Saving Carren


Sales:
Clare Kirlin
[email protected]
614-403-8762
Media:
Clare Kirlin
[email protected]
614-403-8762
www.savingcarren.com
In BRIEF
Meth addiction rattles an ex-cop and his troubled daughter to the core, as father battles
daughter, daughter battles addiction, and love conquers all.
Title: Saving Carren
Web: www.savingcarren.com
Directors: Deborah Gregory & Heather Arment
Animator: Heather Arment
Producer: Deborah Gregory
Format: HDV 1080i and DV
Availability: DVD, HDCAM
Aspect Ratio: 1.33
Length: 53 Minutes
MPAA Rating: NR
SYNOPSIS
As Carren Clem staggers toward her father’s truck, she takes the first steps of a
horrifying journey to the depths of addiction, loss, and – ultimately – one astounding
recovery. Saving Carren documents the story of a retired cop who watches his daughter
fall prey to the destructive power of methamphetamines, a young woman whose father
risks everything to save her, and the love that brings them both back from the brink of
death. Beginning with Carren’s rape at the age of 14, the film leads us into the darkest
corners of a seemingly safe small town.
Clashing between stark animation and riveting personal narrative, Saving Carren unlocks
the guarded doors of a meth addict’s private hell. Most memorable, however, is the
strength that Ron and Carren Clem show in redeeming themselves from their respective
personal demons to reclaim their lives, and their commitment to inspiring hope in the rest of
us by sharing this dynamic story.
CONTACT
Clare Kirlin
614-403-8762
[email protected]
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www.savingcarren.com
CONTEXT
Easy to produce, instantly addictive, and widely underestimated in its power, meth is ripe
for abuse. Once a drug of choice for twenty-something users in the western United
States, meth has crept eastward across the country and downward on the age scale.
According to one national survey, the average user age dropped from 22.2 to 19.1 in
2007. i The DEA warns that meth “is second only to alcohol and marijuana as the drug
used most frequently in many Western and Midwestern states.”ii One in twenty
Americans has tried the drug at least once.iii
Suicide, homicide, paranoia, and permanent cognitive damage are the downside of the
intense high that meth provides its users. Tooth decay, acne, and extreme weight loss
ravage addicts.iv So-called “meth bugs” compel users to pick their skin sore, leaving
permanent scars. Carren summarizes the drug’s hideous strength in an interview with the
Montana Standard: "It makes you believe that you are everything you thought you could
be, and later wish you weren't.”v
IN ASSOCIATION WITH
TEENS-N-CRISIS
Before a strung-out Carren Clem
departed for rehab school in Jamaica,
she asked her father to find a way to
help those friends who were still lost in
addiction.
In fulfilling his promise, Ron Clem and friend
Gerri Gardner founded Teens-N-Crisis, a
support group for parents with children in
crisis.
After Carren graduated from rehab, she
joined Ron in setting up a program called
Kids Talking to Kids, with the aim of
educating students about making positive
choices. Through this program, Ron and
Carren travel nationally and internationally
to share their remarkable story.
Teen cross Roads, LLC
Bob Biondi, a Columbus businessman,
once boarded an airplane with a copy
of Ron and Carren’s book Loss of
Innocence.
By the time he landed, he was so
moved by the story that he made
arrangements to visit the Clems in
Montana. Bob is energized by any
opportunity to give back to society; this
was no exception.
He’s also one of those grandfathers
who is committed to building a better
world for his grandkids. To that tune,
Bob set up the non-profit group Teen
Cross Roads, LLC in 2008 with the goal
of educating kids across America
about the dangers of meth addiction.
The generosity of these organizations
made Saving Carren possible.
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EDITORIAL APPROACH
Saving Carren’s technique mirrors its subject matter: filmed monologue and gritty
animation interlock to produce a haunting, beautiful effect.
Principal characters Ron and Carren Clem are individually filmed in separate classrooms
as they prepare to speak before a high school audience about their family’s ordeal.
Each recounts their personal version of the story that they share. Along the way, they
relay numerous and sometimes humorous sub-plots and convictions.
Ron portrays the rough-and-tumble police officer, full of all the characteristic contempt
for the drug subculture that he has spent his career trying to defeat. While it is clear that
Ron despises drug addicts as “scum bags” and “lowlifes,” he must face the reality that
his daughter has become the very thing that he hates most. Carren, on the other hand,
struggles to deal with the pain of her rape and the cascading effects of one poor
choice built upon another. Her perspective is that of a middle class American teenager
who slips unaware into a world she cannot escape.
Two confessionals run simultaneously individual and intersecting tracts; one is the story of
a father and the other a daughter, one a law enforcer and the other a drug addict. The
audience is left to decide who is the true antagonist and who is the true protagonist as
father battles daughter, daughter battles addiction, and love conquers all.
Intermittently, we are invited into an illustrated world that is neither Ron’s nor Carren’s. It is
a world with animated characters that are neither complex nor beautified, a morally
blank slate. The world reveals Ron and Carren as stark paper doll versions of
themselves painted in grey, white and teal. The goal is to ever so slightly distance the
main story from its characters, inviting the audience to infuse its own judgments into the
story. The interplay of the real-life and animated versions of Ron and Carren are both
gritty and fluidic, bearing a very unique and compelling storytelling approach.
