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.

Week Six: The Weekend of the Moms!

Okay, the title of this week's blog post is a little misleading, especially since we started the weekend off with a meeting with our grandmother actresses. We talked to them in person about the project in more detail and they said that they really loved the concept of the film. Once we completed the meeting, we had a photo shoot with the grandma actresses for our poster, which we decided to use for the cover of our Indiegogo campaign as well. Mariah and I worked worked on the campaign this week as well and we launched our Indiegogo after our meeting on Oct 1st! We are really excited for the campaign's run!

Saturday afternoon we filmed our first interview: our mom subjects! We filmed three friends in one of their homes, which was beautifully decorated in greens, blues, and beige. They dressed in neutrals to contrast the colorful wardrobe of the mom narrative scene. The interview scene was great! We were so happy with the content they spoke among themselves in the casual group interview setting. Today we filmed the mom narrative scene. For this satirical scene, we had the moms look as if they were from the 80s, with colorful backdrops, retro home phones, and a wardrobe that scream 20th century. "brat pack" style! We are really happy with the way it turned out!