See What I'm Saying

Starting the Assembly

Last Friday Sara and I spent about three hours going through Natalie footage; it's really an hour worth of material (culled from approximately 11 hours of tape), but taking notes and discussing everything takes time. So this is the beginning of what is called a "rough assembly"—getting down to the moments we're going to really structure the edit around. I'd say the longest part is going through the interviews several times, because you're really looking for a few sentences in an hour of talking, which just fries your brain.

Very nice to be able to have a thoughtful listener (that'd be Sara) when you've been editing by yourself, having someone else who is genuinely invested and interested is a wonderful feeling; one of my favorite parts of editing is watching someone else get sparked about the possibilities of a moment or phrase, especially if I feel the same way about it. ;)

I do feel like this time around versus 2004 we're much better organized so it's pleasing to feel growth and, and, and have not blogged about getting the BAVC grant. Very exciting - yes, the grant I was blogging about submitting not so long ago. Really, in 2007 I was saying it would just be so amazing and unbelievable to get a grant and with some training and work it's been happening. Unbelievable and amazing and, yet doable. Huh.

I've always thought that I wasn't really a filmmaker till I finished this documentary, but it is really moving to be recognized as one for the work you've done up to this point. And when I see other films, it's a tremendous feeling to know that on some level there's a kinship between you and the person who created whatever it is you're watching.

I saw two films last night at a local Arab Film Festival. The short film was so great—just a small piece on a comic and it made me realize how effective short and simple can be. The longer piece had great ideas, but felt looooooong and not nearly as satisfying. Afterwards, the filmmaker spoke and he was really endearing, they had done this very ambitious piece with 60 odd actors in two countries for $20,000 and his partner the director/write/editor essentially taught herself to edit to get the film done...it was
interesting to admire something quite a bit, but not connect to the film.

Wonder what I'll wind up with.

Houston/Beware of bonding with the dog

Back to logging and I’m into the Alysha footage. We caught up with Alysha at college in Houston where she’s a sophomore and just starting to live on her own! I didn’t do that till my senior year btw, but then again, Alysha’s jumped out of an airplane and climbed the Andes and Kilimanjaro at this point and yeah, that hasn’t happened (yet) for me either at 35 so no point comparing.

During the summer, Alysha had gotten her first seeing eye dog, Hammar (yes correct odd spelling) and Hammar is definitely going to stick with me.  In addition to being extraordinarily cute, Hammar just reminded me of Alysha – FAST.  That dog could sprint, and did.  Poor Jose had to keep up with Hammar and Alysha on a 90 degree day running the length of a huge campus, backwards with camera.  He was a little irritated about that.  Sometimes camera will have a spotter, in this case me, running behind them, to guide their movements and keep them from hitting things.  Something to think about when you see someone walking quickly towards the camera in a documentary frame.

Things got interesting later when we were doing our sit down interview and Hammar wouldn’t stop licking Jose; eventually they bonded and when we went to film Alysha walking the following day it got even tougher as Hammar would walk twice to catch up with his new friend Jose who now had to run twice as fast to film.  A cautionary production tale in allowing licking.

Grants

Last week was hectic. I took a break from the logging to get back into grant writing. This was grant number 5 and 6 for me; I did my first last year and while I can’t say it gets easier (for me anyway yet), I’ve definitely grown to be more appreciative of, than annoyed by, the process.

When I started this project, the whole grant writing thing seemed like it took up too much time. The odds of getting the money seemed too small and it just seemed like the wrong direction cuz I wanted to get everything done RIGHT NOW. Cut to 4 years later. (:)) I think it’s good that I just jumped in and didn’t let lack of money stop me from starting, but I also now recognize how useful it is to be able to go through a grant application. Primarily to be clear in my own mind if someone asked me what is the film about, what’s my plan for distribution – to be able to have well-considered, engaging, short answers to these questions is powerful.

I find sitting down and doing the writing bit really challenging, but it definitely builds…I’ve taken thoughts from last year and been able to grow them.  I don’t know if they’ll get me grants, hope so obviously, but even if they don’t, the answers feel much more like authentic guideposts, especially getting into grant 5 &6.