The day before shooting - on Thursday, January 20th - I got a phone call from Ted. They had completed their filming in Quebec and were at the airport, getting ready to fly to Phoenix. From there, they would rent a car, drive to Show Low, Arizona, and check into the Holiday Inn. In the evening, once they got there, they would call me and possibly come for some filming in the evening.
With this news, there was some frantic cleaning done in preparation. But as the evening wore on, it was evident that they would not be coming. Ted's number was a Paris number, and my Verizon account prevents me from making international calls. There were no worries. They probably didn't get in until late.
There was a trip to the grocery store to get food for the weekend. The girls were worried sick about meals. I mean, what do you make for dinner for someone from France?? Where cuisine is an art form?? There were memories of Dawn Porter and her crew turning up their nose at Temple's shepherd's pie recipe. I told them not to worry. Keep it simple. Mexican food is sort of a staple here in the Southwest, so I advised them to do enchiladas, or something.
The next morning, the kids went off to school, and Temple went to work. Martha and I were left at home, alone, waiting for some sort of word.
The previous film crew had been very punctual, showing up at ungodly hours of the morning to start filming. So by 10AM, I hadn't heard from Ted, so I figured something was wrong. Maybe they didn't show up. So I emailed him. No response. I couldn't place a call, but I decided to try texting his number. The text got through. They were in Show Low (35 miles away). They had just got up, were having breakfast and would soon be leaving.
I provided them with directions to my house. Since there is five miles of dirt road, I told them to pull over at a certain point of the highway, text me, and I would meet them.
A while later, I get a local phone call. It was the attendant at the local gas station in Concho.
"Is this Moroni?" she asked.
"Yes," I replied.
"There are a couple of foreign gentlemen here at the gas station, asking if I know you," she said.
I told her that I would be there in fifteen minutes. Apparently, they lost cell service the moment they got to Concho and couldn't call me. I got to the gas station, and they were unmistakable. They looked very "French". There were a couple of local, toothless, bearded mountain men making conversation with them in the parking lot, talking about the weather in Arizona. (We had just had snow earlier in the week.)
I introduced myself. Ted Anspach, the producer/ journalist, spoke English very well. His father is English, and, even though he was raised in France, he spent all of his holidays growing up in England.
When Dawn Porter had come to Arizona, they had contracted their crew locally in Los Angeles. Ted had come with one cameraman
- Frank. Frank has had extensive experience in filming and has traveled all over the world. He has even filmed in the Himalayas. He and Ted had previous experience working with each other doing a piece on AIDS. Frank's English was quite limited. He was quite relieved that I spoke French, and we spoke quite a bit together.
They followed me in their rental to our property. When Ted got out of the car, he looked out across the grassy rangeland and snow-capped mountains that surround our ranch.
"Wow!" exclaimed Ted, as he took it all in. "This is breathtaking! I can just imagine a cowboy riding across the landscape!"
They came in, and I introduced them to Martha. I think I expected them to start filming right away, but they didn't. They sat and talked with us, asking questions.
There were some scheduling conflicts. Temple and the kids were at school, and there was a basketball game scheduled at 1PM for my sons Hiram and Ethan - their final game of the season. It was important that we make it to that game. Earlier Temple and I had discussed the possibility of taking the crew into the game to film. But we weren't sure how that would go over with the school. It could put Temple's job in jeopardy.
I brought this up to Ted. Immediately, he insisted that the priority was that we get to go see the game. He suggested that I contact the school and try to get permission.
So I called the principal at Concho School and ran the scenario by her. She was very polite about it.
"I'm so glad you called me first," she said. "But I'm afraid that I'm going to have to say no. If you were to film, we would have to get permission from every parent of every student involved. It would be too much of a hassle."
"I wouldn't do anything like bringing cameras into the school without getting your permission first," I assured her.
So we drove into Concho for the game. Ted and Frank excused themselves to film some local scenery shots. The arrangement was to meet back at the school at a certain time.
At the school, I met our kids. They were very excited to meet our "special visitors". They remembered the last shoot, and they remembered being put on TV. They were very excited to do it again. (The younger kids, anyway.) The game was really good. Concho was playing some scrappy kids from the White Mountain Apache Reservation. When it came time to meet our French guests outside, the game was still going, so I went out into the parking lot to find them.
They were smoking cigarettes by their car (until they saw the statute posted that Arizona school campuses are smoke free.) I invited them in for the last quarter (with no cameras). It was very noisy, and Concho won by two points in the last few seconds of the game. The crowd went wild. I wonder what our guests thought.
Ted and Frank were swarmed by our kids as I introduced them. (one of my younger kids referred to them as "those guys that speak Spanish".)
We all went home, and the filming started. They filmed as Martha and Temple made dinner. I left them and went up to Temple's house to do my chores, which involved getting the fire going and the generator fired up. At this point in time, we had a generator that would not start under thirty pulls. So it was always a workout - and time consuming - just to get electricity into the house.
When I came back from doing chores, dinner was on the stove cooking, and both of my wives were in front of the cameras - again! And again, I was so proud of them. Ted was asking them about the misconceptions that wives in plural marriage are dumb and brainwashed. The girls answered beautifully. When I walked in, Temple was speaking of the necessity of not relying only on schools to teach your children, but to take a proactive approach in educating your own children. She came across as the intelligent, driven woman that she is. I was very proud of her.
When dinner was done, they filmed the children carrying the pots for dinner up the hill - the 2.45 minute walk to Temple's house, where we would eat. Then they filmed us having dinner.
I hate to constantly compare this encounter with our first experience with Dawn Porter. But I have no other frame of reference. We offered food to Dawn's crew. They turned their noses up at it. It was kind of offensive. They even made references to the food being unhealthy.
Not Ted and Frank.
They sat down to eat with us. Martha made chicken noodle soup (with homemade noodles) and ladled it over mashed potatoes. It is a common meal for us, and very delicious. But we were very pleased that they would even eat with us.
Afterwards, they wanted to film us in some sort of religious service.
My family has some unusual beliefs and practices that makes us stand somewhat apart from other Mormon families. We believe in the Jewish tradition of keeping the Sabbath on Saturday. Most of our community worships on Sunday, and, so to be in harmony with our community, we attend services on Sunday. But our Saturday Sabbath is something we observe as a family.
The way we observe this is to move the tradition of Sunday dinner to Friday and the Mormon tradition of Monday Family Home Evening to Friday. We have the sacrament. And we have a mitzvah, or short lesson. It is not a big deal, but it is the way that we observe the start of the Sabbath. We are not always faithful at doing it this way. Friday nights are the sometimes the worst night to try to get the family together with games, dances, activities, etc. But this is generally how we try to do things.
So they filmed me breaking bread and serving wine (grape juice) to my family and having a brief mitzvah.
After the meeting, they interviewed Martha, Temple and I at the kitchen table, and asked us a series of questions - all of them religious in nature. But they were very polite in the way they asked questions. In other words, they were very insistent that we did not need to answer any questions that made us uncomfortable.
When the interview was over, they excused themselves and went back to their hotel. They arranged to come back at 10:30 the next morning. (What?? Not at 6AM??)
After they left, Martha, Temple and I agreed that this was a MUCH MORE pleasant experience than before. If interviews always went this smoothly, we would never have qualms about doing them.
But there is still tomorrow... which is when I will tell you what happened next...
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