Although we started with a story outline I'd written, two actor-related things changed the story along the way. I might learn something personal and use it. For example, Rick playing the director actually had taken a recent motorcycle trip over old Rt 66, start to finish, taking photos along the way. In 1959 I had taken a long hitch-hiking trip across the country, keeping a journal, and I combined these in the story, using my trip as his high school Rt 66 trip and having him read a passage from my actual journal, and then having him repeat the high school trip as an adult on his motorcycle, which I use, including some of his actual photos.
Martha, playing a professor and critic, says about the director's "blank walls" art exhibit, "I wish I'd thought of that," which I use as a turning point toward a better appreciation of my brother.
Claire, playing a former student, tells me I changed her life by telling her, "You can filter what's inside you." This becomes a theme carried all the way to the end of the film as my character obsesses about its meaning and turns the advice inward.
Without these three moments -- and there are others -- the film story would have been far different than it turned out to be. This is collaboration at its best: there's still only one cook in the kitchen, which avoids chaos, but others make real and story-changing contributions. (In the interest of telling the complete story, there also were a few moments when an actor added something that didn't make sense and which I missed in shooting, requiring me to edit around it.)
What a great experience this was. Just the right feel for "a swan song," as I move from narrative to art song and music.
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