The Stakes As They Are: An Easter Reflection

It is 1:20 AM on Easter morning, and I am sitting all by myself in the FILM 300 computer lab digitizing footage. If any of the following sounds corny, forgive me.

For those who don't know, Rusty's House--the teen drug abuse intervention and support group started by Rick Marvin and Amy Adams--has given me a $5,000 budget (one quarter of the program's entire account) to create a documentary about the life of my old friend Rusty Marvin who died of a cocaine overdose on July 7, 2005. A few Northwest Ohio television stations have already agreed to air the project sight unseen.

So far, I've probably spent about half of the budget, flying home to Ohio over spring break with my associates Eliot and Nick to conduct about 20 interviews with Rusty's family, friends, and others (not to mention all of the other footage we shot). And we aren't even done shooting yet: we're going to Austin, Texas, in a couple of weeks to interview the last person to speak to Rusty alive.

So like I said, here I am, one third of the way through the digitizing process (currently tape 15 of 42 is going onto the 500 gb hard drive that $250 of that $5,000 budget went to so that my associates and I can edit the footage), thinking about the humbling amount of faith that has been placed in me.

There are Drew, Anthony, J.P., Ryan, Mike, Naveen, Joe, and Kris, who are young and have so much to lose yet have entrusted me with some of their most difficult stories in the belief that I will take them and make a documentary that honors our mutual friend Rusty.

And then there are Rick and Amy. Rusty's House is the way in which they are attempting to make sense of their eldest son's tragic death. Not only have they revealed everything about Rusty and their relationships to me, giving me full access to their photos, home videos, and his journals, but they have shown me their own darkest corners: their deepest regrets and greatest fears. And they have given me full control over the project, telling me that I am the only one they would trust with it.

Then there is St. John's--the high school that I attended for four years, for whom I played football and tried to represent as well as I possibly could as a member of the Ambassador Society. And who wouldn't talk to me at all for fear that I would make them look bad. I wonder what they'll do when they see that we snuck into the school at night for b-roll.

I wonder what Rusty himself would think about all of this. What would he think knowing that I had read all of his journals? that I asked his little sister questions that made her cry? that I'm going to put his friends on TV, talking about their most personal problems?

I hope and truly believe that he would want his story to be told in order to help others dealing with what he went through.

I cannot imagine that however long I work in entertainment, I will ever encounter a project as personal as this one is. I am forced to believe that this is both one of the most fortunate opportunities (being a film student money to make a documentary about subject matter I am passionate about) as well as one of the largest mountains I will ever encounter in my entire life. So many people have so much riding on "Your Son, Rusty" being successful, not the least of which is me.

I hope that one of these good old days I am going to be an old man thinking back and be proud of myself and feel like I developed a big part of my character here and now. I hope that the project changes lives in whatever way documentaries can, and I hope that the project honors the memory of a young man for whom I cared deeply but couldn't help in life.

Just know that I am doing my best. And don't worry. Just because I'm thinking about what the stakes are doesn't mean I lack the confidence that my associates and I can rise to the occasion. I wouldn't have accepted the project otherwise. Trust me.


And I'm also thinking a lot about...