Submission Rush

We're waiting to hear officially from Cinequest as our premiere film festival. So let the games begin....in the spirit of 2006 being an olympic year. We're submitting the doc in a few other festivals in areas like Los Angeles, Nashville, TN, Ann Arbor, MI, in southern Florida, San Francisco, and Santa Cruz. We'll be submitting to some more like Seattle and Rhode Island as well. It's a lot of work putting together a plan for what festivals to submit to and when. There's a hierarchy in the film festival world and most festivals have a fee so as an indy filmmaker, we have to be very careful where we spend the limited money we have to work with and yet still get the doc out there to be seen. It's quite the balancing act. As producer, most of the responsibility of its success is on me. No pressure, though, right?

Well, besides getting it out there to be seen in film festivals in a theatrical environment, I'm also working with an awesome web developer who will be putting together a killer site full of resources, video clips not shown in the doc, audio clips and podcasts of interviews with different people on the subject and online registration for the COMPLETION conference plus a whole bunch more. I'm surrounding by very very talented people who know how to help get our site and this blog easily found by those who are searching for this kind of content.

Keep us, the doc and its accessibility in your prayers.

God & Gays: The Conference!

So, check this out...I just worked out on the treadmill and while I was doing weights, I turned on my iTunes and this great song from a christian band called RAZE came on. The song is "All Around the World" and I know all the words so I began singing them and dancing around the room in spontaneous kid play. The two cats, Matt and JoJo were sound asleep as I rebuilt up a sweat. While the song was playing, I started to visualize a meeting of some sort. By the time the song was over, I started introducing this agenda of topics for a conference that doesn't exist....yet.

I then scrapped my dayplanner schedule and began feverishly writing down all the ideas coming to my head. What would the topics be, who would speak, the time and date, what counseling would we offer, what breakout groups would we set up, where would it be, what partners do we get, oh and the food!...it was amazing. Then I did a bunch of research and found that the only conference on this subject is Exodus' version and that felt out of balance. So, now I plan on creating a conference to go along with the documentary. It's like a companion...like the Purpose Driven Life book and then the Purpose Driven Life Journal or Alladin the movie and then Alladin on Ice...except we won't be skating.

So, we'll have screenings of the doc and have the conference as an immediate outreach for those relating in some way....ANY way to homosexuality and christianity offering a network of support and compassion. Plus, we invite those who are gay and out but have been burned by the church in some way and feel totally rejected. Oh, if only there was stuff like this earlier...so many would still be with us...

Daylight? What's that?

Okay, we have a "rough cut" done of the doc. A rough cut is like an early draft of a major paper. Like a good finished paper, one needs to go through it several times looking for different things, each time. Editing is a huge time suck in the process of moviemaking. We had an intern working as editing assistant who helped log and digitize (name and put the footage in the computer) two of the three cameras we have to work with. The bulk of the editing is Luane's, the story layout is Luane's since that's what a director does for a documentary. As I type this actually, she's editing. While editing, we don't get to see much daylight or feel the outdoor temperature. I heard a story once that the editor of the excellent documentary SPELLBOUND sat for so long that he developed a blod clot in his leg.

Fortunately, we've kept this health hazard in mind plus a workout trainer friend of ours installed stretch software on one of our computers that goes off every once in a while to remind us to get up and do some stretching.

When we're editing, we don't really look at time, it's so focused and intense, always looking and listening. We forget to eat and bladders feel neglected. We do always have water at the desk so we are at least hydrated.

From here we move into the Fine Cut stage of the process which is adding more b-roll (b-roll is the footage that cuts away from the person speaking while the person keeps speaking) and cutting down the run time. Our first cut was...believe it or not...five hours. Then it went to two and we had two different people watch it for comments. Then we cut down to 1:45 for the rough cut. We've cut another seven minutes and the goal is to get to 90 minutes for the final. It's hard for this kind of subject, all the interviews are so great, it's really hard to cut anything. But, we're already preparing for the DVD bonus features...

PPD: Post Production Depression

Oh, man. We're in post production for the documentary so we're going through all the footage of the interviews and developing the organization and the story we have in the footage to tell. It's a fun part of the process since every documentary always starts with a plan and by the time you shoot and in editing, the plan has changed itself twenty times. It's like giving birth to a story you couldn't have dreamed of.

We were able to keep it together during shooting okay, but going back over and re-living the interviews and seeing these people be so vulnerable, sometimes scared, sometimes mad, sometimes guilty and three now with a criminal record, allowing themselves to be arrested in civil disobedience. For so many people in this country that do a whole lot of nothing, in this work we get to see a whole lot of people doing a whole lotta great things. They are a part of the solution, not the problem.

It's an honor to know them, but also realizing that here in 2005, not 1665, we are still getting lessons from God on how to respect everyone and love everyone unconditionally. It hurts so much to see people in pain...utterly unnecessarily in great great pain. Hours and hours of research and footage all about hurting people. People in soul-ful pain. Ugh, my gosh, it's just so hard to bare sometimes.

We are taking this work very seriously. It's about people's lives. Real people with real problems. It's a huge lesson in compassion for me. I hurt with these people. But I know there's hope. I know life can still be lived and won. I know it. My faith becomes more and more unshakable in this knowing.

It's so emotional for us, but pushing us to grow and be more spiritually available. We don't know what will happen with this work and it's already starting a life of its own, but I know working on it and seeing it coming to fruition has already changed my life.

Welcome!

Thanks for checking out our blog spot for resources, updates and an area for information swapping for those who want to converse about the documentary and what it says to you. Here we'll share more stories, resources and thoughts as we embark on this documentary journey. Please pass around this URL and encourage people who are doing their "work" to keep going and reach out often to safe areas for help and support. This spot is meant to be an intersection, a link, a connection for people who need a safe space and those who can offer it. Tell us your story, tell us how you can use support, tell us how you can offer others support. Take advantage of the web as a way to chronicle this current snapshot of where you are.

Please keep in mind that comments are being controlled and anything even dipping towards hate in any way, won't be allowed. This is a hate-free zone. That said, if you are willing to allow your story to be posted here, keeping your identity confidential of course, we might post and share where you're at as to help others who we may never hear from.