Lewis Lehe Talks About “It’s a Thick Book”

In 2004, Homewood High School student Lewis Lehe exercised his right to vote for the first time. Though he thought he had prepared himself, he was surprised to find constitutional amendments on the ballot that affected places in Alabama he had never heard of. Why was he asked to vote on an amendment that affected Crenshaw County?

His curiosity led him to create “It’s a Thick Book,” a well-done, engaging and even funny documentary on our state’s 1901 Constitution. The movie premiered Sunday, March 4, and Lewis Lehe, now a college sophomore, spent his spring break travelling to most of the nine locations around the state where the movie was shown in its premiere week to answer questions after it was shown.

The movie will show tonight (Monday) in Mobile and Auburn and tomorrow in Birmingham at the Civil Rights Institute. (Details for the events are here.) You can even order your own free copy of the DVD or watch it online. (My two cents is that if you have the opportunity, you’ll enjoy watching it with a group more.)

Lewis was kind enough to sit down in the Political Parlor for a brief chat to share some comments about his experiences making the movie. You can read it all after the jump.

On how long the project took:

Almost two years from the very beginning. I went to ACCR [Alabama Citizens for Constitutional Reform] and got a $1000 grant to work on it. From the time I really began to work on it until I finished, it was about a year.

The movie really does tell how it all started for me. [Laughs.] I play it up some in the movie, but it really was about going to vote and seeing all these amendments for other counties and wondering why they were there.

Any surprises?

All the time. At one point my computer completely crashed. I didn’t lose the hard drive but the crash was a pretty big deal. There were a lot of technical difficulties. All the time.

I only used about half the interviews that I did, almost none of the ones from the first summer, because in the beginning the lighting and audio was so bad. Plus, I had never really done interviews before. I didn’t understand what kind of questions to ask.

I wasn’t very smart about it at the very beginning. I realized that this shouldn’t be about people’s opinions. I decided to get expert witnesses – county commissioners, legislators, who could talk about particular parts.

The thing I was most concerned about, I wanted the movie to be value neutral. About 40% of it is econ stuff, so you can’t really argue with that so much. Part of if it is history, and you can’t really argue that.

It really is value neutral. There is no proposal in the film. It just highlights the problems.

Personal highlights:

I really liked showing it in Huntsville. I had never really been to Huntsville before. Most of the people there were older. It was probably the most receptive audience and they asked the most pertinent questions. It was the largest audience.

I hoped that younger people would like the movie. I didn’t expect that older people would. I didn’t expect that anything I did would have any ..umm… authority with them. I was glad and surprised that older people liked it too.

Funny experiences:

We showed it one place where there was a lady who appeared to be drunk. It looked she like she may have had vodka with her. At one point, a second lady said something to her, and the first lady said, “F*** you.” I didn’t actually hear it myself, but you could hear the audience around react.

At every screening, seems like there would be a real character, for example, that lady.

At the Montgomery screening a man asked, “Did you use the banjo music because you think Alabamians are ignorant hill-folks?” On his way out he was heard saying, “I’m going to make my own movie for the other side.”

Those people were not typical of the crowds at all. They were not even one-tenth of one percent.

On other projects:

My parents say I can’t do another one until I graduate. I work at the campus TV station and I do little short videos for that. I might be done with political stuff. It’s pretty frustrating.

I take that back. If I could get funding, I’d like to make something about the federal income tax system. I think everyone knows that it is too complicated.

I don’t want to make anything that an average person can’t get behind if they get all the facts. I don’t want to do something that has a real sharp value judgment.

I will be making a short documentary about our church’s mission trip to Mexico where we will be building houses this summer.

Personal favorites:

My favorite director is Wes Anderson (”Rushmore”). I also like Spike Jonze (”Being John Malkovich”).

On “making it:”

Two or three weeks ago, a friend of mine from high school who is in a fraternity at Birmingham-Southern called me on a Friday night from the fraternity house. “Yeah, we are watching the movie and we wanted to ask you a question.”

And I said “Wait a minute. It’s Friday night, and you are watching it in the frat house. On Friday night.”

I felt like I had really made it. People are watching it when they don’t have to. Because they want to.

I appreciate Lewis taking the time to visit with us.

Good articles on “It’s a Thick Book” can be found in The Huntsville Times, The Birmingham News, and The Anniston Star.

Demopolite at Between the Links and Nick at Alabama Poverty Project have also blogged about “It’s a Thick Book.”

Related Articles:

• "It's a Thick Book" May Have Detractors
• It's a Thick Book Premieres