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CAROLINE MANARD: Signs of the Time is about the origins of baseball hand signals
particularly umpire hand signals.
RAY MANARD: It's a mystery story.
It's kind of a whodunnit.
Who invented umpire hand signals?
JIM HUGHES: It's about how people can overcome adversity.
DON CASPER: In telling that story
we can tell how the lives of people that lived 100 years ago
still influence people today.
CAROLINE MANARD: Well, our director, Don Casper
approached us several years ago just with the initial idea.
He just happened to tell this story about this deaf ballplayer that he had learned
about when he was working at the National Technical Institute for the Deaf.
And even back then, I thought it was an interesting idea
because it’s something I had never really thought about.
I’m always interested in those untold stories.
DON CASPER: The initial thing that drew my interest
was hearing the story of Dummy Hoy and how this character or person
100 years ago, had influence on something that everybody takes for granted.
That was initially it, but then you add in the triumph over adversity
and what this guy must have dealt with to succeed in the major leagues
in the 19th century was, I think, fascinating.
I ended up following a group of Deaf individuals
to Cooperstown, for the Hall of Fame induction in 1998.
At the time, I didn’t have the money to make the film or the resources to do it.
So, it just kind of sat on the shelf for a few years.
RAY MANARD: Back in 2003, Don Casper, the director of the film
came to us with an idea
and he had that seed of an idea for this movie for years before.
We all thought it was a great idea.
We started talking about it and it very quickly developed
into a very passionate project for all of us.
DON CASPER: It was in 2005, we did our initial trip to Cooperstown.
We went through all their files. What articles did they have on Hoy and Klem?
What pictures were available?
JIM HUGHES: Well, here we are at the Cooperstown Baseball Hall of Fame.
It’s August of 2005. We’re just starting the project.
We’re just in the process of doing some research and hopefully we’re gonna
find some things that will inspire us to make a great film.
There are really two central characters in the film...
that is Bill Klem and Dummy Hoy.
These two characters created the opportunity for the obvious
dramatic structure here and that is to create conflict.
The conflict is between these two diametrically opposing personalities.
DON CASPER: You kind of get nicknames in life
and you don’t always pick your nickname. They’re kind of given to you.
And Dummy embraced his, where Catfish hated his.
It really adds a ying and yang character structure to the film
which we thought would really drive it well.
ROB LAVAQUE: Whereas Dummy Hoy’s theme was a bit more heartwarming...
Bill Klem’s theme had to have a bit more attitude
because that was Bill, he was all about attitude.
And that really set off a nice contrast between the two characters
and helped enhance the controversy between the two.
JIM HUGHES: Now as a writer, you want to show the true personality
the character of each one of these individuals. How do you do that?
Well, you gotta go out and find first hand accounts of these people.
I found Klem to be the easier character to write about
because there are still a lot of first hand accounts about him...
about his personal life exploits, about his personality, about his character
they come through old baseball players.
We tried to find family members for Klem, but unfortunately, Klem had no children.
So, really his history ended with him.
He has some nieces and nephews, but they have very vague memories of him.
So, that’s one of the reasons why we don’t have any Klem family members in the film.
DON CASPER: One of the biggest turning points in the pre-production of the film
was when we met Joan Hoy Sampson and she agreed to be in the film.
That was a huge turning point for us, because when Jim and I visited her
we weren’t sure we had a film yet.
Once she was onboard and agreed to open up her old photo albums
of her grandfather and the family artifacts that she had...
she lived with Dummy Hoy for a number of years as he grew older
so, she had first hand account of who this guy was
and that’s what we wanted to show, to help tell the story.
It gives it credibility and it’s a perspective nobody else has.
DON CASPER: Once we decided to do it
there was pre-production, there was shooting, there was post-production...
All in all, the whole thing was about 3.5 years from when we decided to go for it.
There was about 30 different production days
strung out over the course of 2 years
and that included all the interviews with the ballplayers.
ERIC MCMASTER: One way that we were able to keep
the look consistent with shooting over such an extended period of time
with all the interviews that we did...
was basically we shot it over black and utilized two lights
a key light and an edge light.
That gave us the ability to be able to travel on the road, with the same lights
the same kit and not get crazy, keep it simple for the people
we were shooting, so it was a little less intimidating.
RAY MANARD: Our first day of production was June 20, 2006
and that was an interview with Bill Werber
who was just an incredible interview for us and really gave us a good start
to the interview process for all the baseball heroes.
It was on his 98th birthday.
At the time, he was the oldest living member of major-league baseball.
It’s amazing to me, sitting down with him and him reflecting on events
that happened, what... 70 years earlier?
All of a sudden, he’s recollecting... it’s the top of the ninth, there’s two outs
so and so’s on third, I’m at bat and he rattles that off like it was yesterday.
I think that was always amazing to me, that you get a sense of their love of baseball
because they remembered those events
and they were cherished memories for them.
ERIC MCMASTER: This project was unique in the fact that the core people
that worked on this have been working together for 20 years
doing stuff like this for other people.
This time we were able to work as a team...
We were our own producers, directors, and camera people.
So, it was very easy to work with and around each other.
Actually, we had a great time doing it.
ROB LAVAQUE: Everybody was very much into it.
Everybody did the very best they could with it.
It wasn’t just a job...
It was a very heartfelt project that everyone participated in. �