Love Them First: Lessons from Lucy Laney Elementary
The film that changed my career, shot over a school year in north Minneapolis.
Love Them First follows principal Mauri Melander Friestleben and her staff at Lucy Laney Elementary in north Minneapolis through one school year as they fight to get the school off the state's list of lowest performers. Lindsey Seavert and I co-directed it. I shot it.
The film won the Alfred I. duPont–Columbia University Award, which is the broadcast equivalent of a Pulitzer, and it is the project people still mention first when they call. It is also where Lindsey and I learned how to make a film together, which eventually became Tiny Window Pictures.
What I took from that year as a cinematographer: show up every day, carry less, shoot at the height of the people in front of you, and trust that a school hallway at 7:40 in the morning contains more drama than most scripts. You can watch the whole film on Amazon Prime or YouTube.
