Director's Cut

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There's no reason that she should be here, except by the grace of God. No reason. She was born in 1979. She was born with a condition called VATER syndrome. It stands for her problems that affect the vaginal-anal area, the trachea-esophageal area, and then renal. And she had surgery when she was 12 hours old. Hi, welcome to "Director's Cut." I'm Pete Schwaba and that was a clip from "The Bear and the Owl," a documentary about a young girl battling illness and how random acts of kindness from a stranger helped her through her most trying times. I'm joined today by the film's executive producer, Jan Jensen, and the director, Mark Davis. Welcome to Director's Cut, you guys. Thanks for having us. Yeah, great to have you here. So, okay the stranger performing these random acts is not strange to you, Jan, tell us who that is. Yeah, so Bob in the film is my dad, Bob Jensen, and he was an art teacher turned school superintendent, and he loved to do art in his spare time. And show us what these random acts of kindness were, tell us what he did for this, for Joni. Yeah, so a lot of what he would do is hear about sick kids in the hospital or old people in nursing homes and send them cards, hand-drawn cards, usually oversized. Handwriting, everything. Wow. So Joni was one in particular who was very sick ongoing for kind of her whole life, but specifically about two and a half, three years back in the 80s. And my dad heard about her in the local newspaper and decided to send her cards, one every day for two and a half years. That is absolutely crazy, to a total stranger. And look at the detail to that, I mean that's, how long does one card take to make? Probably varies. Well, he was pretty talented. I mean yeah, depending on the card. But they'd have things on the inside as well as the outside. I would say probably a half hour to an hour, each card. -

Pete

Wow. And that was just his way to relax. He'd come home at night and make a card for Joni, birthday cards for friends, anniversary cards. He was always drawing. We all were, but he was always spearheading it. Yeah, that is pretty cool, and then he heard from a newspaper article, right, about Joni, and that's how they got connected. Yep, there was an article, really small article in the Beloit Daily News, and my dad's like, "Oh, I'll send her a card." She was out in the Boston's Children's Hospital, far away from home for an extended period of time, and so-- So he makes these elaborate cards, and then still read the paper thoroughly, if the clip was that big.

chuckles

That's pretty impressive, so, let's take another Look at a clip from The Bear and the Owl. My name is Joni, and I live in Beloit. 36 years. I have one sister, one brother, and two step-brothers. I was born with something called VATER syndrome, and it's an acronym for...

Pfffttt

I have one kidney. I've had problems with my bowel and my bladder. My esophagus was connected to my lungs when I was born. And I have scoliosis. I've had 41 surgeries, mainly to correct bowel and bladder problems, and I have a ureterostomy. Um... Hmm... I think that's about it.

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Joining us now is one of the actors from the film playing the role of Joni's mother, Debbie Fischer. Debbie, welcome to "Director's Cut." Thank you. Yeah, great to have you here. First of all, tip of my hat to your struggles and what you've gone through with Joni's struggles. That's hard on a parent too. But is it even harder having a movie made about it? Did you ever regret signing on to this project? I never regretted it. I've been to every single filming that they've had, except in Omaha, but it has brought back a lot of memories. It's been really good to watch, but it's also been a struggle to watch. Has it, how so? How has it been a struggle? I it just hard to relive that? Yeah, and Joni's medical conditions haven't went away. We still have serious surgeries ahead of us. Surgery, I hope, but could be surgeries. It just reminds me where we're at. How far you've come too, I mean, it's pretty-- Did you know when she was born and had all these difficulties, did you think she'd have this full of life? No. - She has a child now. Yeah. We were told several times that we were losing her and that we should prepare, and never imagined that she'd still be here. -

