No mountains left to climb

That's it. It's done. Adele has seen the movie, and she loved it. She said it was as if I was inside her mind and somehow made it exactly how she envisioned the way things took place. I really can't think of a bigger compliment than that. Other adjectives she used were along the lines of amazing, incredible, etc. She even said if I didn't get an A.... Well she said she would be really angry. Let's just leave it at that. Up until this point I had been really nervous about the on-campus showing (which is tomorrow, by the way.) But now that she has seen it, and liked it, it is such an insanely huge load off my mind. I am actually quite relaxed and looking forward to the whole thing tomorrow. I am only slightly nervous about something possibly going wrong with the equipment or something, but that wouldn't really be my fault, would it?

Driving home from the private screening, I reflected on the whole experience. What an immense feeling of accomplishment it was seeing someone in tears of happiness due to art I had created. Granted it was probably very sad and emotional for her to even see the footage of her son, but the overall feeling I got from her was one of joy and happiness, and it gave me chills to see the smile on her face. I could also feel my feelings of nervousness and apprehension for the on-campus showing go right out the window. I'm still a little nervous about the grade I will get and things like that, but in the end I realized that pretty much every single person in the world could hate the movie and that wouldn't even matter to me one bit, because all that really matters is that Adele liked it. Now, obviously I think it is a quality product and I know for a fact that many more people will like it, but knowing that it has her approval was like a giant boulder lifted off of my back. Like I said, I am now actually really looking forward to the showing tomorrow. A lot of my friends and family will be there, and since I'm not taking part in the graduation on Friday, this will be my ceremony. I really can't think of a much better way to close out my time here at this school.

This won't be the final post I make to this blog, but in a way, this is it. Tomorrow is the final obstacle to get through as far as this project goes. I got the idea to do this back in early September, and now, 7 months later, as corny as it sounds and for a ton of different reasons, I feel like a completely different person. From here, after tomorrow goes well (knock on wood) I will be digitizing the movie and putting it up on YouTube. I'm sure there will be difficulties proving to whoever that I have permission to use the music, but once all that gets ironed out it will be up for all to see across the globe. Stay tuned for all of that.

Final cut is complete

A day ahead of schedule, I think I can safely say that the final cut is complete. The final running time clocks in at exactly 23:57, over a minute shorter than the rough cut. Essentially I trimmed a few scenes that needed some trimming and reduced the length of the into montage which I feel makes the whole thing seem much tighter. I reordered a few things, and re-recorded the voiceovers. I felt the original ones seemed a little bit too much like they were being read off a script (which they were.) The new ones are a bit more conversational and flow better.

I feel like I could keep tweaking and tweaking a million things and regardless of how many times I did it I would still think of things that could maybe be tweaked a little more. I'm very proud of what I have produced, and I think the work I put into this definitely shows through in the final product. I realize it is not a perfect documentary, but I think for my first time through without having any prior experience in the process it is pretty darn impressive. There are many things I wish I could change or go back and do differently, but like I've said in previous entries, this was a learning experience for me. On the same note, while I wish I could change some things, I wouldn't trade my final outcome for anything. It is almost exactly as I had envisioned it from the very beginning, and it fills me with a sense of satisfaction to finally be able to say it's complete. I won't be able to fully put it to rest and reflect until after the showing on campus, and after the private showing with Adele. But for now, I am throwing caution to the wind and letting the chips fall where they may, and come Wednesday I will be turning in the final cut.

Keep an eye out for the latest issue of The Slate. There should be an article about the showing somewhere in there.

Focus group

The rough cut has been viewed by my supervisor and has passed the test in my book. The only comments I received on it were minor tweaks, such as audio levels and such which will most certainly be ironed out by the time I am done the final cut. Speaking of the final cut, I have secured a date for the showing of the film on-campus. Here is the flier I made:



So that's the date. May 4th, 2010. 3:30 p.m. Be there or be square. Now that I have a final date confirmed, it seems like the light at the end of the tunnel really has appeared, which I made note of on the Facebook group. Twice. If you can make it out to this showing it would really mean a lot to me. I think the theatre holds like 150 people, and if more people than that show up there's plenty of room to sit or stand up front. I'm totally not expecting that many people to show up. It would definitely be awesome, but I would be absolutely satisfied with around 30 or so people. I think I'll be able to muster that. I invited literally every Facebook friend I have, which is close to 400, so we'll see what happens.

