During the summer of 2000, Producer/Director Jennifer Campbell interviewed Diane Cotting about her experiences as a masters rower. As they spoke, the discussion shifted from rowing to Cotting’s personal battle with breast cancer. Her story was compelling: a first botched surgery, chemotherapy, the way the rowing community embraced her and helped her through the greatest challenges she had ever faced. What touched Campbell was Cotting’s passion for living and her continuing commitment to breast cancer advocacy. During their conversation, Cotting mentioned that she was organizing a boat of breast cancer survivors for the Head of the Charles – the world’s largest two-day rowing event, held yearly on the Charles River in Boston, Massachusetts. It was then that Campbell decided to document the women, their stories and the race.

“I was so moved by Diane’s story and I knew that this would be a powerful event,” said Campbell. “I had to capture it on film so that other women could benefit from the courage of the women in the ‘One in Nine’ boat.”

With less than six weeks before the race, pre-production time was short. Campbell enlisted the help of Co-Producer Ellen Harder, and Associate Producer Kate Guiney. While Campbell prepared for interviews and arranged shooting dates, Harder began assembling the seventy-person crew, and K. Guiney secured equipment and funds. When the women arrived five weeks later, Campbell had enlisted seasoned cinematographer Tom Guiney to act as Director of Photography. Campbell, Harder, K. Guiney and T.Guiney met with the large crew on several occasions, mapping out locations and discussing the focus of the film. Campbell wanted to cover the race thoroughly and knew to accomplish this that she needed several cameras stationed along the 3.2-mile course.

“I knew the crowds were intense, and there would be no hope to move a camera to another location once the race had begun. It is almost impossible to walk on the river paths as it is, let alone with a camera, tripod, and sound gear. Tom and I scouted the course in the weeks prior to the shoot and found the optimal places for each camera. Having raced in the Charles myself, I had a lot of suggestions for camera angles and framing, which Tom used to plan his shot list.”

In total, eleven 16mm film cameras were placed along the course and used to shoot the race footage. Sound was a particularly difficult issue for the production. Harder, who served as primary Sound Mixer for the film, experimented with several sound setups during the week prior to the race. Sound was recorded from a motorboat during two of the women’s practices, using wireless mics to capture the sounds of the oars cutting the water and the coxswain calling commands to the team. On race day, two wireless mics were attached to the coxswain, with two separate Porta-DAT’s picking up the signals at different points along the course. A third DAT was placed at the starting line, to capture the announcer’s words, and four Nagras were positioned on various bridges, recording sounds as the boats passed underneath them.

Despite difficult shooting conditions, everything went according to schedule. Campbell was extremely pleased with the final footage. “The film shoot itself went very smoothly,” said Campbell, “by far the largest snag was when my lab went bankrupt. We were in the middle of editing when we heard through the grapevine that the lab had gone under. No one had bothered to tell us, and I had 18,000 feet of film sitting in the vault. When I called to get my film back, they couldn’t find it because someone had mislabeled the boxes. It took four months of negotiating to get the negative back, which was a very stressful time for me.”

After a long year of post-production, the editing was complete. “The final version of the film definitely differed from my original idea,” said Campbell, "however I was very satisfied with the end result. A lot of the interview footage about the women and their experiences with breast cancer was left on the cutting room floor. The film ended up focusing on the women an their athletic endeavors. It was an incredible opportunity to meet and work with the ‘One in Nine’ team. They are an inspiring group of women and their stories touched everyone on the film crew.”