DOCUMENTARY TRIBUTE TO GAY-WEDDING GIFT: From the San Francisco Chronicle
 
He helped make the feather float in the opening scene of "Forrest Gump" and cows fly through the tornadoes of "Twister." But for Peter Daulton, a special effects guru at Industrial Light and Magic, it was a simple, sweet, no-tech gesture of kindness that inspired him to return to independent, documentary filmmaking.

It was Feb. 21 when Daulton first read about Flowers From the Heartland, a grassroots movement begun by gay co-workers in Minneapolis who had the idea to phone a florist in San Francisco, order a wedding bouquet and have it delivered to any random same-sex couple waiting to be married at City Hall.

Those co-workers wrote an e-mail encouraging others to do the same and forwarded it to friends who forwarded it some more. It soon bloomed into a nationwide bouquet bonanza with more than half of the 4,037 same-sex couples who were married receiving bouquets. Daulton, who is straight and lives in Novato with his wife, may seem an unlikely person to be so touched by the gift of flowers. But determined to document the people behind the bouquets, he spent six days filming weddings at City Hall and then took off on a two-week, 6,000-mile road trip around the country to interview those who sent flowers.

The result, a 25-minute movie, titled "Flowers From the Heartland," will premiere at the Castro Theatre next month. ...

Daulton had long been itching to get back into documentary films, and he decided Flowers From the Heartland was the perfect topic. He telephoned Michael Ritz of Church Street Flowers in the Castro on Feb. 24 to see if he could tag along on his many jaunts to City Hall and wound up spending six days filming the flower deliveries.

The film shows many couples tearing up and becoming speechless as Ritz gives them flowers and they read the accompanying notes with greetings such as "Best wishes for a long and happy life together. From, Bill and Kelly in Dallas." ...

Ritz also connected Daulton to those who had sent the flowers and on March 10, Daulton set off for his road trip, visiting 16 people in towns in Texas, Kansas, Nebraska and Minnesota. One of them was Greg Scanlan, who dreamed up Flowers From the Heartland in his office in Minneapolis.

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