This ongoing transition between filmed footage and digital animation builds a dramatic
rhythm; as various scenes edge toward their often-disquieting emotional crescendos, the
aesthetic shifts to provide the audience with visual and emotional relief. The resulting
quickening pace of the film is in keeping with a contemporary audience.
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AUDIENCE
Saving Carren targets youth, parents, and educators. It is anticipated that this film will
resonate particularly well with at-risk populations, including those in rural areas where
methamphetamines are most common. By providing young people information and vivid
testimony about the dangers of meth, they will be better equipped to make wise
choices. This story will also resonate with anyone touched by addiction.
i
THEMES
Saving Carren hinges on the idea of restitution. Following Carren’s release from rehab,
she and her father co-wrote a memoir and founded an organization to educate others
on the dangers of methamphetamines. Their work deals with “making choices today that
you can live with tomorrow.” Within that scope, the film explores additional sub-topics.
FAMILY
ADDICTION
MORALITY
What do you do
when the unthinkable
happens? How far will
a meth addict go for
her drug? What would
a father do to save
his daughter? Do
families get second
chances? The film is
testimony to the ageold maxim that, when
everything else is lost,
our families are all we
have.
The film humanizes the
chemical phenomenon of
drug addiction, giving voice
to individuals who physically
depend on drugs. What
drives a child to use drugs
in the first place? How is it
possible for otherwise
successful students to lead
a double life as drug
addicts? Does meth use
predicate a new level of
danger to American towns
and schools?
Saving Carren offers a
fresh departure from the
demonization of drug
addicts in popular media.
By presenting two sides
of one story, Saving
Carren attests to the
nuanced reality: it’s
complicated. The film
does not wage war on
drug use; rather, it
provides information by
sharing personal accounts
of drug involvement. The
non-judgmental tone of
the story invites the
audience to draw its own
conclusion. Who is to
blame when a person’s
life unravels? The film
passes neither judgment
nor advice.
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PRINCIPAL CHARACTERS
CARREN CLEM
Carren was a
typical American
girl. She hated
math. Science.
Housework. She
excelled in the arts as a competitive
violinist. Between parochial schooling
and horse rides with her father, she
lived the idealized childhood that her
parents intended.
However, following a rape at the age
of 14, she began to live her life as if it
did not matter. Carren’s adolescence
took a hairpin turn into a universe of
theft, prostitution, and drug use. Her
meth addiction robbed her family of its
peaceful ways and drained its assets,
including their home.
After completing 19 months of
rehabilitation, Carren returned to
Montana to work with Teens-N-Crisis
and Senator Max Baucus on the Kids
Talking to Kids program.
Carren is the co-author of the book to
Loss of Innocence and continues speak
with youth nationwide about making
positive choices. When
not on a speaking tour,
her head is in a
textbook studying for a
degree in Education.
Carren has one
daughter and lives in
Montana.
RON CLEM
Ron is a hardboiled Los
Angeles police
officer who has
devoted his
career to “taking druggies off the
streets.” In one such attempt, he
suffered a severe beating at the
hands of criminals, which left him
permanently unable to work.
After retiring early, he moved his family
to beautiful rural Montana where, his
wife points out, there are more
churches than bars. Together they
hope to raise their children with the
opportunities that they were never
given.
Little did he know, Ron would leave an
early retirement to chase down a new
villain altogether: the drug addict that
had taken the place of a once
innocent teenager named Carren.
Ron is the co-author of the book Loss
of Innocence and primary author of
Sins of the Father to be released in the
Fall of 2009. He currently lives parttime with his wife
Karol in Kalispell, MT,
and part-time on a
Native American
Reservation in
Brockton, MT
working as a
science and
forensics teacher.
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FILMMAKERS
PRODUCER/
CO-DIRECTOR
Deborah Gregory
launched her
filmmaking career
from a borrowed
video camera in
2001, and has
since been involved in making over 30
documentaries. Her award-winning short
films give voice to a range of topics, from
the Angolan civil war to a boy named
Boy orphaned by the Indonesian tsunami
of 2005. Having grown up in Asia and
completed her MA in Communications at
Leicester University, UK, Deborah brings a
global perspective to her work. In
addition to producing films for nonprofit
organizations, she has worked as a web
designer, video production teacher, and
writer. Deborah currently lives and
operates out of Columbus, Ohio.
ANIMATOR/
CO-DIRECTOR
Heather Arment’s
output traverses
the worlds of
documentary
filmmaking and
motion graphics,
engendering a distinctive body of work
that draws on her expertise in both fields.
Heather’s short film War Games was
recently featured in WGBH Lab’s War
Stories Open Call series, winning her a
New England Emmy Award for advanced
media animator/motion graphic design.
Heather has experience in both the nonprofit and commercial worlds and
designed the 2006 BDA Gold Awardwinning network package for NRB. She
puts her artistic innovation to work as a
freelance filmmaker from her home studio
in Seattle, Washington.
