Screening this Saturday at Stanford

7PM at Meyer Forum, We'll watch an incomplete version of the film (alongside 4 other short films), then have a discussion.
Everyone is invited to share the experience.

Taking more time

I've premiered two pieces in California, and both were well-received. The first was a 3-minute trailer at An Art Affair, and the second was a 13-minute audio documentary, broadcast on FM radio with the Stanford Storytelling Project.

I'm putting more work into both pieces before releasing them online. If you don't want to wait, contact me and I will show you the drafts. Otherwise, I'll post both pieces here when they're ready for a general audience... Thanks for your patience!

Trailer showing this Thursday night at Stanford

This week I'll be screening a ~2min trailer of the film at An Art Affair at Stanford. After the screening (probably this weekend) I'll post the trailer here to the blog.

Alexis is working hard on the rough cut which should be "finished" on Tuesday night. This is super exciting, and I'm anxious to get feedback from a few people on how to develop the film from a ~45minute rough cut into a ~15 minute final cut.

Jon and I started working on an audio documentary about shooting the TRF film. We're working from 3 hours of audio material we recorded during production, as well as some of the audio from Alexis' rough cut. If all goes according to plan, it will air on Thursday, April 30 via FM and podcast.

Editing

Although this post is long overdue, it contains lots of great news:

a) We've taken on a new team member (Alexis!) who has been ferociously attacking the footage, breaking it apart into smaller, more digestible chunks. We currently have about 4 roughly cut sequences (about 5 minutes each), and two very rough sequences over 30 minutes long. Alexis has cut the majority of this material; she has really been a godsend to the project!

b) Here's one of those beforementioned rough sequences:
...we're not sure whether or not it'll be in the film, and if it is, it will be more polished. The image resolution will also be much better.

c) I'm heading to Texas in a week, at which point I'll get feedback from some of the people depicted in the film. After that, we'll do a couple public screenings at Stanford, of the unfinished film. Feedback from these screenings will help shape the film's direction (and also give incentives to keep working on it).

school, and the beginning of post-production (editing)

Well, our week-long whirlwind of production (filming) transitioned quickly into a month-long whirlwind of school-related catchup - who knew that missing a full week of classes would be so difficult?
Nonetheless, editors Jon (pictured) and Charlie have stepped up to the plate, and have made great progress already. Charlie finished capturing the footage (transferring it from tapes to a hard-drive) a couple weeks ago, and Jon is about halfway finished cataloging all 19 hours, shot-for-shot.

After this, we'll probably write word-for-word transcripts of the most useful material (probably about six hours of footage). This tedious work will allow us to handle the content physically, separating it into piles and organizing it into sequences for a "paper edit." Right now we're still on track for a Spring Break completion.

So we've gotten a great start editing, but we've got a long way to go... stay tuned and hopefully we'll post some clips and maybe even a trailer.

production!

Well, Jon and I had an excellent week of production, and have returned to California as of early yesterday morning. This year's Texas Rose Festival went quite well, and was well covered in the local media. Jon and I shot about 13 hours of footage, and our friend Michelle shot another 3 hours of Camera-2 footage; we primarily covered the coronation (front and backstage) and coronation rehearsals, and we also got great material from the Queen's Tea and the Rose Parade.


We didn't cover my brother closely, the way that I thought we would. Instead we got a more broad span of many people, focusing primarily on the event rather than the people. My current thought is that I'll be using a voiceover narration in order to string it together into a cohesive story... at this point, though, it's still too early to tell.

My adviser Jamie Meltzer recommended spending a whole week away from the footage, just so that I can approach it with a fresh mind for editing. The editing process will last at least a couple of months, and I'll be greatly assisted by my friend Charlie. I'm looking forward to it.


Also, many thanks to East Texas production companies Tripwire and N-Ventive, for giving us access to inexpensive/free equipment rentals.

Flying to Tyler in Two Days

On Tuesday morning, my friend Jon and I will fly to Tyler from San Jose to spend 5 days filming some of the events of the 2008 Texas Rose Festival, themed "A Royal Tribute to the Rose."

After much deliberation, I've decided to loosely focus this on my brother, Michael Rogers, who is escorting this year's Rose Queen Sarah Clyde. Because I know Michael much better than any of the other people involved in this year's Rose Festival, I should be able to capture him in a way that adds more depth to the film, highlighting the humanity of the people involved in TRF.

And we'll see how it turns out. There's a small chance that this film will be just as much about the Rose Industry as it is about the TRF; If this is the case, then I'll need to shoot some footage of rosebush transportation in December...

This week will be very important in shaping the direction of this film, and I'm looking forward to every bit of it.