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Good day,
The last week has been busy with a capital Z! Last Thursday we (Chris and his wife Kim, my son Brett and I) flew to Milwaukee and on Friday we drove 90 miles up the Interstate (#43) to Green Bay. Walking into the atrium at Lambeau Field was more breathtaking than I imagined it would be. I met with Rob Crane (P.R. guy) on the third floor and he casually asked me if I wanted to see the inside of the stadium (dumb question). Wow, if you ever get a chance to see Lambeau up close, please do it. The best way to explain it is that I probably felt what an average Joe would feel like driving down Magnolia Lane and seeing Augusta Golf Course for the first time.
About an hour later the four of us were let into the stadium to take our camera shots and pictures. Finally Jon Ryan arrived. We had a terrific interview with Jon, he was thoughtful and humble (no surprise). When Jon left we interviewed the greens keeper (I'm not sure they call him this) who works full-time, year round keeping Lambeau field looking the way it does. We then went to the pro-shop and interviewed the assistant-manager. I didn't know this little fact, but they sell more NFL merchandise out of this store than anywhere else in the country.
We left for my brother's place (Ken) in Naperville Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. We had to get up at 5 am on Saturday in order to drive to South Bend Indiana, so we could get good parking and to film the campus and the tailgating. When we arrived at 8 am people were already eating hamburgers and drinking beer (yuk), each to their own. The Notre Dame campus is beautiful in the fall, imagine saying fall in late November. We picked up our media credentials (around 10 am) at the stadium and went directly onto the field to look around.
The stadium looks like a coliseum and it too is a grass field. We filmed all the places significant in the "Rudy" movie including the beautiful locker room. The locker room is beyond impressive, it's perfect. When the game was about to begin, Chris positioned himself on the field just beyond the tunnel where the teams come out. The 400 member (I'm guessing on the numbers) marching band ran on both sides of him, it looked like the parting of the Red Sea. He then went up the tunnel to catch the Notre Dame Fighting Irish players congregating before they ran onto the field. We were on the sidelines for the entire game and interviewed an usher, Bud Seely, who has ushered at the Notre Dame games for 35 years.
We left Notre Dame and as we headed back to Illinois wondered aloud how our beloved Huskies were doing. Chris's dad text messaged us updates and things didn't look good for almost the entire game. My wife Mish phoned me when I thought the game was over, and I thought she was going to tell me they lost a heart breaker, instead she informed us that the Huskies had won! What a diamond day.
Sunday we went back to Lambeau Field and interviewed tailgaters and filmed the hype and pageantry surrounding the "game". We sat at Brett Favre's Steakhouse and watched the game (in the warmth) and headed back to Milwaukee to catch our plane.
Today we filmed the workers putting up extra seating for the Vanier Cup and filmed the team goofing around on the field. They were like little kids, laughing and giggling, playing hackey sack with the football, throwing the ball around and just soaking up the beautiful late afternoon weather. We had short interviews with Scott McHenry, Tyler Duek and Dan Houle. We ended our session with a shot of the sunset, the sky was a beautiful pink.
This is going to be a week to remember. Good job Hugh! A big thanks to my big brother Ken for putting us up for two nights and for driving us to South Bend. I also must thank my good buddy John Zubowicz for connecting me with Rob Vanstone, which eventually led us to Lambeau Field and on to Notre Dame. An even bigger thank you to Rob Crane and John Heisler for helping make our dreams come true. Go Huskies!!
Sincerely,
Tom Simes
Five Stones Films