Director’s statement
I wasn’t interested in filming reenactments of rape, suicide attempts, and
prostitution. How would I tell such a story without making it feel like a made-for-TV
movie?
When Bob Biondi contacted me about producing this film, I didn’t know much about
methamphetamines. He sent me a copy of the Clems’ book, Loss of Innocence, and after
reading it - and using up a box of tissues - I was sold on their story.
It was on a fine spring day six years earlier that I met Heather Arment at a Red
Lobster in Colorado. I had just moved to Colorado Springs and was taking my first job
as a videographer. Over our seafood entrees we discovered that our high school
years were spent in the same small Pennsylvania town, not more than five miles apart.
We rattled off the names of countless people we both knew, restaurants we both
frequented, and praised the wonder of our town’s very own chocolate factory. We
found it very odd that we had never met until that Colorado spring day at Red Lobster.
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Director’s statement cont. . .
Heather eventually became my boss. And then I bought
a house with an extra room
and, eventually, I became her landlord. We’ve always had a lovely balance
to our
relationship and began to dream of working on a feature length documentary film
together. As time passed and we both grew in our professions, Heather found herself in
Seattle, WA and I in Columbus, OH, and still our dream of making a documentary
together persisted.
Around that time, Heather had submitted a short animated documentary called War
Games to WGBH Boston’s Open Lab competition. She not only won the contest but also
secured the station a regional Emmy Award and saw her documentary promoted with
Ken Burn’s series The War.
When I asked Heather if she would be interested in working on the documentary with
me, she was intrigued and easily persuaded me to consider creating a mixed media
documentary. At last, we began production as co-directors on our first documentary.
Flop houses and Flip Flops
Most folks visit Kalispell, MT for the
majestic scenery on their way to discover
Glacier Park. We went to Kalispell to discover
meth labs and flop houses. The tour began
with Ron noting his loaded gun snuggled next
to his chest and stating, “But don’t worry, I
can drive backwards just as fast as I can
drive forwards”. And with that, we were off
to see the underworld of “the last best
place”.
Josh Whiteman joined Heather and me in
Montana as cinematographer. Josh and I had
worked together for several years, filming
side by side across a global spectrum that
spanned from a brothel in Mali to a yurt in
Mongolia. Now we could add a meth lab in
Montana to the list and proceed to throw
away our shoes.
Spending time with Ron and Carren was
precious. We all felt the fire fanning within
us as we learned more about their lives,
about meth, and about addiction. This
was not just about telling a good story. It
was about producing something useful
and important. It was about taking a step
back from the demonization of addiction
and contributing a fresh perspective for
thoughtful discussion.
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LOCATION
Saving Carren was filmed at three school locations in Montana and Ohio. During
production, we honed in on the tensions that erupted out of two recollections of one
story: father vs. daughter; cop vs. druggie. During the interviewing process, we were
struck by the subtle inconsistencies of memory and perception. This was a matter of
intrigue and Heather was later able to accentuate the space between the stories by
illustrating the characters as stark, paper-doll versions of themselves in order to
preserve the ambiguity of contrasting stories.
At times, the story became complicated and we could not discern the antagonist from
the protagonist. Who was in the right, the hardened father or the rebellious daughter?
Who was the good guy, the rough and tumble police officer or the thieving addict? We
opted to avoid taking sides and paint the story in such a way as to invite the audience
to project its own stories into the stark animations and draw its own conclusion.
Saving Carren took over a year to etch together, with parts of the story crisscrossing
the digital airspace between Seattle and Columbus.
CREDITS
PRODUCER
Deborah Gregory
DIRECTORS
Deborah Gregory
Heather Arment
ILLUSTRATION &
ANIMATION
Heather Arment
EDITORS
Deborah Gregory
Heather Arment
CINEMATOGRAPHY
Joshua Whiteman
Deborah Gregory
Josh Fronduti
Chris Martin
PHOTOGRAPHY
Renee Byler
TECHNICAL SUPPORT
Matthew Holmes
AUDIO POST SUPERVISION
James Covell
MIXED BY
Dan Blessinger
FUNDING PROVIDED BY
Teen Cross Roads, LLC
EDITORIAL & PR
SUPPORT
Clare Kirlin
GRAPHIC DESIIGN
Leli Holmes
THANKS TO
Bob & Tina Biondi
Amy & Bruce Huffman
Circleville High School
Trinity Lutheran School
Teens-N-Crisis
MUSIC
Licensed from
Independent artists
through Getty Images
SPECIAL THANKS TO
Carren Clem & Ron
Clem for sharing their
story
This program was produced by Incite Productions, LLC,
which is soley responsible for its content.
©2009 Incite Productions, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.nida.nih.gov/InfoFacts/methamphetamine.html
http://justice.gov/dea/concern/meth.html
i
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/331/7515/476
i
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/meth/body/
i
http://w
www.montanastandard.com/articles/2003/10/08/newsbutte/hjjgijjbjbgafi.txt
i
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