Week Thirteen: B-Roll and Editing

As we come to an close to on this documentary, I am really proud of all of the hard work that my team and I have put into this film. Our main course of action for this past week was to obtain all of our needed b-roll and to keep editing the film to our final cut. We met last Tuesday evening in the edit lab to work on editing down the interviews even more, figuring out a cleaner beginning, middle, and end for each interview scene. We also narrowed down what b-roll we wanted to film that would coincide with the interviews. As producer, I requested permission to film at all of the locations that we needed to, including on campus through the amazing Kimberly Howell. I also contacted the Head of Facilities of the Rec Center on campus to obtain permission to film there. It  took some time to hear back from them, but one cannot be afraid to make a few phone calls! We filmed yesterday in the Rec Center and have the rest of the b-roll shoot on Monday during our production day. We will also be utilizing that time to edit the film further. Overall, it's turning into quite the successful documentary.

Week Twelve: Cucalorus and Circles

This week was absolutely amazing with it ending with Cucalorus! It was a fun weekend filled with connections, fantastic films, and valuable Q&A sessions. We began the week as a group in the Edit Lab for three hours working on how we wanted the film to be edited as well as work out transitions. After much discussion, and Matt messing around in Final Cut Pro, we came up with our plan! Then we were busy this weekend attending Cucalorus. I went to the opening party, which I found to be interesting in both a negative and a positive way. I loved the location and the opportunity to network with people. It gave me the chance to talk with some fellow female filmmakers about Circles and I was recommended festivals to submit it to. But the music was very loud, making it hard to hear people.

We managed anyway and it was a fun night. I saw several features, including She's Allergic to Cats, Dark Night, The Arbalest, The Levelling, and Buster's Mal Heart to name a few. Most were followed with amazing Q&A sessions that made me excited and energized to be a part of this industry. I even got a chance to talk to the director and lead of The Arbalest (who also made the online sensation Too Many Cooks) and let them know how much I loved their awkward and amazing film. The real highlight of my weekend was the documentary entitled Tower. Using found footage a rotoscope animation, the filmmakers created a recreation of the University of Texas mass shooting from their iconic tower in the 1960s. It was even more inspiring that the producer of this film was a UNCW Film Studies alumni, essentially doing what I want to do. Though the comedy at Dead Crow was great and Jengo's was a blast, I am glad that I was able to watch the features and shorts from this year's festival. They truly reminded me of the pure magic of film and why I want to be in this field.

Week Eleven: Interview Wrap

And it's a wrap for our interviews! Thanks to the wonderful women of the Wilmington area, we now of all three of our interviews for our documentary completely done for our 495! All we need to finish is our b-roll for one of our interviews, and then we will be in strict editing mode! I am so excited that we are so far into our film. It's so easy to think about our first production meeting when Mariah was explaining this concept to us and now we can see her idea in real life! To get back to our final interview, we filmed it this past week on Tuesday at Working Films located downtown. It was a small space with limited seating, but it worked with our three subjects. The ladies were absolutely wonderful to film, telling us stories and great advice that fit into the theme of the film. I thought that they would tell us more old anecdotes to life, but they were very bright and vibrant and realistic. I know that I say this all the time, but I truly enjoy producing when it can connect me with people in the community, bringing greater connections and friends in film and in real life. It's nice to have a community supporting you and I am glad that that is happening here in Wilmington.

Week Ten: Our Teenage Interview

We finally got our teenager interview! I am so excited that we have this interview under our belt! This past Friday we drove up to Raleigh in order to film a group of teenagers connected to us through Mariah and her family. Unfortunately, our trusted sound mixer Matt couldn't be there but we were able to get a replacement sound guy for the trip: Alex Matthews. Hugh (with a small bit of help from me) packed up the equipment and headed to Raleigh. Alex, Mariah, and I drove separately up to the home of the family of one of our teenage subjects. We then set up, introduced ourselves to our subjects, and then began filming the interview. The teenagers were very nice and open and we think we got a good interview out of them. I also confirmed that we will be filming our grandma interview on Tuesday evening with three women in their early sixties downtown. I was able to confirm with them a time and a place that worked best with our subjects and my crew. We are working tonight in the edit lab to finish up the details of editing our rough cut. We are excited to see the outcome.

Week Nine: What's Cooking, Grandma?

I can't believe it's already week nine! Scheduling keeps proving to be a somewhat tricky thing but we are almost done with film! After a very productive meeting this prior week, we were ready to film the final narrative scene of our film: our wacky cooking show starring three older women. We had a really great location that was easily transformed into what looked like a cooking show studio kitchen. The actors were phenomenal to work with, excited about our project as well as about our lives. They're grandmas, so what did you expect? Thanks to great costumes, props, set dressing, and location, we were able to wrap our scene without our allotted time frame for filming and form a bond with new film enthusiasts of Wilmington. We didn't struck gold all weekend; our interview with one of our teenager groups (one of two) canceled at the last possible moment for tomorrow, making us put a lot of weight on our other interview. We are scheduled to go film them next Friday in Raleigh. Since Matt is busy, we are looking for a replacement sound recorder for the trip. I am also in contact with our grandma interviewee and we are setting our interview for next week.

Week Eight: Keeping On

This was a really good week! I had been working this week on securing our grandma subjects for our final interview. I sent out another announcement and I received three women interested in being interviewed. I also spoke with a former Film Studies student about reaching out to more women. She gave me some great advice that I am glad she was able to provide. We also touched base with our teenage subjects, who we feel will best represent their segment of the film. On Sunday, we reshot the teenager scene that will open the film. Our teenage actresses were gracious to come back and do the scene again. Don't worry, we paid them in pumpkin spice lattes and other Starbucks drinks. For this shoot, we changed to a ursa mini instead of using the sony a7s2, which our director of photography, Hugh, seemed to be a lot more comfortable with. We took our time on set, reviewing all footage. I'm glad that we reshot the scene and I am glad that my team is willing to work so hard for this documentary. This week, I will be finalizing details for next weekend's shoot. I have confirmed our location for our grandma scene and received location photos so I'm excited for that! Overall, good week!

Week Seven: Fall Break?

The end half of this week has been Fall Break, usually a time for students to relax and spend time with their family and friends. For filmmakers, Fall Break is just like any other weekend. With only a few weeks left in our Indiegogo campaign, I have spent my break talking to my immediate and extended family members, asking them to support the cause. I have also been following up with the teenage actors from our narrative scene about reshooting next weekend. We also have been getting connected with our mother and grandmother actors to bring us in contact with our grandma subjects. I reached out to a lady recommended to me by one of our grandma actors and I am currently waiting to hear back from her. I have confirmed our location for our grandma scene, which will be at my church. It has a kitchen in it that will work perfectly for the scene. Our facebook page has been getting a lot of attention, acquiring one hundred likes in the few weeks that we have launched it. All of October, the crew has been working hard on making the film the best that it can be. We will continue to work just as hard for the rest of October.