Pete

That's great. It's by the grace of God, definitely. Did you ever regret being part of this project, having this documentary done? Was there ever a time when you said, "Oh, I just don't want "to talk right now," or, "We don't need these "people in our house, delightful as they are," you know? Absolutely not even a moment. This man had such an impact on our life that this is a small way that we can give back and share his story. Well that's a great answer. And how did she do, you guys, how did Debbie do with her family? Extremely well. They made the film, so. I mean, a documentary is really only as good as the story and then also the people that are in it, willing and able to tell their stories. Sure. Okay, so, you have all these amazing greeting cards. He does it for two and a half years. Did you ever feel like, "Should we be doing something?" I mean, did you almost feel like, it's gotta be kind of awkward to have this kindness just pour in and you don't know, did you not know what to do, or? Well a couple answers to that. It was awkward at first, but then he became part of our family. I can't even imagine that he wouldn't be there for birthdays, and he was there at Christmas and her wedding. He just became a part of it. What was, I'm sorry.

That was definitely an important part

that he was there. And two and a half years isn't all he did, that was the constant days, but he kept writing until she was an adult. I mean, off and on, special occasions, things like that. I would imagine you don't just quit cold turkey. Say, "Sorry kid, I'm done."

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That was definitely an important part

He never stopped, it was wonderful. So how often was he actually physically in your lives? When you say he was there for birthday and weddings, he was physically there, like Bob went to the wedding? Oh yeah, yeah, and he wasn't just at Joni's birthday parties, he would show up at Steve and Angie's too, and he would bear gifts. I mean, he really became an important member of our family. Were your other kids kinda like, "Hey, how about "some love, throw in some love this way." You know, this was really hard for them, because I was gone all the time. Joni really was lavished with attention and with gifts. But shortly after Bob met my whole family, he started including them. And that's what was so unique and beautiful about him is, he'd seen our whole family. It wasn't just Joni, it was all of us. Right. So it was kinda like you guys became one family in a way, I would imagine. I remember them coming to our house too to visit and we'd go over there, me and my brothers as well. That's great. Well Debbie, we appreciate you taking time to be with us today, thank you so much for being here. Thank you. Let's take another look at a clip from The Bear and the Owl. For most of his life, he didn't have a father. I mean, he had a lot of vivid memories of his father, but most of his life was growing up without a father. So he wanted to make sure that, you know, we had the childhood that he never had.

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That was definitely an important part

I'm Jeff Jensen, Clinton, Wisconsin. It's a nice little small town. I mean, we thought it was boring as kids growing up in it, The things we used to get excited for, I mean. When we got our first air popcorn popper. I mean, that was like the coolest thing in the world. We only had three channels growing up as kids, you know, but it was a different time back then. I mean, you got excited over smaller things. We did a lot of stuff as a family. The family was pretty important to my parents when we were growing up. And we always took vacations, which, you know, they weren't always big extravagant vacations. Sometimes it was just we get in the car and we'd say, "Okay, where we gonna go?" The Winnebago was awesome. We were really lucky that our uncle had a Winnebago. When we'd pull into a campsite, there was a little bit of setup because they had to hook up like the water lines and the sewer lines. And he wanted us out of the way so he could get it set up and then we could start doing things. Mom was making dinner or whatever was happening inside, and Dad needed to keep us busy. And so when we got to the campground, he said this is an old Indian burial ground. And he said, "I think, if you guys look closely, you'll probably see some, probably find some artifacts." So we're digging in the dirt and digging in the dirt, and what we didn't know is that we were picking up arrowheads that he had bought at probably the previous KOA of wherever we stopped before then. We were busy for hours. And eventually Jeff saw one that said Mexico on it.

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That was definitely an important part

