A week before the Presidential Inauguration, “U2 3D” producer Peter Shapiro surprised Sara Yule with a call asking her company, Wiggle Puppy Productions, to provide Chicago footage of the video that would play before the massive all-star Inaugural Concert at the Lincoln Memorial.
“We dropped everything we were doing to be a part of this, to be a part of history,” Yule said.
Mutual friends had recommended Wiggle Puppy to Shapiro. In turn, Yule recommended shooters in other cities to Shapiro. Washington, D.C. production company Interface Media Group compiled the footage shot across the country.
Producer Yule and her partner, director/DP/editor Mark Krieglstein, interviewed 10 Chicagoans about their hopes for America and President Obama, largely outside in sub-zero temperatures.
“We shot the skyline from Millennium Park,” Yule said. “I’ve never seen it so crisp, because there was no condensation in the air. At one point the fluid head on the tripod froze. I got sick from the shoot,” Yule said, her voice just recovering a week later.
Blues singer and harmonica player Sugar Blue recorded his interview on tour in Paris. “He said he wanted to hear the blues played in the White House, as a symbol of the toll we took to get here,” Yule said.
“He was the first person who talked about slavery. He came to tears, and I came to tears watching it.”
