Every Little Thing | Deadline Studio at Sundance
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00:00 [MUSIC PLAYING]
00:03 I'm Matt Carey, documentary editor at Deadline.
00:18 And we are in the Deadline studio at Sundance
00:21 with the director and producer of Every Little Thing, which
00:24 is premiering in US Documentary Competition.
00:27 We are with director Sally Aitken and with producer
00:30 Bettina Dalton.
00:31 Congratulations on premiering in US Documentary Competition.
00:35 That's very exciting.
00:37 Surely is.
00:38 It's great to be here.
00:40 The Every Little Thing of the title are hummingbirds.
00:43 So that buzz you hear in Sundance,
00:45 that is coming from hummingbirds.
00:48 Tell me, the origins of the film go back
00:50 to reading a book by this very interesting woman, Terry
00:54 Mazur.
00:54 Am I pronouncing her last name right?
00:56 Mazur?
00:57 Mazur.
00:57 Mazur.
00:58 Second go was better.
01:01 Who is an LA area resident.
01:03 And explain who Terry is and the remarkable work that she does.
01:07 Remarkable person and remarkable work.
01:09 Well, she is remarkable.
01:11 So the origin of the project, I'll hand over to Bettina
01:17 and then pick up on a little bit more about what Terry does.
01:20 So during COVID, I was going through some grief
01:23 because I'd lost my husband.
01:25 And I read this remarkable book called
01:27 The Fastest Thing on Wings, which
01:29 was Terry's story of rehabilitating
01:31 hummingbirds in Hollywood.
01:32 And it just made me feel renewed and rejuvenated
01:36 and a really sort of healing book.
01:39 And Sally and I had worked together a lot
01:42 and very successfully and had our film Playing with Sharks
01:45 here at Sundance.
01:46 So I sent the book to Sally and she read it
01:49 and put sticky notes everywhere.
01:51 And then we had to convince Terry to participate.
01:54 So we flew over and I met her and she was amazing
01:57 and the rest is history.
02:00 So the book is Terry's memoir of rescuing hummingbirds
02:07 in the Hollywood area.
02:08 And when Bettina sent me the concept,
02:12 I thought, well, how much trouble
02:14 can hummingbirds get into that they need a hotline?
02:17 So from that--
02:18 They can do a lot of trouble, it turns out.
02:20 --kind of bizarre start, what happened
02:24 is that we follow Terry over the course of the spring/summer
02:29 season, which is--
02:30 if anyone is in LA, they'll know as peak hummingbird time.
02:35 And literally, if you have an injured or wounded hummingbird
02:39 that somehow comes across your path, you can phone Terry.
02:43 And she will triage on the phone.
02:45 You send her photos, you send her video.
02:48 She's a genius.
02:50 She knows exactly what's the problem.
02:52 She also understands, Matt, if you're a capable finder,
02:56 and if you're not, that bird needs
02:58 to come to Terry's place to actually be rehabilitated
03:01 through a series of cages and back into the wild.
03:04 So it's really--
03:05 She's sort of triaging humans as well, in a way.
03:07 You have it, exactly.
03:09 And so the film really leans into that idea
03:14 of trauma and resilience.
03:17 And along the way, it's a very magical journey.
03:24 It can't not be.
03:25 Hummingbirds are ethereal.
03:28 They're beautiful.
03:29 Everybody, everybody here at Sundance is, oh,
03:31 what's your film?
03:32 Oh, it's a film about hummingbirds.
03:34 I love hummingbirds.
03:36 So I think that the qualities of the bird
03:40 I really wanted to evoke in the film.
03:42 And hopefully, within that, there's a balm for us
03:46 because it's a tough world.
03:49 It's a tough world for these little birds.
03:52 And I didn't realize that they could get injured so much.
03:57 And we become emotionally invested in them,
04:00 just as the finders are, but also, of course, Terry herself
04:05 and the infinite patience and care and empathy
04:10 that she displays.
04:11 Wow.
