen AirBnB.

But ALSO, making a movie is…

…Meeting your childhood heroes and immortalizing them for (hopefully) eternity.

It was worth every moment.