For the tagline of my blog being called, “The Life Of A Quadriplegic Filmmaker…,” over these past years, I really have not written too many posts on the subject of “filmmaking.” I mean from my count I would put the number of posts that deal with that topic at a total of six (6). Looking at it from my perspective I guess you could say there really are two (2) main reasons for it being that way: 1, I was never able to get a job in the industry post college, and 2, I really do not want to pursue that career anymore as my interests have changed.
That being said, ironically, this blog post is going to fall in that category of me being a “quadriplegic filmmaker.” It has taken me four years, but I a little over seven months ago I completed my first feature film with a group of friends I graduated college with. The film is a feature documentary on WWII bearing the name Angels Of The Sky.
Creating the documentary Angels Of The Sky was not a film I ever thought I was going to make…it just happened. The summer of 2011, was coming to a conclusion, therefore, before I was going to start on a new adventure by attending Chapman University’s Masters in Business Administration (MBA) program, I wanted to have one last hurrah. The hurrah I chose may sound boring to some of you, but it was a living history museum on WWII. That museum was the Lyon Air Museum attached to John Wayne Airport in Santa Ana, California.
Upon entering the Lyon Air Museum and looking at the exhibits one by one, a docent came up to me and began talking about the B-17, I was standing in front of. At the time little did I know that all the docents were veterans from WWII. This docent was Edward Stapleton, a pilot, who flew P-38s and B-17s. As Mr. Stapleton began talking and explaining all the ins and outs of the airplane, he began to tell his life story of what caused him to join the service and how he became a POW in German territory during WWII. Well, 45 minutes later, his story was over…and my response was, “That needs to be a movie.”
Since I decided to pursue telling Mr. Stapleton’s life story, I wanted to get it on film as soon as possible. I setup a day and time, to meet Mr. Stapleton at the Lyon Air Museum, but unfortunately, he did not show up due to a medical emergency. Therefore, in order to try and make something out of nothing, the staff of the museum told me I should look into interviewing a couple of other docents that were there.
To make a long story short, there were multiple WWII veterans who all had amazing stories of how they had become POWs in German territory. Therefore, with the museum’s help, I began contacting each docent one after another uncovering priceless stories of WWII veterans.
With our film Angels Of The Sky finished, I began sending it to film festivals around the world in hopes of getting it a little exposure. Well, after getting rejection, after rejection, after rejection, after rejection (which comes in the territory of Hollywood), we finally got accepted into the Orlando Film Festival. The Orlando Film Festival officially, openings today, and runs for five (5) days closing Sunday night. Our film is scheduled to be shown at the festival on Sunday, at 1:40 PM EST, making it our world premiere, so if you might be in the area, please stop by to check it out.
Overall, making this film has been a tremendous learning experience, and I am thrilled that this film presented itself to me as I was fortunate to capture priceless stories of people’s motivation, empowerment and the will of the human spirit. Today, 750 veterans from the WWII era die every day. If we do not take the time to try and uncover them, they will be lost forever…
Below is the trailer of the film and links to our social media pages.
Trent McGee 