Documentary | 2020 | 14’25
Also available on Vimeo and YouTube.
Score available on Bandcamp, Spotify and Apple Music.
About The Film
Ted Pelkey started being featured in local news stories almost immediately after he installed his middle finger sculpture. The finger starved as a kind of beacon for regional media, drawn to its brash spectacle and outspoken owner. After a brief phone call with Ted, I made plans to travel up and interview him (he lives about three hours north of me).
I only spent about an hour with Ted before he said he had to leave. Ironically I spent more time alone in his front yard, getting shot after shot of the endlessly photograph-able finger. After interviewing the sculptor behind the statue a few weeks later (the affable Charlie O’Brien), I returned to Ted’s front yard and spent another few hours filming his sculpture. It wasn’t until after I had a mostly finished cut of the film that I discovered the extent of Ted’s long-standing disagreement with his town.
I was well aware of Ted’s longstanding conflict with the a member of the Development Review Board, but I wasn’t aware of his repeated threats (or misunderstandings, according to him) against town employees several years prior. I had already spent quite a but of time searching the town of Westford’s website for documents relevant to the story but it wasn't until I did a direct google search on the site (as opposed to using the town website’s built in function) that I discovered so many more meeting minutes and recordings that involved Ted.
While certainly surprising, these new revelations about Ted’s threats didn't change the structure of the film very much and (in my opinion) actually worked to strengthen the point of the film.
I shot A Very Large Gesture on a Blackmagic Pocket Cinema Camera, using a vintage Kinotar 12.5mm lens (designed for 16mm cameras), in addition to a 25mm CCTV lens that I bough for $20 on eBay. The score was compose by me and Karl Hohn.