04:12 Yeah, that sort of deep understanding
04:14 of the fragility and her just knowing exactly what they need
04:18 at what time.
04:19 And she says, oh, look, this one, when it comes in,
04:22 it's two weeks old.
04:23 She knows the age when she looks at it.
04:25 Quick, get it in the incubator.
04:27 It needs warmth.
04:28 It needs this, fruit flies.
04:30 She really is like a first responder
04:32 for the hummingbirds.
04:33 She knows immediately what to do.
04:35 She also knows how to treat the finders when they come in.
04:38 She knows those that are fragile,
04:40 those that just really want to get the bird off their hands
04:43 because they don't know what to do.
04:45 So it also is a reflection of LA.
04:47 The people that come in represent the diversity of LA,
04:51 the diversity of personalities.
04:53 But the one thing in common is that a hummingbird
04:55 on the ground, you cannot stoop down and pick up a hummingbird.
04:59 It's like there's this--
05:01 it's compelling.
05:01 You have to rescue this thing.
05:03 No matter what your personality is,
05:05 it brings people to their knees.
05:07 Yeah, indeed.
05:08 And I think one of the things that's
05:10 really important about Terrianne and about your film
05:14 is to reframe our relationship with nature,
05:17 if I could put it that way, which
05:19 you do in your previous film, playing with sharks,
05:22 where there's prejudice against sharks.
05:25 You know, shark-infested waters.
05:29 Well, where are the sharks supposed to be?
05:30 Exactly, shark attack.
05:31 Are we-- is this human-infested Park City?
05:35 Well, actually, yes.
05:37 Yes, it is.
05:38 Actually, don't go there with that analogy, Matt.
05:40 That's kind of good.
05:41 Let's not.
05:43 But you're right.
05:43 And the thing is about all of these relationships,
05:49 both Valerie Taylor's with sharks
05:50 and Terri's with hummingbirds, we are all on this planet,
05:56 not just humans.
05:57 And they have perceptions we do not have.
06:01 So when I say the film is magical,
06:04 what we're actually reaching for is the idea
06:07 that humans are not superior necessarily,
06:10 and that actually, there is a possibility
06:13 to move through this world with a little more kindness,
06:18 a little more empathy.
06:19 And that is exemplified in the work
06:21 that Terri does with the hummingbirds.
06:23 But actually, it's a bigger message.
06:25 It's a universal idea.
06:27 Things get broken.
06:28 Things can be repaired.
06:30 Actually, the hummingbirds are reminders
06:33 of what is already in us and our ability
06:36 to be resilient and hope.
06:38 Yeah.
06:39 Well, they are incredible creatures.
06:42 I mean, to state the obvious, there
06:43 are many things that they can do that humans don't do,
06:46 beginning with flying.
06:47 Backwards.
06:48 That applies to almost every bird.
06:50 There are flightless birds.
06:52 But there's a biggie right there.
06:53 But flying upside down in every which direction
06:59 and the flapping of wings at, what is it, 50 beats per second?
07:03 Depending on the species.
07:04 It's crazy.
07:05 Incredible.
07:05 And we had a brilliant--
07:07 Nature is produced such a thing.
07:08 I know.
07:08 --a brilliant camera woman who shot with a Phantom camera that
07:12 shoots at 1,000 frames a second.
07:14 So that ability to capture the hummingbird
07:17 and actually be able to observe the wingbeat and the joints
07:20 and the engineering is mesmerizing.
07:24 I mean, one of the things, actually,
07:26 in thinking about the film, imagining the film,
07:30 was the delight in thinking about how
07:33 to see the tiniest birds writ large on a big screen.
07:37 And that idea of those tiny birds
07:40 and this sprawling metropolis of Los Angeles.
07:44 And something in that going deep into the hummingbird realm,
07:48 as Patina says, with this extraordinary cinematography
07:52 in the film.
07:53 It really-- it was such a beautiful project.
07:56 As a director, so visual.
07:59 That iridescence on their throats, the colors.
