Dueling Conferences & the Clueless Mormon Family

People have been sending us the article in Fort Lauderdale about the two dueling conferences vying for the attention and attendance of christians struggling with homosexuality. There's the Love Won Out and Love Welcomes All conferences in May. There was controversial coverage in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel on it that got a lot of people buzzing.

People have asked us if there's a big enough audience for our movie. Just the fact that at least 80% of America claims it's Christian and yet the continued rise of discontent, division and overall unhapiness could be enough. When I think of the size of the budget that Exodus has at a global level and other "ex-gay ministries", and the continued talk of the constitutional amendment and that it's over the battle of traditional marriage and traditional family, it's hard to escape the influence of religion. So, just look around. Read a paper. Visit a homeless shelter, a teen drop in center, psych hospitals in Arkansas, emergency rooms, read obits of a family who has no idea why their kid committed suicide...it's all related. We're all related. So, yes, there's an audience for this movie. Yes.

It's just a matter of will they step up and give it a chance to bring their family together again. Or at the least, let it bring themselves back together again.

Let me explain the clueless family statement. Our family has life-long friends who are devout mormons and moved to Utah when the younger kids were still small. When one of the kids, the 18 year old became distant to the rest of the family and meetings and talk was happening about his required missionary service, I got worried. Then, I heard the tragic news that the 18 yr old killed himself. The family was stunned, completely at a loss for explanation. They say there was no note, no signs, they struggle at understanding the why. Life was so perfect, love abounded in their home. They were very involved in their church. What could have been 'wrong'?

If you've ever wondered if the gay-dar thing is real, this is a solid example. I knew why. It's one of the reasons we made this movie. The isolation one can feel inside when knowing who we are but not seeing how it can be reconciled in reality can be and is deadly for some. The division of the "should" and the "is" in our heads and hearts can seem hopeless.

There's nothing divisive about oneness and that's what all this is about. Hope you'll see the movie and take it in.

Happy Easter

Well, this weekend is Easter. Good Friday is about the crucifixion of Jesus and Sunday is about the resurrection. We celebrate it with food, egg hunts and family...and for sure going to church. The bummer I find in knowing several christians is come the day after Easter, life lived in suffering continues...we immediately forget that Jesus rose, defeating suffering, defeating death.

How come we stay in the death? We live our everyday lives believing we deserve to suffer? Maybe you're saying...hey now, I don't walk around all day moping or crying or in constant pain. Are you sure? Are you as happy as you could be? Where are you not aligned with yourself and the world around you? Just as our spines need adjusting by chiropractors and we feel pain, suffer illness and headaches if we don't, we need to be aligned, making adjustments along the way to keep ourselves strong and healthy - physically, emotionally and spiritually. If people base their life on a teaching and faith, why are so many Christians irritable, unhappy, and unsatisfied in their work and family life? I don't get it.

Modeling life on how Jesus lived his is awesome, and his actions followed his beliefs.

Beliefs drive behavior.

What we believe about ourselves shows in everything we do and say.

How we do anything is how we do everything. I credit T. Harv Eker for that profound statement. Test it our for yourself...it's amazing what we can learn about ourselves when we care enough to look.

So, at this Easter time, I encourage us to make different, more positive, more self-supportive choices in the moment, every moment, and see what happens with our beliefs and therefore our attitudes which leads to overall feeling like we really are living life. We are alive. Jesus is alive. He had a mission and he filled it. What's yours? How are you doing in being honest with yourself and God in filling it? If you aren't going for what you came here to do, the world is currently living with that void that only you can plug up. Please, don't rob us here in society any longer from your gifts, talents and offerings. We need you! This is one huge way we can eradicate lack from our life, society and world. Live alive!

Happy Easter everyone from all of us here at God & Gays.

Let the Race Begin!

After our outstanding showings at Cinequest, the race begins on how we get God & Gays out to a theatre near you. We have been contacted by Hollywood, New York and Europe with offers and methods of distribution. We're thrilled they see the need to get this film out and so we're in discussions on the best way to roll out the doc to nationwide outlets.

I'll be honest that I don't know how soon this could happen. It's really important to us that we work with people who have a heart for this project and want to see it succeed and are willing to work their magic to allow that to happen. We cannot allow this movie to gather dust on someone's shelf while we enjoy our advance. Nope. Can't happen. We're careful of who gets involved in this project at any part of the process as to give it the most love and care possible.

It's our baby. We created it. Just as having a kid procreated by two people is made out of love (hopefully) and there's dedication by the parents to nurture, protect and teach it skills to be self-sufficient, we have the same commitment to God & Gays. We made this film out of love and we're on our way to being empty nesters and letting it move on to its destinations.

A Woman Cried on my Shoulder

I gotta tell you, meeting so many incredible people at the screenings and the conference was what really kept us going...we were so out of steam with putting so much work in getting the movie ready to show, the PR to get the word out with no advertising or PR budget, prepping for the conference and then running it...plus we have jobs that are keeping us financially afloat with all this mayhem going on.

My hives are better, by the way. I'm starting to get some sleep. I slept from early last evening and most of today and I plan on sleeping more before sleeping the whole night. Sleeping is all I'm capable of right now...oh, and this blog. I'll have to proofread this several times, I'm sure.