The gig was up that time. We knew they were not official artifacts at that point. Interesting ways to keep us busy. Okay so, Mark, Mr. Director, this is Director's Cut, we haven't really spoken to the director yet, so. This question's for you. A lot of people think their dad is great. Did you have to be talked into this at all, it's Jan's father. Was it an awkward conversation like, "Oh, she wants to "make a movie about her dad. I mean, yeah, he's a great guy, but," talk about that process, what was that like? I had heard about this story and it wasn't until he had passed on and sort of, when Jan reconnected with Joni, and she said, "Well I have all the cards, "and your dad was a very special person," and so on the car ride over, Jan was talking about this, and she said, "Do you wanna see the cards?" And I said, "Well, absolutely." So when we went over and we saw the cards, that was sort of the light bulb that went off that said, this isn't just another story. This is a really special story, and something that we really should tell. So you were on board right away, you didn't really-- Not too much arm twisting, really, yeah. Then when you around when all, this happened years ago. What was your involvement in any of this other than filmmaking, was there any? There was none. I mean I had not heard this story until, like I said, we went over to see the cards. I'd known nothing about it. I knew Bob, you know, he made me cards. I have cards from Bob. He would send me a card on my birthday, and Jan would say, "Yeah, this is what he does, he sends you a card "and you'll get one at Christmas and for whatever special occasion there might be," and they were really cool, and the fact that he took that much time to send me a card with a little origami character on it, it was really special. He never did squat for me, I just wanna say.

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That was definitely an important part

If I could interject that. So you guys are a team, executive producing, directing, what's that like? Talk about that, you guys work well together? Yeah, we work really well together and it's a way for us to sort of remain in contact throughout these projects and I trust Jan, she trusts me, so it's really a great combination in that way. If I do something stupid, she has no qualms about telling me about that.

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That was definitely an important part

How often does that happen? A fair amount, yeah. - Rarely. No, it happens once in awhile. So you're making this film. It's about your father. Did you ever feel like, "Well I have final say here, "this is my dad," or how does that work? You're almost sounding like you saw eye to eye on everything, which I find hard to believe, frankly. Pretty much. I mean, there's no one else I would trust with my dad's story, and that's, I think why our relationship, our marriage, but also our working relationship works so well is that we just have complete trust with one another. I knew it was gonna be sorta hard for her to let certain things go or to maybe not tell that story even though we had it and things like that, and because I was editing everything, we had sort of an agreement of like, let me go through and make a rough cut, like I'll show you as we go along, but let me just kind of tell the story and I'd get input from Jan, but I knew that it was gonna be difficult for her to be objective about it, so I had to sort of assume a lot of that role, but it worked out really well and I was really happy when she liked it.

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That was definitely an important part

For sure. And he was very good about, if I said, "I really like this part of our child," he's like, "Yeah, but that's a different film. "This is The Bear and the Owl." You know, and I'd be like, "Yeah." That's what I guess I was asking, did you have to have those conversations as producer and director, like, "Hey, you know." Pretty easily though. Once we figured out what the story was about, which it was not only about this act, but it was also about the relationship between Bob and Joni so anything that sort of supported that went into the film and anything that sort of diverted our attention away from that we had to remove. So that was sort of, once we established those parameters, it was pretty easy to decide, you know, "You're right, that doesn't belong," or, "This we definitely need to expound on this story, so." Let's see another clip from The Bear and the Owl. It wasn't a typical card that you'd normally see in the mail with just a typical address on it. It would have like a bird on it or a bear or something, or the bear would be made out of like a thumbprint. And then all of a sudden after the first one, second one, I thought, "Wow, what's going on here?" You know? And then I found out that she was really sick and stuff, and then the cards just kept coming and coming and stuff, so it was a highlight of my day kind of to see the cards.

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That was definitely an important part

Yeah, like here, this one would be like a postcard, really, because this was it with the addresses on there and everything, and he'd send this. And he personalized every single card that he made. Every one. And hand wrote everything. These are awesome. And like this one here, here's the envelope. I mean, you don't see these every day, so that's why you remembered 'em. Put the stamps on it, the address, return label on the tail. And he made all of his own envelopes.

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That was definitely an important part

Just thought I'd hang around long enough to wish you well today. That's cute. She used to get a lot of visitors just to come and see this kind of stuff. Just imagine how much work went into these. The bear trying to figure out how he's gonna get the honey. And then the inside, he's climbed up the tree. Cute.

