Soap Lake filmmaker on third documentary

SOAP LAKE - Filmmaker Kathy Kiefer is about to embark on a two-year documentary project about three different rock festivals held in the Pacific Northwest.

She plans to interview three different people who attended different concerts in the 1960s to see how their lives were directly influenced by the festival.

"I've already scouted the location and the people," she said. "Now, its just getting there and setting up the shots."

This is Kiefer's third documentary. Her debut documentary in 2004 was about the history of Soap Lake, entitled "Dirt Roads," and her second was "Boobalogues," a documentary based around female body image in 2006.

Kiefer said she was drawn to film making, especially documentary work, because of the opportunity to use all of her "talents and skills" collected throughout her life.

"I love documentary work because I'm curious. I love to learn new things and I learn so much from just listening to others," she said.

Without a formal film education background, Kiefer said it was her desire to learn from others that lead her to be a film maker.

She said she started off as a writer for a Soap Lake newspaper, after relocating from Eugene, Ore.

She took various jobs that always involved photography, writing or illustrating duties before she landed a job working for the Grant County PUD in 1990. After a few years, she switched over to the communications department.

"The PUD had a large archive of historic films of the dams from the 1950s and 1960s and after it was digitized, I thought it would make an incredible documentary," she remembered,

The 57-year-old decided to pitch the idea of interviewing people who worked on the dams for an in-house, 56 minute documentary.

"That was when I knew film making would be my life's work because it allowed me to bring my skills as a writer and photographer to visually tell a story," said Kiefer.

She recently retired from the PUD after 20 years of employment.

Kiefer now works as a freelance producer in the Soap Lake area. She has two film studios, one equipped to work with high-definition footage and the other in standard definition. She splits her time between commercial and documentary work.

"I like both commercial and documentary work. Both allow me to sit and listen to people. I let their voices carry through their story," she said.

Kiefer said working in a small video market has allowed her to shoot, edit and produce. The ability to work in all of video production satisfies her self-described "perfectionist" attitude, but it is also time-consuming.

"I don't think people understand the amount of work that goes into production. You have to bring your gear, mike and camera to the site and then ingest the video on the time line and then put music and sound effects," she said. "When I'm working on a piece, I am so focused on it."

Kiefer said she hopes that a film community will develop in the future.

"My vision is that there will be a public access program run through Big Bend Community College. I'd like to see a cadre of young and old interested in video. Maybe have the program creating revenue for the college by producing commercials for businesses in Grant County," she said.