To continue the vegetable theme, Jake's role as ambassador for Edible Schoolyard has shifted up a gear with 'a new campaign to prompt America's public schools to grow their own fruit and vegetables'.
'We're trying to make it possible to have an edible garden in every public school in America," [Jake] explains. "Kids can have a new relationship to nature and to their food and to their diet and an understanding where their food comes from. Kids can take classes in these gardens and learn mathematics by counting vegetables and engage in the world in a different way than we're used to in schools. It's basically to take a piece of the concrete out and put in a garden where children can explore and learn and hopefully it changes them. I grew up around edible gardens all over the place in Los Angeles and a little bit outside of Boston, and it's changed my perspective on the world and I think it could change the world."'
'"My family always emphasized it and it's an incredibly economic way of feeding the family and having everybody learn where your food comes from. It's something that I care deeply about. I remember my niece, when she was first born, and the great irony of her learning how to walk by holding onto tomato plants and how to count with cherry tomatoes."'
I'm trying to remember what I learned to count with but I don't think it was tomatoes...
Last night, 21 March, Duncan Jones' Source Code screening tour reached the fabulous city of Boston. You can read details of the event here in the Examiner but I'm delighted to say that one of our own was at the event, BBMISwear, and with her usual generosity has sent us some photos and an account of the occasion. I saw Duncan at a Q&A for Moon and talked to him afterwards and I must agree with everything BBMISwear says about Duncan, surely the friendliest and most generous of directors. Over to BBMISwear:
'Duncan got a big round of applause when he entered the front of the theater as the end credits rolled on the screen. He discussed a few things we know already – (i.e. the British song that was in Moon and pops up again in SC, how he met with Jake about another project and Jake thought that was great but wanted him to take a look at the Source Code script, etc.). He was asked about the script and he said the structure was all very sound but there were two things he wanted to change – first, it was very serious and he wanted to lighten the tone and inject humor and Jake got on board with that and they both felt that would help the film. Second, he wanted to change the ending – he thinks that when the audience sees it they are either frustrated with the ending or love the ending with not many people just thinking it was all right.'
'I got to ask question and asked about something I saw on the B-roll with Jake saying to Duncan that the source code changes everything – future, present and past - and it seemed he was trying to convince Duncan of how that should be included but Duncan was telling him that no, that would make her (Catrina) something she is not – I asked him to tell us a bit about that. I recorded his answer with my phone – he responded with: “We had a lot of rehearsals and discussions covering where we had to get to in each scene and then we shot it all consecutively to stop it from getting too confusing while we were shooting. But, it is a very confusing idea and I think that was part of the trick of the script was to keep it simple enough that an audience can really just go with it and accept the logic behind it. Because if you think about it too much you start to fall into paradoxes which are there by design and that’s just the nature of time travel films - by their very nature.”'
'He was also asked about getting a start as a script writer, the Mute graphic novel, writing his next film now that is inspired by Blade Runner, being a sci-fi fan (here he noted he treats it seriously but thinks humor is an incredibly powerful tool and learned you can use it to get the audience to bond with a character and empathize with him and share a joke with the hero and then he becomes one of your buddies – he pointed at the screen at this point – it was obvious he was referring to Colter)!'
'After the Q&A many people headed down front to say hi and get autographs and pictures – I did all three and must say the man is one of the nicest guys you could ever meet at an event like this! He stayed and stayed and didn’t turn anyone away - happily taking pictures with anyone who wanted to do so. Rodene was right there next to him and after using her super-duper camera during the Q&A she was happy to take hold of all camera phones that were given to her (including mine) so she could take pictures for anyone that asked! She joked that we all now are going to have Duncan’s cold! (My pictures came out okay but unfortunately with a camera phone and bad lighting there wasn’t a chance of anything spectacular).'
'I only had a minute to talk to him at this point so I used my time wisely and requested that Duncan please, please, please make sure he and Jake do an audio commentary feature on the DVD as people love that and there seems to be less and less of those these days. He said that he thinks they are going to do that and I added, again, that he must do it with Jake because the two of them are terrific together based on what we’ve seen so far and he laughed at that and nodded with a big smile! It’s so obvious how fond these two are of each other. Let’s hope we get what we’re asking for on that DVD!!'
DVD commentary with Jake and Duncan? Yes, please!
This post includes new pictures from the LA press conference at the weekend, with many thanks to IHJ, and BBMISwear's photos from last night. Thank you BBMISwear for sharing your experience!
