A film crew was in Pontiac, Ill., on Thursday shooting footage for a documentary about the late Route 66 artist Bob Waldmire, reported the Pontiac Daily Leader.
Producer Mark Silverstein, director of photography Rick Diamond, and cinematographer Matt Diamond were at the Illinois Route 66 Hall of Fame & Museum in Pontiac to grab footage of Waldmire’s converted school bus and Volkswagen minibus.
“We chose Waldmire because I live about 15 minutes away from where he used to live in Arizona and I got interested in his story,” said Silverstein. “Through a series of circumstances my wife and I kept going out to his land and ended up owning his small Shasta trailer; we just kept building on the story. Rick and I decided we were going to produce the documentary and just see where it takes us.” […]
Silverstein had been in Illinois for three days as of Thursday, scouting, pre-interviewing and working on logistics for the documentary. Rick Diamond got to Pontiac Wednesday night from Baltimore, Md., and Matt Diamond came the same night from Los Angeles, Calif. The trio planned to continue their work at the Log Cabin Restaurant late Thursday before heading to Rochester and Springfield and finally to their respective homes Sunday. Both Rick Diamond and Silverstein plan to come back to Pontiac at some point to shoot more footage. […]
The film itself will be about people’s interactions with Waldmire, his life on Route 66 in the desert and Illinois, and his family. It won’t be shot from any one narrator’s perspective, just homage to Waldmire as a person.
“I hope that people will see that first and foremost, Waldmire lived life the way he wanted to,” said Silverstein. “He made his choices — good or bad — and he stuck with them. I want people to know you can have any life that you want. I am a schoolteacher, but I always tell my students that you can have any life that you want. Waldmire had the life he desired and I am lucky enough to have the life that I desire.”
Silverstein said it could take two years to finish the film.
“When it’s done though, the very first place it will go is to Route 66 Hall of Fame and Museum here in Pontiac as a donation. Then, hopefully there will be some DVDs to support the upkeep of the bus and the museum. We will try to market the film as well to the cable market, both here in the United States and internationally.”
Waldmire, who also was an unofficial inspiration to the Fillmore character in the Disney-Pixar movie “Cars,” died in December 2009 of abdominal cancer at age 64.
Waldmire had traveled Route 66 for more than three decades, selling his intricately drawn artwork. He also owned the Hackberry General Store in Hackberry, Ariz., for five years, and won the prestigious John Steinbeck Award at the annual Steinbeck Awards Dinner in 2004.