Focus group tomorrow in Grove 006. I've got a few survey questions for them to answer to hopefully allow me to make this a better movie, then I've got under two weeks to tweak things for the final cut. I think they want it before the end of next week because grades need to be submitted early, or something. I am starting to get very excited.

Rough cut complete

The rough cut is finally complete. Or incomplete? Since it is a rough cut... Whatever. I budgeted my time, stuck to the schedule and came out with a pretty damn good (incomplete) product. There's really not too much that can be changed as far as I can tell, so I would say that this rough cut will probably end up being at least 90% of the final outcome of the film. So now I await comments from my supervisor, and begin working on promotional material for the on-campus showing. I hope to have that all done fairly soon, as the showing will be the first week of may. I submitted the form this week, but haven't heard back as far as confirmation or anything. I'm not too worried, as I doubt Orndorff Theatre will be being used much during Finals Week, but in the off chance that something goes wrong with that, I'd be fine with any old room in the CUB with seats that I can drag a screen and projector into. The date I marked off on the form was Tuesday, May 4th. That seems as good a day as any, so here's hoping the date sticks.

Interviewing with Kristen and Tyrone Wiser was interesting to say the least. They both seemed pretty nervous being interviewed, but they put up with me and gave me some decent answers to my questions. The more I thought about it while I was interviewing them, there really wasn't too much they could say. Obviously, it was a sad and tragic situation that they were very unhappy about. It was a sudden and unexpected loss, so there was really no "backstory" to their child's death. Obviously, talking to someone who had gone through the same ordeal as they had made them feel better. Since the other two interviews went so well, I was pretty much expecting to once again just point my camera at someone and expect them to know exactly what to say. It didn't quite happen like that for this interview, so the whole thing was really a learning experience for me.

What I had envisioned as a major part of the film became secondary to something I hadn't even originally planned on, in this case being the interview Dr. Raschid. The further along I got in the editing process, the more I began to realize how incredible the answers were that he gave me. He really became sort of the centerpiece to the movie, which is amazing because he was such a last minute addition to the film. I have expressed many times how silly I felt to not think of interviewing him earlier on in the process, but in this case the ends certainly justify the means. The whole process of creating a documentary is becoming more and more fascinating to me the deeper into this project I get.

So I now get to take a few days to recollect my thoughts. I am conducting a focus group after one of Dr. Garris' classes next Tuesday at 3:15 in Grove 006. By that time I will have a survey to give out, and I should get a lot of good feedback from people. At some point next week the rough cut will also be viewed by a committee, and feedback will be received from them as well. From there I will have about a week or so to polish up the rough cut and get it ready for grading and the on-campus showing. Wish me luck!

Back on track

The elusive 3rd meeting with my supervisor finally took place today, and everything seems to be back on track. I have been given an updated list of tasks I must complete now, and I have until April 30th to complete these tasks. I am going to have to budget my time quite well, but I see no reason why I shouldn't be able to get a satisfactory product out there, given what I have done up to this point, in a months time. I've got to really hunker down, but like I said in my last entry, I am going to man up to the responsibilities I knew I was taking on from the get-go.

Pacing is going to be a real issue for this film, but I need to make sure everything that needs to be said, gets said. The opening montage that I have edited was described as very difficult to watch by my supervisor, and this is partly what I'm going for. What I also need to be sure of is that it is clear what is going on in the opening (as it stands now, but that may change) montage, and that it does not mislead or confuse the audience. It has been my goal since the inception of this project to not manipulate the audience or exploit the subject matter, and that will be my goal for any other serious films I ever make.

I also want to throw out there how awesome it was to be able to bring my laptop in the meeting and show my supervisor my progress right in his office. It's not often that I am impressed by technology anymore, but being able to pack up my entire editing studio in my bag and have everything right there for him to view was really cool. This Macbook Pro has been worth its weight in gold, and I really don't know where I would be without it.

