After watching a national spelling bee on ESPN in 1997, director Jeff Blitz knew he had to bring this "sub-culture" to the big screen. His film, Spellbound, is now playing in select cities. Read on to find out why he chose this unusual subject as his first feature.

Q: How did you get the idea to make a film about the National spelling bees?

A: As a grad student in film at USC, I spent a lot of time fretting over what my first feature project would be out of school. On one of those rare days when I was kicking back, not worrying about my first big project, I happened to catch the final few rounds of the national bee airing on ESPN. This was in 1997. I had never seen a spelling bee, had never been in one but I was rapt. I knew, in that instant, that this would make a phenomenal movie. But I had never directed a documentary before. It took me a year to muster up the courage and another year to research the spelling bee "sub-culture" before I was certain this was just what I wanted to do. We began shooting in January, 1999.

Q: Why spelling bees?

A: It's kind of a funny question, a hard question to answer. Why a subject seems like a ripe one for a documentary… It's a bit like falling in love, actually. You don't really analyze why you feel so strongly, so suddenly, but you do. That's how I felt about making my documentary on the national spelling bee. I just knew in my bones that the bee was the perfect backdrop for a great, big American story. The kind of story I wanted to tell. One full of drama and laughter and pathos and intelligence.

Q: How do spelling bees represent the American Dream?

A: One of the wonderful things about the spelling bee is that it's kind of a blank slate that each kid projects his or her own meaning onto. It means different things for different kids. For some, it's a purely personal quest. But for others, like Angela, success in the bee suggests a bigger kind of cultural success. To master spelling suggests mastery of an American way of life. It's a complicated thing and one of the things I like about Spellbound is that it doesn't boil this down into simplistic ideas. Why each kid gets into spelling is unique and multi-layered.

Q: I understand you financed the documentary with credit cards. Have you paid them off yet?

A: This was the hardest part of making Spellbound. Producer Sean Welch and I collectively acquired 14 credit cards. For almost the whole process, we financed the film in this way. (Later, in post, we got some donations from friends, family and one grant.) In some ways, I feel a sense of reluctance in sharing this story. On the one hand, I'm incredibly proud that we risked so much because of our unshakable belief that people would respond and respond brilliantly to Spellbound. On the other hand, I don't want to be a bad example. For every Spellbound movie that will make back its credit card budget and then some, there are a hundred whose stories never get told. So, the bottom line for me is, it worked out very well for us. But it's not a formula I would recommend for the faint of heart.

Q: How did you decide on each competitor you profile in the movie?

A: Good sleuthing. In 1998, I did extensive research in two areas: first, I wanted to find great human interest stories. So, talking with past champions, bee officials and spelling coaches, I tracked down leads on stories such as Angela and Neil and Ashley. Second, I wanted to find kids who had done well at the 1998 bee and were likely to go far in the 1999 bee. We wanted subjects who were likely to survive far enough into the final rounds to give our audience kids to follow for the duration. We had a list of about 30 or so and culled that down to twelve or thirteen. Most we covered before the nationals. A few we picked up at the nationals and then went home with them after. I'm gladdened that Spellbound manages, without really trying to, to represent the amazing diversity at the bee. There are kids at the bee from every imaginable American background; socioeconomic, racial, cultural, religious, educational, familial and Spellbound does a decent job of having a good cross-section of the bee represented.

Q: Which aspect of spelling bees and spellers you were most intent on capturing?

A: That's an interesting question. I wanted, first and foremost, to create a portrait of the bee that would feel honest to the kids who participated in it. I felt that I managed to do this that Spellbound's audience would fell like the spellers do: they would feel the intense drama, the great humor, the rollercoaster of emotions. I also wanted to get across the idea that spellers project so much of themselves, of their dreams and ambitions, into the bee. It's what makes the event such a potent one.

Q: Are you a good speller?

A: I've gotten a whole lot better since making Spellbound.

Q: Do you love words? Do you have a favorite or least favorite word?

A: I am a word lover. I grew up with a vexing stuttering problem (that skill crops on the phone and at other random times) that, I think, made me pay attention to the significance of language long before most kids became aware of it. I, for example, had to always have synonyms ready because I never knew what words I might block on. It's this interesting in speech and language that inspired my interest in high school debate (I was a NJ state champion), in fiction writing in college and film in grad school. I don't have a least favorite word, but a recent favorite of mine is "ullage" which means "the part of a container that's not full." What a great thing, to have a word that means that. I once asked Ashley, one of our subjects, what her favorite word was, thinking I'd get some obtuse word (like the ones I've given). She said straight up, her favorite was "love". What an elegant answer, and from a teenage kid, no less.