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That was definitely an important part

It's almost like he was doing it for the mail person. That's so great, okay, so, talk about, and I didn't realize this before, he made the envelopes the cards went into. Show us a couple of the envelopes. That's incredible. Yeah, he physically made the envelopes because a lot of the cards were random sizes or whatever he chose to make at the time. And then he would actually illustrate the outside of the envelopes and personalize them to Joni, and so, I think that's another big part of this, is the personalization of all of this. The conversations that happened that the cards were written specifically to Joni, and I think as a kid, that's pretty special because you don't find that at Hallmark when you're wandering through the card section. Right, and it's nice, like, a random act of kindness is one thing, you pay the person behind you his toll, and that's great, but it's like, "Here's 50 cents." This is time consuming, this is like, and I love how it spurred other random acts of kindness, like the mail carrier, you guys were saying took great care of these cards so they wouldn't get wet. So she's in on it. And then, it's like a snowball effect. Well because of the size of the cards too, these all had to go hand canceled, and so they wouldn't go through the machine, and so she told us that when she would get to work every morning, she'd have her bag of mail and Joni's card would be laying on top of it and the people who had been distributing through the evening would be like, "Oh Linda, did you see Joni's card this morning? "There's like a little giraffe on it," or whatever, and so, people at the post office as well as Linda the letter carrier, as well as Joni's family. You know they were like magnets. And I think everyone from the mail carrier to the people at the hospital even, the people would come by Joni's room just to see the cards, so again, there was more attention. - So more people. Yeah, more people to come by and wish her well. I noticed on one of those envelopes, was that four stamps? What we looking at there, a couple bucks, or? Yeah. I mean, each-- Did he bill Joni for the postage?

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That was definitely an important part

She did not, but-- Here's the chink in the armor. Back to, asking Debbie earlier how did she try and give back? She gave him stamps a lot. As well as other people in the community would hear about this and know that he sent cards and would make sure to give him some stamps. So, there's a part in the film where your dad, they mention he grew up pretty much without a father. How did that play a part in Bob's development as a human being, do you know? Yeah, I think, he had an older brother, and he was a twin, he had a younger brother. But my dad and his personality kind of, he rose as the patriarch of the family, and he was always taking care of everyone else, and I think, like my brother said in the film, he tried to give us the childhood that he never had, and he was always there for us, attentive, super creative, even when he was making cards for Joni, we were either in his art studio in the basement or sitting around the kitchen table all doing cards and art together, so it was a family event. So you grew up, you're in a creative field. Are your brothers, what do they do? Did they follow that path too? They do it more as hobbies now. They both have-- four boys and two boys, so they're busy being dads as well, but they've continued to do a lot of creativity with their sons as well. It's funny 'cuz I was watching the film, and I saw, even the way your dad dressed, he seems like this kind of gentle soul. He's a real life Mr. Rogers or the inspiration for Mr. Rogers, isn't he? Yeah. I mean, we grew up glued to PBS and watching Mr. Rogers Neighborhood. But, yeah, if I had to, if anyone said, "What's your dad like?" I'd be like, "Fred Rogers."

chuckles

That was definitely an important part

That's just his personality, really genuine, and because he was a teacher, he was always wanting to help kids and engage kids creatively. So I think by keeping us busy and creative kept us out of trouble. Probably made his life a little easier too, if you guys are busy as kids. So let's take another clip from The Bear and the Owl. There were a lot of cards with owls on them, 'cuz my dad loved owls and Joni loved bears. So then that became a theme throughout, take different bears form different areas that he'd see in different art work and apply them to the cards. Like this one, it says, "Hi Joni, did you know "that the owls are the wisest animals in the world? "We're a lot smarter than bears."

chuckles

That was definitely an important part

And then it says, "Don't believe him, Joni. "If owls are so smart, then how come they live in trees "and eat mice? "Does that seem very smart to you, Joni?"

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That was definitely an important part

And a lot of them are like that.

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That was definitely an important part

I don't know how that actually started with the owls, but he had like an obsession when we were younger with owls. He loved owls.

