Posted on 09/04/2008 12:23:22 PM PDT by Alouette
Los Angeles-based director Elan Frank met Alaska's governor, Republican vice-presidential hopeful several months ago while filming documentary about extraordinary women, and was hooked
"Sarah Palin is a very special woman. She has a tranquility about her, no matter what the situation is," this is how Elan Frank, a California-based Israeli filmmaker, chooses to describe the Republican Party's newly chosen vice-presidential hopeful.
Frank shadowed Palin, who is the presiding governor of Alaska, for three days some three months ago, as part of a documentary he made about extraordinary women around the world.
Frank, 52, has been living in Los Angeles for the past 12 years. He first visited Alaska in 1983, when he was given a year's leave from the Israeli Air Force, where he served as a fighter pilot.
"I made it a point to come back to Alaska every three years or so, since. It's a very hard country. The real final frontier. They have seven men for every woman, so I thought about making a film about women in Alaska. I did some research, and then I thought 'well, why focus only on Alaska? Why not focus on women worldwide and make a film about women empowerment?'"
Frank sent film crews to Nepal and the Negev, to follow two extraordinary women, and decided to follow three Alaskan women himself a teacher, a pilot and the new governor.
"I wasn't planning on focusing on famous characters, but Palin's story is so unique I decided to include her. She is the first woman of Alaska, which isnt something to be treated lightly; not to mention a former beauty queen, basketball player, fisherwoman and hunter and a mother of four (Frank's film followed Palin before she has her fifth child). I saw something amazing there," he said.
Everyday intimacies
He contacted Palin four months ago, and according to him she found his idea riveting. He was in the midst of planning his trip to Alaska when he got a phone call from Palin, who was in LA and wanted to meet him.
"I met her in my Hollywood office and we talked for over an hour we instantaneously clicked and we had a blast. The funny thing is," he added, "that a few days later I got an email from a friend in Alaska telling me she was seven months pregnant. I didnt notice a thing until later, when we were filming.
"I guess she's one of those women you can't really when they're pregnant, and she was probably dressing to hide it a little. You wouldn't know to look for it."
About a month after the meeting in Los Angeles, Frank and his video camera showed up on Palin's doorstep. "I went by myself because I wanted to have the chance to create real intimacy," he said. he ended up following Palin around for three days, filming nearly five hours of raw footage.
"I would get up in the morning, drive to her office and just follow her around all day. The amazing thing was that she never asked me to stop filming. I was there for everything the phone calls and the meetings and she would answer any question I had, she was very cooperative."
Frank also recorded Palin at home. "I have her with her family, making sandwiches for her daughter after school, watching television. I spoke to her husband and asked him about how it feels to be married to such a dominant woman. I have the two of them talking about private matters. I was able to catch very intimate moments on film. She even played the flute for me."
Palin is charming, he continued. "She struck me as an honest, direct person. She's under a lot of pressure but she always has time for everyone."
Farsighted
When asked about Palin's past support of Pat Buchanan, whose anti-Israeli views are common knowledge, Frank said that Palin's support of Buchanan stemmed from his positions in other issues, and that she did not agree with his views of Israel.
"She had an Israeli flag, of all the things, mounted on her office wall, and I have that on film" he said. "I was very surprised to see that and when I asked her about it, she said that she loves Israel and the she had friends who visited the country and brought her the flag."
Palin, according to Frank, has clear political aspiration, but he did not dwell on them on the movie. "I didnt ask about politics because I didnt want to stir away from my (movie) plan, but she definitely struck me as someone who wants to move ahead. She's the over-achiever type."
The announcement that Republican presidential hopeful John McCain chose the little-known Alaska governor for his running mate came as a surprise to Frank. "I knew she was shortlisted but her name wasnt the one that came popping up. all of a sudden, I turn on the TV and see her photo. I was elated, it's like my best friend was picked for the job."
Frank is now looking into the possibility of filing a second documentary, shadowing Palin until election day. in light of the nomination, he added, he has also been approached by various media groups, which are interested in the footage he already has.
"I have a lot of authentic footage that shows who she really is. You can tell a lot about her from that. She really is one of us."
Ping!!!
I imagine that won't be the last surprise from her.
Ping
Ping
Maybe I'm incorrect, but I interpret this as a heads-up to the national Jewish community that she's pro-Israel. He's a guy with savvy in communication, LOL.
Bless him, bless his endeavors and I hope he doesn't end up waking up with a horse's head in bed with him at his Hollybama home.
Leni
Ouch. Please remember that lighting and even digital photography can distort the appearance of some fabrics, especially blends in which more reflective strands of polyester are interwoven with cotton or rayon.
To ease your mind, I enlarged the textile pattern of his shirt. Although it is pixilated, you can see that it's plaid, with a blue horizontal stripe over the gray vertical pattern.
Save your important stuff
Get out your original disks
Reformat your computer
All computers should get a once a year format anyways
When you reformat there should be an option to not re-install Roxio
Thanks :)
Seriously? They did? Is there a statement somewhere?
I thought of that many times to get rid of Roxio (which I'd rather keep and have both working because it's so intuitive the version I have, used it countless times w/o reading anything. I'll wait until it crashes or hurts more. It could be a disaster trying to get everything reloaded and working properly. May have to call some techies which is a nightmare now because if I don't do things regularly, I forget how. Reloading & reconfiguring Norton ugh. I do have most of my install software, purchased legally thank goodness. Some I'd have to go out on the web and pick up upgrades. Backup is doable.
A couple programs are on floppies, and my A:\ crashed. Stuff like that.
It is so frustrating when so much changes and so quick, too. It is expensive and annoying to try to figure out all the conflicts etc of hardware and software issues, but it certainly sound as though you have tried! Thanks for the post! Maybe Santa will bring a new PC laptop for Christmas--:-D!
**Frank shadowed Palin, who is the presiding governor of Alaska, for three days some three months ago, as part of a documentary he made about extraordinary women around the world. **
Wow!
Except that part where he says she admitted to being a Buchanan supporter.
You are soooooooooo nice :-). Laptop. Maybe. My gdaughter's crashed and she lost all her pics from England and a whole bunch of other things. I, who hate laptops and don't have a clue (maybe not if I can get one with what I described B4 and a mouse), sat down with the thing, figured out how to plug it in and turn it on, figured out that darn joystick or whatever it is, and was lost, wouldn't boot up no matter what I did, wouldn't let me go into safe mode, but somehow let me into the bios and tried a few things. Then it wanted to do a scan, so I thought this is hopeful, let's see if it will not do an abnormal termination, the scan did a bunch of stuff that scared me (correcting errors which later had to be fixed again) during the scan, but hey, I noticed that it appeared to have run to a normal termination.
So that told me it can't be the hd and I call the shop after already calling Dell and finding out probably what part it was, can't remember now, not the hd; the shop had already charged her $50 to tell her it had died and convinced them it couldn't have completely crashed.
So for another $90 (better than $1500-$2000 or so she was going to save up for she wanted her data so badly) the head tech (owner) got it working again. They had one cheaper option they could try first. She sat here and transferred her photos and other data via her Passport and was up and going again with a new laptop she'd bought. Oh happy day for her and me, too! Grandma was a hero. Of course, she also paid the bill lol.
I know you can dl data recovery software, but wouldn't have a clue what might work.
I used to work as a programmer years ago, wouldn't know it now, and never was good w/hardware and interfaces, etc. That's enough to bother you with. I'm tired from so many exciting things going on.
Leni
Thanks justiceseeker93.
Looks like she’s faking her pregnancy with Trig in that pic.
She looks very pregnant to me in that picture with Frank...
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