08:03 I mean, if you don't even want to go with some themes
08:07 and you want some visual delight, it's just beautiful.
08:12 And I don't know whether I'm anthropomorphizing.
08:14 I don't think I am.
08:15 But they appear to have personalities.
08:18 I mean, for instance, there is Alexa and Mikhail.
08:22 I'm looking at their names.
08:24 Oh, and Mikhail is trying to strike up a romance,
08:28 apparently, with Alexa, who is somewhat
08:30 indifferent to his charms.
08:33 But they all seem to have personalities.
08:35 They are a joy.
08:36 And just like high school, where you'll
08:39 get the bully and the popular girl,
08:42 and then the person who's shy and the one that's wanting--
08:46 they're just like us.
08:47 And the more you use these macro lenses and the slow-mo
08:51 when you enter into that world, you do.
08:54 These personalities.
08:55 And through Terry's eyes, because that's
08:57 how she sees the birds, too.
08:59 And so, yeah, hopefully by the end of the film,
09:01 you are championing these tiny, beautiful little creatures
09:05 all the way through to being rescued and released back
09:08 into the wild.
09:09 And one of the most delightful things
09:10 was in the morning, you'd come out,
09:11 and the little chicks would get on top of each other
09:14 and form a little pyramid of chicks
09:16 that were all huddled together.
09:18 Oh my god, it's the cutest thing ever.
09:19 Yeah, it's a hummingbird pyramid.
09:22 And then we had--
09:23 they actually became quite gregarious among each other.
09:26 In the wild, there's just mom and the chicks,
09:28 and the males fight like crazy.
09:30 They're real warriors.
09:32 But when they're together, they form these extraordinary bonds.
09:34 And at night, they snuggle up against each other.
09:37 And we got to see them right up close.
09:39 I remember thinking, oh my god, they've got eyelashes.
09:41 They do.
09:42 They do.
09:43 And actually, one of the things that Terry does
09:44 is when people will bring a wounded bird--
09:47 and it can be anything.
09:49 It can be chicks that have fallen out of a nest.
09:54 It can be teenage birds that are going too fast,
09:58 and they smash into something.
09:59 It can be a windstorm.
10:01 I mean, they're delicate.
10:02 They're tiny.
10:03 All manner of things can strike them down.
10:07 But she brings people in.
10:09 She is all business.
10:11 It's, as Tina said, it's first response.
10:15 And then once the bird is calm, people are like, what?
10:18 And she brings out her magnifying glasses.
10:20 They look in close.
10:22 She talks them through the process.
10:24 People have so many questions.
10:25 It's just-- it's an amazing reflection on the fact
10:28 that we share this planet with so many other creatures,
10:33 so many other little things.
10:35 And we kind of don't know anything about them.
10:37 And so to kind of take a moment and be curious
10:41 and be empathetic to their world,
10:42 and then be absolutely enamored by their world
10:45 and realize that life is precarious, and it's precious.
10:53 Yeah, they're little miracles.
10:54 And transient, which they are.
10:56 When you bury a hummingbird within a matter of days,
10:59 because the bones are so hollow and so light,
11:03 they literally disintegrate within days, which is--
11:06 I was starting to learn that in the film.
11:08 Yeah, it's so ephemeral, the whole life existence.
11:11 So that's the other kind of message, I guess, for us.
11:14 Well, it's a wonderful, beautiful film,
11:16 and just invites us into a magical world.
11:20 And premiering in US documentary competition again,
11:24 congratulations to you, Bettina Dalton,
11:27 and to Sally Aitken, the director of Every Little Thing.
11:31 And we hear that song.
11:33 We sure do.
11:34 There's a little reggae too.
11:36 There's a little reggae.
11:37 There's a little kind of beach culture.
11:39 It's a fun film.
11:40 It's a wonderful film.
11:42 Thank you so much for being with us.
11:43 Thank you.
11:44 Thank you.
11:44 [MUSIC PLAYING]
11:47 [MUSIC PLAYING]
11:51 (upbeat music)