Feed The Fish...Creative take on A Portrait

I LOVE doing creative work so I was excited when we got the opportunity to write about an epiphany in our own lives! Needless to say, I chose that option for this week’s reading. I never really told anyone this story before, because I hate reliving it and seeing the opportunity I had missed. Door County is an extremely small county composed of several small towns. The town I live in has the highest concentration of elderly people in the United States. Or at least that’s what’s been rumored. I tried my best to write this in the voice of James Joyce but found it very difficult considering two things: One, I am currently taking a blues poetry class and have been writing compositions for that class, so if this sounds poetic, that’s why and I apologize! And two, James Joyce does not write modernly, using words like cell phone or Hollywood. So it sounds sort of silly when I tried to make it sound like him. It also sounds silly how I wrote it in third person but that’s how A Portrait was written. Moreover, I hope you enjoy this story, and yes it is true!

It was crowded. Children, adults, elders packed the musty room, smelling of snow. December in Door County was never bare of that burden. However that was expected—that was wanted for the sheriff scene, outside of the town hall were those people were now waiting. The light was fading and they wrapped up filming, but not before one last take. Tony Shalhoub in his fake mustache and police jacket put on his character and finished, not a second too late when the sun disappeared. He gazed out at it as the director yelled “Cut!” and a small smiled crept across his face. Time for the next scene.

Inside the town hall, amidst people she’d seen many times in her life, sat a seventeen-year-old girl in a white and black plaid coat. Her hair hung low, styled in soft brown curls, and her hands fidgeted in her lap. Morgan was her name. She had lived in this town all of her life and never had she been graced with such an opportunity. Her heart had always longed for the film, trying out for plays, musicals and whatnot, hoping to play a different character in a different life; hoping to break free from a town full of the elderly and unmotivated. She saw a sign a few weeks prior for extras and suddenly there was hope again in her world. Even if it was the smallest contribution to something bigger than herself, she wanted to do it. So she had gotten out of her high school early on the day of the shoot, and made an appointment at the salon, the clients around her in for their monthly touch-ups. It may seem silly to some, but this was important to her…so important. When she was finished she headed down to the film spot, and waited, for five hours. Sometimes Hollywood runs the clock. And so she waited.

The drone of a fifty-year-old’s smoke-heavy voice woke her from her daze: “Alright people we’re ready to film the Christmas concert scene. Please keep your cellular phones OFF, not on vibrate. We are going to rearrange some seating now as well. Thanks for your patience.” The old wooden benches creaked and groaned with the removal and replacement of the people who were dressed the best. About fifty people in horrible holiday sweaters, puffy coats and festive dresses were moved around, one of them including Morgan. “We love your jacket, and want you to be in the focused shot,” a guy who looked like Ryan Dunn told her. She was moved from the back middle to the inside front; her stomach bubbled with blissful excitement. She smiled to herself. Although it was going to be only a shot from her back, she felt like she was on top of the world.

A few more preparations were made and then it was put into action. Ross Partridge ran in and down the town hall through the benches that were set up like pews. At the slam of the door, the audience members were to look back, confused, and Morgan did just that. During a break from that scene, the man who looked like Ryan Dunn checked on the extras and gave tips. When he got to her row, he touched her shoulder and said, “Nice job, that was perfect.” Needless to say she got butterflies again. And during another break after the shoot of the scene, with a camera positioned right next to her, Morgan struck up a conversation with the operator. The director was there too. She shyly mentioned that he looked like George Clooney, and he laughed, “Well I have gotten that before, I have to say. You know, you could be somebody.” And with that line Morgan was soaring. She should have told him how baldy she wanted to be an actress. She should have said how it was her dream. But instead she told herself no, for what reason she could not remember and said, “People have told me that I look like Leona Lewis…” Michael Matzdorff claimed that he wasn’t aware of who she was, smiled politely, and walked off to continue directing. It was as he was walking away that Morgan realized something. She just blew a possible chance to network a connection with a movie director. The one time when her town actually gets a movie filmed in it—the one opportunity she has to even have a chance at becoming known, she blows it.

At that moment, through the disappointment and disbelief, Morgan had an epiphany, and swore to never again let an important opportunity pass her up. She had held back from a lot of things in life that could have helped her get farther than she is today because she used excuses, was too lazy, or “didn’t feel like it” at the time. After the director walked away, filming only continued for twenty minutes, and then the extras were no longer needed. Michael Matzdorff disappeared into a private area, and Morgan was ushered out. She appeared in the movie, her back being the actress, but that moment still lives inside her. It has pushed her to make the most out of life today, and she now knows never to let such an opportunity pass her up again.

The movie is a small independent movie called Feed The Fish, and has not been released yet but should be relatively soon! J