Jeff Blitz This is Me

 Web References

1. 1. Albuquerque Tribune Online

   www.abqtrib.com/archives/diver - [Cached]

   Published on: 6/21/2003   Last Visited: 6/21/2003

   If one thing was certain as Jeff Blitz and Sean Welch started filming their documentary "Spellbound," it was that Angela Aren¡var was a surefire entry in the 1999 Scripps Howard National Spelling Bee.
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   Blitz and Welch attended the bee's regional finals in Texas - the last step to the national bee - with a camera ready to capture Aren¡var's easy victory, just as a formality.
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   "Jeff and I were shaking our heads and sweating, wondering what would happen with our film if Angela didn't win," says Welch, who served as producer and sound recorder on "Spellbound."
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   When Aren¡var jumped for joy after spelling the winning word, Blitz kept the camera focused on the happy family, including Aren¡var's parents, who knew little English but recognized victory when they saw it.
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   "There's a part of the documentary that you'll never see," says Welch in a phone interview from Portland, Ore. "Jeff put down the camera, and I put down the boom mike and just began to sob.
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   After discovering that Aren¡var's parents illegally crossed the border from Mexico 10 years earlier to give their children a better life in Perryton, Texas, Welch and Blitz knew they found the essence of "Spellbound."
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   After the national competition had concluded, Blitz and Welch had 200 hours of footage to sort through, and discussed many ways to construct the film.
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   "This particular eight seemed to represent the mosaic of the documentary as Jeff had conceived it," Welch says.
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   "When Jeff and I began this project," Welch says, "there was a very realistic possibility that there would be only the two of us that would see this.