So I'm glad the meeting went well, I pretty much knew it would. Now I need to get hold of the other people who agreed to talk to me for the film who I haven't heard from in a while. It's odd trying to maintain a balance since this is such a touchy subject, as I'm doing my best to avoid hounding her. But at the same time, I've gotta get this segment shot as it's the last major part of the film. I had the idea today though of going by the maternity ward at Chambersburg Hospital and asking someone some questions relevant to my topic. Maybe more info regarding Post Urethreal Valve Syndrome? This could be a missing link. Next meeting with my Supervisor is Friday. I will bounce this idea off of him.

Progress

So once again it has been a long time between updates, I had originally planned to update a lot more than this, but I guess 1 substantial update every so often is at least as good as a lot of smaller, more frequent updates... Right? I have not done a very good job of keeping in touch with my project supervisor, and for that I feel extremely bad, but I think with all of the things that have happened to me this semester that I deserve to be cut a little slack. I have tried as best I could to not use my sister's death as an excuse for anything this semester, and to rather turn it in to further motivation to make this project kick as much ass as possible. And it is going to kick ass. I have tons of good ideas. I have just done a bad job of letting the people who need to know this, know it. There is a possibility that I may need to extend the project into the summer, apparently this is called getting a 'Q' grade for this semester. I guess it is kind of the way they give extensions for family emergencies and things like that. But I obviously really, really do not want to do that. I don't think it will even be necessary, and it is up to me to prove to my higher-ups that I am capable of doing this the "right way." They don't want me to just come in and smack a DVD on their desk and say here's the final product. Which I can totally understand. They want to see the process behind it and all of the things that are going through my head put on paper. I have always had a problem with doing things the "right way." When I'm interested in a project as much as I am interested in this, it is so hard for me to just not go ahead and do things my own way.

I've got to be able to do a better job in giving them what they want, the way they want it done. I am just of the opinion that the ends should justify the means a little more than it seems like they do. If I do a good film, which I am going to, I want it to be viewed from the context of the film and not how good of a student I have been over the past 5 years, or the past 2 years of grad school especially. I trust my supervisor to do this, but when other people get involved in the process I start to worry. The truth is I haven't been the best student over the past 2 years, but how could I not be a little burned out after 18 years of school? I am going to have to force myself do things the way they tell me to do them. I took on this responsibility when I chose to do this kind of project. I chose to do art, and something of emotional significance. I could have winged a lame-ass documentary about how awesome some department on campus is, or something. But it was my choice to not, and I accepted the increased responsibility of that from the get go and it's now my job to man up to that responsibility. I've made it this far and I am not going to give up now.

So getting more specific to the project, I have now worked up a two page Treatment, which is pretty much a revamped and much more specific of a handwritten document I had done previously. As far as I can tell this treatment is in the correct format, and maps out my exact plan for the film, a plan I have had in my head pretty much the entire time. This, along with some examples of documentaries that have influenced me (since these are what I will most likely be mimicking in my own film) combined with what I have already edited, should hopefully be enough to prove that I am still on track. I've been trying my best to do things for the project despite all of the things that have taken place, and that is something I can take solace in, but I have not been keeping informed those that need to be informed of these things. There are now essentially 7 weeks left of the semester, and I need to prove to everybody that this project will be done. It is no small task, but I'm going to do my damndest. Until next time.

So much has happened...

It's amazing to think that it has been almost a month since my last entry. Well, 21 days. This semester is going to fall through my hands like grains of sand if I'm not careful. But a lot of things have taken place the last few weeks that were both life and project altering. The first bit of news is a family tragedy, the night of January 27th my sister Shannon, died of a blood clot resulting from a minor surgery she had. This was (and still is) the most difficult experience I have ever gone through it my life. The pain, despair and emptiness were almost too much to handle. The day after this was discovered was quite possibly the longest day of my life. My sister was a wonderful person, as evidenced by the hundreds of people that showed up to her memorial service despite 5 inches of snow falling that day. It is just such a random, pointless event that nobody could ever be prepared for. The only thing I could think of that made me feel better was to dedicate this film that I am doing in my sister's memory as well, adding further emotional gravity to this entire project.

