(Continued from Page 1) Atchison isn?t precious with his words. The writer/director allowed his cast the freedom to suggest changes in wording during the rehearsal process. ?I think it makes it easier because I am the writer and if something is not flowing, it?s very easy to just change it,? said Atchison. ?We go through a rehearsal process and if something?s not clicking, we discuss it with the actors.
If I need to modify it, I do. I have no ego about this. I want it to be the best film possible. You surround yourself with talented people who?ve got good instincts. Somebody has an idea that?s better than mine, I?ll use it. I want the movie to be good.?
Working with the Scripps National Spelling Bee: ?Initially they were very suspicious of us as I think they are with most people coming to them saying they want to do a project. They?re protective of their Bee and rightfully so. I think they get a lot of people approaching them.
They were not involved at all when I was writing it. I watched the Bee on TV, I looked at their website, I looked at some of their study materials, and then used my imagination. In 2004, a year before we shot the film, I went to the National Spelling Bee with one of our producers, Danny Llewelyn, and the cameraman, Chris Mosio. We asked the Bee at that point if we could come film the Bee on high def digital for the possible inclusion of small pieces of it in a movie.
They said we could come film it, but they hadn?t given us permission yet to use it. So we went there, we filmed it. I got to see the Bee in person which had a tremendous impact on me. We got to meet spelling bee kids. We ended up casting one of them in our movie, a kid by the name of George Hornedo. And the Spelling Bee people got to see us and realize that we weren?t creeps.
The head of the Bee read [the script] and she liked it. She did have some notes, and they were mostly technical notes about procedure. I have dramatized the Bees throughout in a way that works for the narrative that I?m telling but is not exactly real (laughing). But their concerns were basically the things you wouldn?t even notice. For example, kids are generally sponsored by newspapers. They are sponsored by newspapers to go to the National Bee and I removed that because it just got in the way in terms of trademarks and all that kind of stuff. I just got rid of that; it didn?t help my story. They had a couple issues with the screenplay, a few of which I changed because I thought it didn?t matter one way or another so I just made them happy. They were little things. They became incredibly, incredibly cooperative and supportive partners at that point.?
The Little Quirks of Spelling Bee Contestants: After watching kids participate in spelling bees, Atchison got the idea to insert little visual tricks some of the kids used in real life into his fictional story. ?I saw that a lot of these kids have these peculiar things that they would do. There was a girl one year that I saw that would kick her back heels up as she spelled. I saw a kid who would make semi-circles in one place as he spelled. A lot of the kids pretend to write the word on the back of their placards so they can visualize it. I felt that I needed to give Akeelah a signature spelling device and I also, because what I?m essentially doing here ? this is a sports movie. I tried to make it like a sports movie, to have the same feel and rhythm and drive as a sports movie, so giving her a physical activity like [skipping rope] contributed to my plan.?
Managing a Tight Shooting Schedule: Atchison had a very limited budget and only 31 days in which to film Akeelah and the Bee. ?It was really, really tight. It was crazy. You do what you have to do. The biggest challenge was shooting with children under a tight schedule because they could only be in front of the camera for five hours. Keke [Palmer] is in every scene of the movie but one. She?s on the set for 10 hours, three of them are in school, one of them is recreation, and one of them is lunch. That gives us five hours with which to work with her, so we had to be amazingly prepared.
I storyboarded the whole film. We created a shot list from the storyboard. The director of photography David Mullen, the production designer Warren Young, actually the editor Glenn Farr ? we were all involved in the planning of the film with the ADs and the production staff. Every day we would go in with an elaborate shot list and the order in which it was to be shot. We knew where we had to be at each point of the day to stay on schedule. Because at the end of the day it didn?t matter where we were, if Keke?s time was up the social worker whisked her off the set. And Keke, being the pro that she is, there were plenty of times where we had one shot at one take of a close-up of hers and she would always deliver.?
If I need to modify it, I do. I have no ego about this. I want it to be the best film possible. You surround yourself with talented people who?ve got good instincts. Somebody has an idea that?s better than mine, I?ll use it. I want the movie to be good.?
Working with the Scripps National Spelling Bee: ?Initially they were very suspicious of us as I think they are with most people coming to them saying they want to do a project. They?re protective of their Bee and rightfully so. I think they get a lot of people approaching them.
They were not involved at all when I was writing it. I watched the Bee on TV, I looked at their website, I looked at some of their study materials, and then used my imagination. In 2004, a year before we shot the film, I went to the National Spelling Bee with one of our producers, Danny Llewelyn, and the cameraman, Chris Mosio. We asked the Bee at that point if we could come film the Bee on high def digital for the possible inclusion of small pieces of it in a movie.
They said we could come film it, but they hadn?t given us permission yet to use it. So we went there, we filmed it. I got to see the Bee in person which had a tremendous impact on me. We got to meet spelling bee kids. We ended up casting one of them in our movie, a kid by the name of George Hornedo. And the Spelling Bee people got to see us and realize that we weren?t creeps.
The head of the Bee read [the script] and she liked it. She did have some notes, and they were mostly technical notes about procedure. I have dramatized the Bees throughout in a way that works for the narrative that I?m telling but is not exactly real (laughing). But their concerns were basically the things you wouldn?t even notice. For example, kids are generally sponsored by newspapers. They are sponsored by newspapers to go to the National Bee and I removed that because it just got in the way in terms of trademarks and all that kind of stuff. I just got rid of that; it didn?t help my story. They had a couple issues with the screenplay, a few of which I changed because I thought it didn?t matter one way or another so I just made them happy. They were little things. They became incredibly, incredibly cooperative and supportive partners at that point.?
The Little Quirks of Spelling Bee Contestants: After watching kids participate in spelling bees, Atchison got the idea to insert little visual tricks some of the kids used in real life into his fictional story. ?I saw that a lot of these kids have these peculiar things that they would do. There was a girl one year that I saw that would kick her back heels up as she spelled. I saw a kid who would make semi-circles in one place as he spelled. A lot of the kids pretend to write the word on the back of their placards so they can visualize it. I felt that I needed to give Akeelah a signature spelling device and I also, because what I?m essentially doing here ? this is a sports movie. I tried to make it like a sports movie, to have the same feel and rhythm and drive as a sports movie, so giving her a physical activity like [skipping rope] contributed to my plan.?
Managing a Tight Shooting Schedule: Atchison had a very limited budget and only 31 days in which to film Akeelah and the Bee. ?It was really, really tight. It was crazy. You do what you have to do. The biggest challenge was shooting with children under a tight schedule because they could only be in front of the camera for five hours. Keke [Palmer] is in every scene of the movie but one. She?s on the set for 10 hours, three of them are in school, one of them is recreation, and one of them is lunch. That gives us five hours with which to work with her, so we had to be amazingly prepared.
I storyboarded the whole film. We created a shot list from the storyboard. The director of photography David Mullen, the production designer Warren Young, actually the editor Glenn Farr ? we were all involved in the planning of the film with the ADs and the production staff. Every day we would go in with an elaborate shot list and the order in which it was to be shot. We knew where we had to be at each point of the day to stay on schedule. Because at the end of the day it didn?t matter where we were, if Keke?s time was up the social worker whisked her off the set. And Keke, being the pro that she is, there were plenty of times where we had one shot at one take of a close-up of hers and she would always deliver.?
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