Prairie Home Comes Home

I offered that small indie films are like 20:1 horses at Canterbury—if they come across the line, a big winner like My Big Fat Greek Wedding or Blair Witch Project, the payoff is great, to which Stout countered, "Yeah, but a horse race only takes two minutes to run. A bet on a long-shot indie film can take six or eight years to realize success or failure."

A former Minnesota Film Board president, Stout put together a local investors group of eighteen individuals, mostly from Minnesota, who own a significant portion of A Prairie Home Companion. Bill Pohlad's company, River Road Productions, and Greenstreets own the remaining 45 percent of the film's rights. Significant Minnesota investment makes APHC more than a Hollywood film production on location in Minnesota. Keillor's script, with its tender unabashed fun-making of the Minnesota character, takes a Minnesota-penned and -funded movie to a new level.

"This film has three fan bases," said Stout. "There are Robert Altman fans. There are Garrison Keillor fans. And this ensemble cast of super stars has its own base." Although the investors will get their money back on sales to various markets, the movie needs to return $20 million in box office for investors to start making serious money.

"That means if 5 million people in Minnesota see this movie, if a few million of the Prairie Home Companion audience see the movie, if it gets good critic reviews—which I think it will—and Altman's fans come out, we will have a summer alternative hit."

And that seems to be good reason to hold a gala premiere party at the Landmark Center with stars, wine, food, and a show. A happy party for trendsetters and tastemakers increases the highly sought-after word of mouth that films want going to summer-release competition. Keillor loomed large near the front entrance coming in off Market Street. Seeing Keillor perform on the stage of the Fitz, or as we recently did at the Orpheum in Minneapolis, you don't get the sense he is as tall as he is when you're standing next to him.

Yet, a terminally bashful Keillor shows signs of social discomfort. He's actually quite witty and quick with remarks, but his cuffed remarks don't land quite as well in big open spaces. Oddly, Keillor feels more at ease on a stage with a mike performing and singing traditional folk and pop songs than making small talk with well-wishers. Thus, at 10:30 p.m., Keillor takes the stage, accompanied by Rich Dworsky on piano.

I talk with supervising music editor Annette Kudrak, an experienced editor flown in from New York for the premiere. Kudrak and the team who worked under Jacob Craycroft faced the unique challenge of editing an Altman musical with ensemble acting that is not formally a musical. It has layers of overlapping dialogue, song, instrumentation, and environmental sound. At the same time, they had to match Edward Lackman’s incredible camera movements that will terribly confuse the movie viewer if not logical in the audio movement. Awards should be considered in the sound editing and cinematography for APHC.

"The unique challenge is that an Altman film will have conversations off in the wings, musicians playing in the stage, other rehearsing backstage, and the camera focus moving between them," said Kudrak. "As sound editors, we have to make it all work together seamlessly." Something like trying to keep track of everything here in the Landmark Center, I think to myself, with layering of foreground and background sound.

"We couldn't mix it like the radio show," she adds, even though the editors attended a live performance of A Prairie Home Companion in New York while they mixed the film. "In most musicals you have the dialogue track and when you move into the songs, it is all lip-synch—but not with Altman."

The mix in the Landmark Center Wednesday night might have troubled experts like Kudrak, although she didn't mention it and seemed to be having a great time. Location sound mixer John Sims Jr., who as a local composer and musician is a Minneapolis expert on sound, was pleased to work with Altman. Kudrak's work was made easier by the mettle Sims brought to capturing sound, song and dialogue on location at the Fitz.

I see Sims briefly on Market Street as he tries to hail a cab for his beautiful wife. It feels a little like we are outside Cooper Union New York as we flashback the twenty years we’ve know each other. But St. Paul is better, since parking meters do not have to be paid after 4:30 p.m. This makes me happy St. Paul won out over Minneapolis for the premiere. Dang those Minneapolis parking meters.

And no Hollywood premiere party would be complete without the obligatory bag of swag.