The other event that has taken place is the immense snowfall that has decided to envelop the entire Northeast. I'd say Shippensburg got easily about 3 feet of snow, spread between two crippling blizzards. As such, I have barely left my house in the past week, and the world is just now starting to crawl out from under everything. I have not been to either of my classes in two weeks now, due to my family emergency and now this. My original first filming date was February 6th, which was during the heart of the first blizzard. My rescheduled date is this Sunday, but I don't see how I can do any of the exterior shots I had planned with 2+ feet of snow on the ground. It may make for some interesting shots, but I am going to just stick to interior shots until some of this snow goes away. I've now had 2 meetings with Dr. Ellerbach rescheduled, and I know he wants to see some sort of script before I start filming, but Adele's schedule is so tight it seems like I'm unfortunately going to have to forego procedure due to all of these extenuating circumstances.

I finally got my MacBook Pro back from the shop, and it is working like a champ again. I captured the footage from the Hi-8, and my original plan was to edit the trailer from strictly this footage, but I now believe that is not going to work. I feel that I am going to need some other footage to make a sufficient trailer. It is just great to have my computer back. Two weeks on a netbook isn't great on the eyes.

That's about all of the updates I have for now. I hope it is understandable why I have been so silent for the past few weeks. It has been an unbelievable difficult time for me, but I will make it through. My band's first show at an actual venue is this Saturday night in Baltimore. Wish us luck.

Whatever can go wrong...

Yeah, you know that saying. I've been pretty much preparing myself from the beginning for a lot of dumb little things to take place throughout the completion of this project, and I'm trying my best to be as prepared as I possibly can for whatever might happen. When I opened my Macbook Pro up earlier this week and it refused to come out of sleep mode, I knew this was just the first in probably a series of frustrating events. Thankfully, since I'm getting college credit for this whole thing, I was bumped into full-time territory and will therefore be getting more loan money. With said extra loan money I went ahead and purchased a shiny new Frost White Toshiba netbook. This thing is totally beautiful and I wish I'd gotten one a long time ago. I've already Linux'd it up with Ubuntu, which is something I've been wanting to play around with for a while, so aside from minor keyboard annoyances, the wait time for my MBP getting repaired will be a heck of a lot less painful. I'm thinking I should have it back by the end of next week.

It's been a while, so certainly I must have a few updates. First of all, the project has been unanimously approved by all parties and is now completely official. Before it was just "assumed" it would be approved, but we all know things are better when official. Which they are now. Awesome.

I have finally met face to face with Adele, the owner of the foundation, and her husband and children. They all seem like wonderful people, and it's a big relief to have finally met them. I felt bad that it took so long to happen, but now that it has everything seems to be falling into place.

At the meeting with Adele I was given the footage of her son's life/funeral on Hi-8 tape, which I thought wouldn't be too big of a problem since I have my own camera... Which I then obviously could not find the charger to, rendering my camera useless. Thankfully, Dr. Carlin had one he was willing to let me borrow, so I've got that covered. I also picked up the camera I would be using to film the project with, as well as a clip-on LAV mic, so I've got pretty much all the technology I need to get this show on the road. Once my laptop is out of the shop.

It seemed like I had more to mention, but I guess this is good enough for an update. The first filming date is solidified for February 6th, in which I will be travelling to Chambersburg to film the grave site, as well as the interview with Adele at her house. I should be able to take care of it all in one day. Fingers crossed.

(500) Days of Winter

Just got done watching (500) Days of Summer. I wasn't really too thrilled with it, there were definitely some parts though. The presentation of the movie was fairly interesting though, and man Zooey Deschanel is gorgeous. I've still got Downfall to watch from Netflix, but I don't know if I should start watching that at 2 a.m. or not.. I'm really looking forward to watching it though.

Oh wait, this isn't a personal blog? Whatever, I'll use it to talk about whatever I damn well please. There hasn't been too many developments although I've finished the Syllabus for the class next semester that will get me credit for doing this project. Basically I had to write out a plan that says what I'm going to be doing, why I'm doing it, and what I will be gaining from it from a "scholarly" perspective. I've mapped out my semester, broken up into weeks, but we all know how useful schedules are when it comes to projects like this. I've just got to find one more book about working with a small non-profit client, add that to my Supplemental Texts section and send it on back to Dr. E. According to him with the changes I've made it appears that it will be ready to pass administrative inspection. It will be very awesome to have this project officially approved. Did I mention it wasn't officially approved yet? No worries.