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That was definitely an important part

He had made little shadow boxes with owls in them, and owls hanging from everywhere and owls on his desk. Jeff's got a nice picture of the one that all of us remember, it had six different owls on it and when we were little kids we'd always say, "This one's Dad, this one's Mom, this one's Jeff, "J.J. and then this one right here's Pokey, "which was our dog at the time growing up." A bicentennial beagle. Yeah that was basically our prized possession was that, that hung above the piano and above the couch. That was something that was like a staple of our childhood was the owl painting. But he did them for everybody, I mean if somebody had a baby or somebody had anything going on, like they had a wedding or things like that, he would make an owl painting for. So yeah, it's amazing how many people have saved all of that stuff. Okay, so you have one shot in the film. I think it's towards the end of Joni sitting with all the cards. Talk about getting that shot as a filmmaker and what went into that. Well the inspiration behind it was, as we were trying to think in our heads, well how do we sort of tell this story and how can you get a sense of what that many cards really physically looks like and what is it like? And so we had the idea of laying the cards out in a gymnasium so we could get them all out, and what would it look like? And then we put Joni in the middle so that we could sort of let the viewer in on the magnitude of what that effort sort of produced. It's a great shot. - It was really powerful. You didn't ever sit there for hours while you just set up all of these cards? No.

chuckles

That was definitely an important part

She didn't trample the cards either. Made her take off her shoes and gingerly walk through the cards to get to the middle. So Jan, was there a hesitancy at all in telling this story? You're going back, this must have been kind of an emotional ride for you. Was it at all daunting? No hesitation, but I certainly cried in every single interview. As did Mark, probably, actually. It was very emotional. As we're talking about my dad, because you know, we shot this maybe a year after he had passed away, so it was still pretty fresh at that point. But no hesitation, I just wanted to share this story and his art work with as wide of an audience as we could. Because it's just, it's such a wonderful story, and just to be able to inspire people that a little gesture can make a big difference for someone else. Sure can, and like we said before, it can spur others. So let me ask this to both you guys. Everybody, any filmmaker, when kind of the end of a run has closed with festival circuits or distribution or whatever you are lucky enough to have, do you sense this coming to a close, and is that kind of an emotional journey for you guys, or are you not ready to be done with it, or do you not want it to end or are you kinda like ready to move on? Well you know, it's a little bittersweet, you know, because we've had so much fun showing the film to different people and a lot of family members and people that really responded well to it, so yeah, there's a little bit of like, "Wow, that's sort of sad that it's ending." I mean there's still a few festivals that we don't know about yet so it may continue. But we have another project right behind this one, and that will be exciting to get out and to produce and that one's called Chasing the Taper, about some bamboo fly rod makers. So that'll be hopefully done in the summer. So that was kind of my next question. Do you move onto something that's totally impersonal or just that you're not so personally connected? It's a little bit of conceptual whiplash, you know, in some of our storied but it's sort of the way that we find them. And just stories that we think are pretty amazing. So yeah, it will be quite, I think a different film, but will still be an emotional film. But this one will be mostly based around obsession and perfection and the things that go into these guys when they're making a bamboo fly rod. Well I wish you luck. This is great, it's a great homage to a great guy, and you're lucky to have known him and thank you for sharing him with us too. Yeah, thank you. - Thank you. Thank you so much for having us. Yeah, you bet. Hey and thank you for watching Director's Cut. For more information on The Bear and the Owl, please go to WPT.org and click on Director's Cut. While you're there, send us an e-mail or find out how to submit a film or send us a card. And also don't forget to "like" WPT on Facebook or follow us on Twitter. I'm Pete Schwaba, and I now realize, I need to be a much better person. We all do. We'll see you next time on Director's Cut. And you know, people give, and they give from the heart, but there's very few people that continue to give and give and give. He is really very rare. Yeah. I would say a rare jewel, honestly. I suppose there's special people that are meant to, you know, make a difference and have the talent and the drive to do it. And, yeah, these are the people that kind of shape and influence other people's lives.