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.