I will be screening a rough cut of my new film, Indelible Lalita, at the Center for Independent Documentary on Thursday, April 14 at 7pm. If you are interested in attending - and providing feedback to help me finish the film - please rsvp and get directions here.
Videojournalism Workshop at Harvard
I had a great time over the weekend leading a videojournalism workshop at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard. It was intense - trying to teach the basic concepts and technique of shooting and editing videos in just two days - but it was interesting to approach videomaking from this new angle. And I loved getting to know this group of very distinguished journalists from leading institutions all over the world.
Two discussions kept recurring during the course of the workshop. One was about the complex equipment and technique required to shoot professional videos, and the reality that most editors send their journalists out with a tiny point-and-shoot camera and no extra staff or time to produce a video story on top of their print story.
The other question was about how the professional and ethical standards of print journalism translate into motion picture media. Is it okay to hack up an interviewee's sentences, in order to condense a 30-minute interview into 90 seconds? Print journalism has the ellipsis (...) to indicate edits, but there is no equivalent in video.
It was a neat experience - helped greatly by my very able teaching assistant, Julie Reizes.
Fundraiser for Our Place
A short video I produced was featured at a fundraising event for the Our Place Day Care Center for Homeless Children in Cambridge last night. The center, run by the Salvation Army, helps break the cycle of homelessness for families: while the children receive loving care and education, their parents can seek employment, job training, substance abuse counseling, or permanent housing.
The event was put on by the Cambridge Community of Real Estate Professionals, which has supported Our Place for 20 years. During the evening, Cambridge Mayor David Maher honored Majors Stephen and Betzann Carroll (above) for their decades of service to the Salvation Army. Congratulations on your retirement, Steve and Betzann!
Life in the Junkyard
I was just in New York and caught the first night of MoMA's week-long presentation of Véréna Paravel and J.P. Sniadecki's Foreign Parts. It's a wonderful piece about the inhabitants of Willet's Point, a junkyard-filled industrial zone slated for demolition under New York's eminent domain rules.
I appreciated both the supreme craft - meticulously framed, confidently held shots and complex, subtle editing - and the humanity of this film. The filmmakers clearly developed strong relationships with their subjects ("many Corona beers," was J.P.'s answer to one audience member's question about this), and refrained from either sentimentality or judgement. The result is a film which truly puts us there, in the wet, muddy shoes of these folks who scrabble a creative existence from a pile of auto parts.
Congratulations Véréna and J.P.!
Chicken and Egg Pictures grant
Chicken and Egg Pictures - a great "incubator" of social issue films by women filmmakers - just awarded Under Water's Mercy a grant from its WHICH CAME FIRST environmental film fund. We're very excited to be picking up speed as we bring the film to completion. Stay tuned for more information... including a final title!
Rough Cut Screening Thursday Feb. 24
This Thursday evening the Center for Independent Documentary is hosting a rough cut screening of Under Water's Mercy, a film by Sharon Linezo Hong that I'm editing and co-producing. The film tells the story of a young Native American woman who returns to her family in Louisiana and finds a man-made environmental crisis threatening their way of life.
You may find information about the screening here.
Kickstarter Campaign a Success!
I launched a Kickstarter campaign for my film Indelible Lalita - and I'm happy to report that we have reached our initial goal of $5,000 to cover sound editing and mixing.
With 26 days left to go, we're pushing to reach $10,000 to pay for some of the online editing and other completion costs. Please check it out and support the film!