Columbine Survivor Prepares for April Showers

by Mark Hurley | Published April 20, 2009

Andrew Robinson directs April Showers (2009).

On April 20, 1999, director Andrew Robinson was a personal witness to the tragic school shootings that took place at Colorado’s Columbine High School. Ten years later, he is debuting his first theatrical release feature, April Showers, a fictionalized story based on the true events and aftermath of that day. Robinson hopes to show the audience a perspective that the media couldn’t and to give the movie the personal touch that is necessary for such a film.

April Showers features a promising young cast including Kelly Blatz (Prom Night), Daryl Sabara (Spy Kids), Janel Parrish (Bratz) and Ellen Woglom (7eventy 5ive). The film is innovative in numerous ways from its filming to its distribution. April Showers was shot digitally using Cinema 4K, in hopes of providing audiences with a very realistic feel. Robinson has also gone out of his way to make sure that everybody can have a chance to see his groundbreaking film by making it available on iTunes and IndieFlix as well as releasing it nationwide.

MovieMaker spoke with Robinson as he prepared for the April 24 theatrical release of April Showers to talk about his unique and very personal moviemaking experience.

Mark Hurley (MM): Today marks the 10th anniversary of the tragic Columbine school shootings. How long have you had the idea for this project and what prompted you to make now?

Andrew Robinson (AR): Truthfully, I never intended to make April Showers—let alone any film about my direct experiences at Columbine High School. I was working on another idea I had for a film about doctors dealing with the duality of saving lives while simultaneously losing control of their own. It was during the writing of that story that I realized many of the themes I was attempting to cover and/or address stemmed from my experiences dealing with the tragedy I witnessed at Columbine. The more and more I wrote this other story, the more my personal experiences came to the forefront, ultimately causing me to cease writing the doctor story and go down the road that would eventually lead to April Showers.

MM: How long did it take you to write it?

AR: I wrote the first draft of April Showers in about three to four days. It was somewhat incredible because I had never had something come out me so spontaneously. I spent the next two weeks re-writing and re-tooling the story until I eventually came to a draft that encompassed everything I wanted to say. At that point I put the script away, thinking I had exercised my demons and began working on other projects. I picked up the script a few weeks later to give it a read and realized that there were elements of the story that I was sure had never been addressed publicly when it comes to tragedies like school violence or shootings. I showed the script to a couple of friends, some who work in the industry and others who I simply trust, and the response was shocking to me. Every person came back to me within 24 hours of reading the script and said, “When do you start principal photography?”

It was at this point that I did quite a bit of soul searching with myself and my family about what making this film would entail, not only physically but also emotionally. The emotional aspect of the equation was tough to grapple with because I wasn’t just dealing with my own story and memories but with a collective mindset we all experienced Columbine on some level or another, whether you were there or via television newscasts. I knew that the emotional toll wouldn’t end with wrapping of principal photography—or even the release of the film—for my name was now going to be associated with the tragedy in a very public way, which if I’m honest, was something that I didn’t want and took steps to ensure over the past 10 years.

However, an e-mail from a friend and fellow student at Columbine really put it into perspective for me. She told me if anyone was to make a film about our experiences then it should be one of our own and not some outsider who reads a couple articles and thinks they know something. She went on to say that the mere fact that April Showers focuses on those left alive versus the shooting and the shooter(s) themselves gives it a perspective that the general public isn’t aware of.

It was that e-mail, coupled with the support of friends and family, that tipped the scales for me and got the ball rolling towards making April Showers a reality.

MM: As a personal witness to the events at Columbine, how closely do the characters’ points of view follow your own? Are any of the characters modeled after you?

AR: I want to stress that while April Showers is based on actual events, it is a work of fiction. I used my personal experiences and the timeline of events, as I witnessed them, as a springboard to weave several stories into one film. That being said there are characters in the film that represent either real people or a collection of real people from that day, including myself. In the film, the character of Sean, played by Kelly Blatz, is a pretty truthful representation of my personal experiences and feelings, though I have to admit he (Kelly) is better looking.

MM: What do you hope audiences will take from April Showers?

AR: I really hope audiences come away from the film not taking anything for granted. It’s funny to me that this film has been labeled as a bit of a “downer” due to its intense subject matter. The film is bound to make people cry at some point but a lot of people come away from it changed in a good way. Audiences have been very appreciative and loving, which is a really awesome sight.

Personally, I was 17 years old when Columbine happened and prior to April 20 I was, for lack of a better word, bulletproof. My friends and I, we were going to concur the world and to hell with the rules. We didn’t care. April 20, 1999 gave a lot of people the world over a moment of pause. For me I had to grow up pretty fast, which is its own type of violence in a way. Ultimately, I had a tough time early on in my grieving process—not because of what I had been through or seen, but because of the things I left unsaid between myself and very close friends who didn’t make it out.

I don’t know why these things happen and I’m not sure there is one definitive answer. Sadly it appears to be a part of the world we live in now. I just know that over the past 10 years I’ve come to understand that tomorrow is a gift and the past is the past and it’s what you do with today that can make a difference. Don’t take anything for granted.

MM: Do you plan on continuing to make movies, and, if so, do you have any ideas or projects in mind?

AR: I love movies, I really do. I consider them the most powerful form of communication we have these days. I will absolutely make more films, in fact my producer, Jenna Edwards, and I have begun work on our next project entitled Dancing Carl. Dancing Carl is an adaptation of the popular young adult book by the same name written by three-time Newbery Award Winning author Gary Paulsen. We’ll be teaming up with many of the same crewmembers from April Showers, as well as a few of the lead actors, when we gear up to shoot later this year. Dancing Carl is scheduled for release in December 2010.

MM: To film this movie you used the Dalsa Origin II camera system, making April Showers the first feature film shot and finished exclusively in Cinema 4K. Tell us a bit about this system and what you hope it will help create for the audience.