Music negotiations with Temporary Residence have reached a standstill. See how I made that sound like a baseball contract negotiation? Anyways, they put me in touch with some broad from some other company, who sent me some form I had to fill out which I did and sent back to them. Their response was basically, "We need to see the video first before we can grant approval." While I guess this is understandable, I clearly described how I would be using the track in the form. Do people really go into film projects not knowing whether they will have licenses for the music they want to use? Oh well. Eff 'em. I'll just use entirely Caspian for the whole running time of the film. I realize Explosions in the Sky are a much more well established band, but do things really need to get that much more asinine when you hit it big as a band? The Mylene Sheath has been nothing but gracious during the whole licensing process.

I'm meeting with Adele, the owner of the foundation, next Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. I'm pretty nervous, as I often am when I meet people, but I'm sure it will go really well. Up until now my only communication has been through email, so it will be good to put a face to the name. I'll basically just be going over my plan so far, finding out what her concerns are, and scheduling times to film. I've only got through the month of January to film her segment(s), as she is also an accountant and the months of February through April are very busy for her. Hopefully I'll be meeting with Dr. Ellerbach sometime next week as well.

Anyways, that's it for now. More updates as stuff happens.

happy new year

Hello everybody. Welcome to the blog for the documentary film entitled in memory of connor kirby. While most people are out partying, ringing in the new year, here I sit watching game 1 of the 2005 World Series on DVD, frantically preparing things for this documentary. Well, maybe not so frantically, but I no longer have the excuse of "the holidays" to put things off any longer, and I'm going to be on a tight schedule. I think I'm up for the task.

My plan for in memory of connor kirby. is for it to be a 30 minute documentary-style film about the locally owned and operated Connor Kirby Infant Memorial Foundation. What this foundation does is give money to those who can't afford funeral services, burial sites, grave stones, even counseling for the parents of deceased infants. It's pretty amazing to think that there is a foundation like this based in such a small town, but as soon as I heard about what these people do I knew I wanted to work with them.

So right now my main priority is to finish the "syllabus" for the class that will give me credit for this project next semester. Thankfully I have a copy of one done by a former student who also did a documentary for his professional project, so I have something to model mine after. This should be a relatively simple task, however as soon as I reached the part where I talk about how I'm going to do a blog, I got sidetracked and actually created the blog. Oh well, it needed to be done eventually.

After the syllabus is done, I'll be going in to talk to Dr. Ellerbach (the project's Supervisor) to get some pointers on script-writing and planning. While the documentary will be largely comprised of interviews with people, I will go in with a general plan for the interviews and what I'm going to be asking, but plan for a lot of ad-libbing. There will also be voice-overs which will have to be completely scripted. I am aware that this will be an in-depth process, however I am hoping there will be quite a few moments throughout the film that I don't plan on at all. While my entire experience in the documentary genre is a 5-minute "mockumentary" for a class back in Community College, it has always been the unplanned things that I have enjoyed most about video creation. I think there will probably be many cool unplanned moments during the filming of this project.

I have gotten in contact with a couple labels about licensing music for the documentary. From the beginning I have envisioned the video opening to the track "Memorial" by Explosions in the Sky. After contacting Temporary Residence I was told it would most likely cost $100 a track to license. I am still debating on whether or not I want to use it. I also got in touch with The Mylene Sheath, which is an absolutely wonderful label ran by wonderful people. They have put out releases for bands such as Junius, Constants, Caspian, If These Trees Could Talk, Giants, Gifts From Enola, as well as many other awesome bands. They are a pretty new label and already have some of the best, if not THE best lineup of post-rock bands. All of the music by these bands fit the mood I will be trying to set with this documentary perfectly, and I've been told they will license me tracks for a "next to nothing deal" because they are just that awesome. I'll have more on that once they draw up contracts and everything is signed (I really don't want to get sued by one of my favorite labels!)

That's about it for right now. I'm going to be picking up the camera and everything to start filming next week. I'm really looking forward to things picking up with this project, I've been going over and over ideas in my head the past couple months and I'm really looking forward to making them a reality.