My Little MVP — Chuck Westfield, Filmmaker

We began with a website Baseball Fields of Colorado which lists all of the known fields across the state. James Coulter then combined that information with the satellite views from Google Maps. He was able to look for fields that had residential areas behind the plate and generate a list of about 6 or 7 fields to check.

Brian Harmon, the Director of Photography and I went out and visited these sites. What we found was a clearer sense of what location would serve the story. We had a variety of types of fields, elementary school sandlots, public parks, well funded-well groomed public parks, community center parks. This trip by itself was enlightening just for the revelation that we needed something specifically built for kids, and used by them.

On Saturday I did a search for all of the elementary school baseball fields in a geographic area, plotted the itinerary and set off in search of the perfect location.

As I made my way to the first location, I found a park with a couple of baseball diamonds on them. I stopped and snapped a few pictures and then proceeded on to the 18 other destinations plotted that day. There were a lot of ideas that sprang from simply visiting these schools like using a chalk art style for titles and the visual symbolism of sidewalks that literally had 8 foot fences for entire blocks, and specifically the neglect of the baseball diamonds at otherwise pristinely kept schools. At the end of the day, the little grass field tucked into the nice neighborhood felt right.

Here are a few of the quick shots of the location-

Here are some pictures from the Friday scout, where we plan to shoot the neighborhood at the opening of the movie:
Here on the Facebook Page

It was a time consuming but fulfilling journey. At one of the most neglected fields I came across a small family that donated their Saturday to pulling the weeds and thistle at the local elementary school because the neighborhood kids had no place to play kick ball without getting covered in prickers. The best part of that moment was when a friend of the son skated up, asked what they were doing and started pitching in.

Once we secure the permits, and notify the neighborhoods this week, the production team will send out maps, instructions, parking locations etc to cast and crew. I just wanted to share the progress.

It’s funny how you arrive at each story. For me, this year seemed as though it were a series of failures. There were things that I thought were important that kept slipping out of my grasp – flashy, hilarious, fun things. The things that you think will win you some imaginary popularity contest. But in the end, I refocused, made some sacrifices, and accomplished a few of the non-exciting, non-entertaining, plain old mundane things like finishing a spec script, completing my associates degree and getting this movie written and into production. Looking at it now, this film, this little baseball story I’ve been playing around with all summer, mirrors my own life over the past few months. I wonder, does art imitate life or does life imitate art?

This movie is the first of three stories centered around baseball. It’s about a young boy who is pretending he is Babe Ruth. He believes he’s the Sultan of Swing All he wants on that fine autumn day is to hit the home run that will win the World Series of Baseball with his tag-along sister cheering him on and supporting him. But what happens when even the imaginary crowd stops cheering?

MVP Location Scouting

My Little MVP – A New Short Film

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