The Week 2: Armuchee, Georgia episode of The Frugal Traveler is now online at The New York Times.
This was a challenging edit for a number of reasons, and as always editing a project in one day leaves little imperfections easily fixed later -- except there is no later to rely on. Nonetheless, I'm enjoying the process, and really learning a lot by doing it.
Just received an email that our short film Blind Faith: A Film About Seeing will travel to Kosovo in August for Dokufest.
Doug Whyte, Producer of The International Documentary Challenge, sent a note explaining that the IDC Finalists Showcase will be shown there. Details soon....
I spent yesterday cutting Frugal Traveler: American Road Trip.
It was a fun experience, and you really learn a lot editing on a tight deadline. More on the experience in future weeks: there are eleven more of these scheduled....
While you are out Friday night having fun, Ted will be appearing in a taped segment of Nightline about digital technology's effect on the family album. Ask the bartender to change the channel to ABC about 11:52 p.m. or so to see if he says anything embarrassing.
As always, as someone who makes documentaries, it is very informative to be a subject on the other side of the camera. Although, really, it was about as you'd expect. They set up a light, got me in the right place, put a microphone on me, changed the chair I sat in, got the correspondent into her spot, then shot. At the end they took a lot of cutaways. Nothing out of the ordinary, just good basic newsgathering.
For me, the viewing highlight of HotDocs was Heddy Honigmann's Forever.
As well, it was great that, despite an announcement that she was exhausted and unable to come to the screening, she dragged herself in at the end to take questions from the audience.
The film centers on Père Lachaise Cemetary and the visitors who come to it to connect to the artists, writers and musicians who are buried there. (Despite a few joking references to "Jim," the film avoids Morrison's grave, instead finding its subjects in the fans of Chopin, Modigliani, et al.)
I would love to see this again, since it is one of the best viewing experiences I've had all year, but also to try to understand its structure. The material of the film is amazing, but the real achievement here is how to make a film that takes place in a cemetary -- with a few side trips into the lives of the cemetary visitors -- into a compelling story that moves toward a satisfying ending.
I often claim that the reason I'm interested in Documentary film is that the material is essentially richer than fiction -- and I think this film may work as Exhibit A for that argument.
