![\"Robb](\"http:\/\/www.charlesmusser.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/03\/MosssDocumentaryWorkshop2.jpg\")
<\/a>Robb Moss and his class, Documentary Workshop<\/p><\/div>\n
His students had seen two Errol Morris documentaries in preparation for my visit.\u00a0 My homework assignment was to fill an increasingly embarrassing hole in my viewing knowledge: Moss’s Same River Twice<\/em><\/a> (2003). (I suspect these encounters with nature are much rarer today.)<\/p>\n I found The Same River Twice<\/em> poignant for another reason.\u00a0 Several names in the credits were people I had come to know (directly and indirectly) through the making of A Lightning Sketch<\/em>.\u00a0 This included Ann Petrone, who appears in my film and is Errol’s producer\/office manager.\u00a0 But it was Karen Schmeer–the editor on Same River Twice<\/em>\u2013\u2013that struck home most poignantly.\u00a0 Karen Schmeer was killed in a horrendous hit and run auto accident in January 2010 and her death was still reverberating through Errol Morris’s office when we filmed.\u00a0 She was the editor on several of his films, notably The Fog of War<\/em> (2003), which she was cutting while she was also cutting Same River Twice. <\/em>(Amazing!) Her name and her contributions to Morris’s career came up several times and in the end, we dedicated A Lightning Sketch<\/em> to her.<\/p>\n Kareen Schmeer<\/p><\/div>\n I didn’t know Karen, but I vividly remember reading about her death and the shock and sense of loss it cause. \u00a0 As someone who still sees himself as a New York-based film editor–an identity I established for myself as an adult in my 20s and into my early 30s, I thought to all those times when the film itself continues to consume an editor’s thoughts.\u00a0 One is in the film world much more than the real world.\u00a0 There is a sense, too, that we New Yorkers act like we own the streets–which we do except when some crazed driver comes out of no where and creates death and mayhem.\u00a0 Surprisingly, in the wake of my making the Morris bio, I have been meeting many of Karen Schmeer’s friends and colleagues and have been piecing together her life.\u00a0 These included Robin Hessman (made of My Perestroika<\/em>) and film critic and historian Gerald Peary, who made the documentary For<\/em> Love of the Movies<\/em> (2009).<\/p>\n A few more photos from my class visit.<\/p>\n
\n<\/a>It returns to a group of friends he filmed river rafting in the 1970s, which resulted in Riverdogs<\/em> (1982).\u00a0 That material is the jumping off for his documentary as he catches up with these friends some 30 years later–as they reflect upon (and often struggle with) relationships, work, age and health. The film and the issues that it explores certainly engage me but the more distant past\u00a0 of leisurely encounters with nature were remote.\u00a0 I remember one summer in the 1970s, when I finally got outside the city for a day or so, my eyes ached from all the green. By the late 1970s I was spending my days in the editing room–or increasingly reading microfilm.\u00a0 My river experiences, if you will, came earlier.\u00a0 They were in the Outer Banks of North Carolina which I visited often, and where I worked as a commercial crabber and fisherman from the end of high school into college. (And where I did my first filming.)\u00a0 But my stint on Hearts and Minds<\/em> (1972-1974) put an end to that kind of exploration forever–replacing it with a new type of encounter. Perhaps I should finally return to Edenton.<\/p>\n<\/a>