Park City Research Trip

I kind of loved this trip that we spent at Park City over the past few days.

We packed fourteen filmies into two minivans and trekked up to Midway to check in at our hotel on Thursday.  We reached it at about 8:00pm--the Zermatt, a four-star shindig.  We got dinner that night and spent the rest of the evening chilling at the hotel.

Friday was our busiest day.  We got up at about 8:30am to take a tour of the major movie studios being built outside Park City.  It was an absolute fortress.  And we had to wear safety vests and hard hats because it was still under construction.  But we got to meet some incredible people so that was a fun experience.

After that, we spent most of the day at Dee Street's place, collecting various goods for the documentary.  It's amazing how much trust she placed in us.  She let us handle things like Picabo's ski uniforms, her medals, and even an Olympic torch.  Being on the writing team, I got to sit and chat with her a couple of times and she just told me stories from Picabo's childhood.  I wrote all of them down in my book so I could use them for the treatment.

We spent the rest of the evening seeing Park City, which I had never done before, and I loved it.  The lights, the shops, the people... it was so compact and crowded and exciting.  Most of us spent our time trying to find a place to eat that wasn't already super packed, but we managed.  Then it was back to the Zermatt so we could be up by 8:30 the next morning.

Saturday morning we went back to Dee's place so we could finalize our research.  That only took a couple of hours, then we came home!  Phil said that it was one of the most productive research trips he's had in his whole career of film.  So I guess we got some good work done!  And it doesn't hurt that we all had a blast in the process.