How old were you when you first saw it?
I had just finished four years in the US Air Force's movie department and moved back to my hometown of San Francisco. I finished my first feature film The Tournament (Now on the Ninja Busters Blu-ray) that I couldn't sell and needed any kind of freelance film work to keep me in the business.
After two months of only 'day jobs' to keep me going, I got a call from my San Francisco State University Film Department roommate, Mark Krigbaum, who was working for a documentary company in the city. His company got the assignment to make a one-minute 16mm film for Sesame Street and needed an outside director. I was glad that I maintained contact with them.
I choose another film-maker friend, Roy Cox, for my cameraman. Roy had a contact for the little boy we needed to act in the film as well as the house for the one-day shoot, so we were set to go with me directing, Roy shooting camera and Mark editing.
Another day of filming was at a pier where we shot various tugboats cruising the bay. We lucked out geting a shot of a tugboat pushing a large ship. We didn't get permission, but just took a chance to film what we could and got what we needed in a few hours.
One of the tugboats was docked and we asked the captain if we could come aboard and film the wheel being turned. It turned out that the captain went to my highschool a few years before me. And I was in his sister's class and remembered her. It's a small world afterall.
The final film was finished by Mark's company and then sent to Sesame Street where it has played constantly on their show. I saw it a few times in the US twice in Japan.
Now people say to me: "You directed that? It was my favorite Sesame Street film when I was a child."
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Reminds me of my poem, Mesa Verde, being selected by the Educational Testing Service to confuse and confound SAT takers in their workbook. Probably have countless former high school students angry with me for the words in my poem. ;-)
Ron