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!