Endless Summer

What if we went on a filming trip to New Jersey and didn’t take any pictures? Would you even believe it happened?

Well, this past weekend, it did happen, and no, we didn’t bring back any photos. But we did get a certain former host of “Poetry Alive” at Cafe Espresso Roma to sit down in front of a camera for a while…

That’s magic interview No. 25. And it’s one of the ones requiring long-distance travel that we specifically raised funds for, so we’re pretty happy to have those in the hopper.

So how else have we been spending our summer since last time we posted an update? Glad you asked:

• We cataloged all existing archival footage, identifying people and places and associating them with time codes
• We got about 75% of a first-pass assembly edit of the film done. (This is just a rough cut of all the “new” interviews based on the script, sans archival footage or B-roll*.)
• We got a lot more releases and licensing agreements signed, which sounds boring, but will make life easier when we’re ready to submit this thing to film festivals.
• We got a whole bunch of old fliers reproduced to fulfill our Seed&Spark backer incentives
• And we edited and posted this nifty vignette featuring poet Dena Rash Guzman:

“That’s all well and good, but when will this dang movie be finished?”

Thanks for asking. Next up is finishing that basic assembly edit (including adding the new material we acquired featuring John Emmons), making sure the narrative is clear and compelling, and then layering in all of the fun old footage and new B-roll. We’ll throw in some temporary music for the score, opening titles and end credits, and then WHAM, we’ll have a rough cut that’s ready for feedback. Yes, we’re several months behind the schedule we laid out in January. That’s the way these things go, especially when your humble director is also the editor and the cinematographer and the producer and the legal department and, well, you get the point.

So, patience, friends. Oscar-worthy documentaries are not made in a day. Or a year, apparently.