Anyway, we met many unforgettable people...two guys who went to two of our three screenings and our conference pronounced themselves officially "groupies" to the older men who just come up and with a strong handshake, quietly and quickly say, "thanks" before rushing away.

One woman in particular felt comfortable enough to tell me that she has been struggling with being gay and Christian for 15 years. Now, by looking at her, she doesn't fit the media stereotype of a gay woman. That's something else we say in the documentary...gay people come in all kinds of shapes and sizes, just like straight folks. Again, no difference. And in her situation, her looks allowed her to blend and not be noticed and questioned...which was also part of her internal pain.

The woman said the struggle of spirituality and sexuality was so difficult for her and caused her lots and lots of pain. She didn't want to leave Christianity, she loved God and she knew who she loved here on earth. All of it was clear but the stigma, culture and people in her life who made it much more difficult than it should have been.

We talked briefly about how our upbringing of seeing sexuality and spirituality as separate was a big fat lie...and that's when she lost it. And I totally understood why. The first time I had that epiphany, I lost it too. She cried, I cried and the subsequent people in line after her were all crying. The next five people I saw after her were all wiping tears away.

We really are all one.

Sunday Morning Special

Okay, our final screening at Cinequest is over...we are so sad! The morning audience was really incredible too. First drama was us being so exhausted from the whole week and especially the conference that to get up, unload our cars from the conference stuff and get out on the freeway in time was a challenge. Next, we find that Highway 17, for the first time in thirty years mind you, is closed at the summit due to snow! This is central California! There's no snow here!

So, we had to drive the loooong way which of course made us late and we missed the opening of our movie. We snuck in while it was playing though and got to enjoy the movie with a few hundred people who got up to see a movie on Sunday morning at 10.30am.

The Q&A was really powerful. One person asked us why we were so nice and not angry after knowing what's going on. I totally understood her question and I assured her that we had been through quite the emotional roller coaster while making the movie (see earlier posts for more). However, we can't stay that way. We aren't affective if we stay down in our lower selves. We have to get and stay in our higher self to do the work that needs to be done. We are in the results stage of the process and how can we be mad when we've got a hundred glowing faces looking at us with such gratitude for telling such a compelling and realistic story?

One thing we said in interviews was that we have been very deliberate in steering the conversation to what all of us can agree on, and where we are similar because from there, we have things we can talk about and learn from. If we go with what our differences are, then that stops growth. That stops listening. And that is unacceptable in this dynamic life.

Thank you to everyone who got up on a Sunday morning and watched a movie. Major kudos to you.

It was really wonderful meeting people at the screenings and the conference. It was a pleasure for all of us to get together and share an experience. We're looking forward to the movie continuing its journey around the states.

First God & Gays Conference Goes Smoothly!

Oh, man...I'm so running on fumes right now. This last week has been such a whirlwind, there's no way to prep for something like this. Fortunately, I had outstanding help from volunteers in setting up and running the conference. It went so smoothly, I was almost creating problems to deal with.

I also discovered during some down time that I broke out in hives. My mom flew in from Utah to be at the showing last night and help at the conference and thank GOD she did. She's the one that noticed my itching and red lumps and ran out to get me some goop to put on it and make me sit on my hands to stop itching. That was fun.

We had people come to the conference from over an hour away and in the morning they were quiet and shy and by the afternoon, they were laughing, relaxed and looking really happy. I was just thrilled to see people shift once they realized what our environment can provide people. We had PFLAG there, pastors from several open and affirming churches and christian denominations, an incredible choir lead by Valerie Joi Fiddmont, great food from Camille's catering that they donated to support the event...over 100 people were there. It was just so alive. It was an incredible experience.

The afternoon small breakout groups brought lots of people to share a lot of their pain and lots of tears came out...connections were made, stories were heard and people finally felt truly loved and accepted. I'm telling ya, it was just an incredible experience. My description isn't coming close to how awesome it was.

So, I guess you'll have to come to one the next time we hold a conference and see for yourself!

Showing #2 at Cinequest Sold Out!

So, we just had our second sold out screening at Cinequest. What a blast. We had a dinner for the people who are in the doc or on the crew and it was such a trip to see so many of us all together in one place at the same time. When shooting, no one knows each other...Rev. D doesn't know about Jason, Mary Lou doesn't know about Darlene and Mel White doesn't know about anyone as he's in Virginia fighting his good fight. So, to see these people talking and having such a big part of their life, mission and their identity in common...needless to say the conversation was always very interesting.

The audience was just as hyped as the audience for the premiere on Monday. It was so awesome! Our showing was at 9pm so it was after 11p for the Q&A and the place was still packed. The questions were great, we got lots of time afterwards to talk to people individually, got to hear a lot of amazing stories.

We flew in Mary Lou and her wonderful husband Bob all the way from Arkansas to come to the screening and speak at the conference. They were tired but great troopers. We brought Jason in from Los Angeles and he of course was wonderful to have around. That guy is so frickin' funny. He did tell us that his nephew is having his bar mitzvah this weekend and he wasn't invited so he was glad to be with us and doing the work with us. If you've seen the movie, you know his heart-wrenching story about the loss of relationship with his sister and how he's never met her kids...and now one of them is old enough for a bar mitzvah. Ouch.

Overall, it was fantastic meeting people who had come from all over the country at the movie. One woman has a strong uphill challenge on her college campus in Minnesota trying to her LGBT group and the christian campus ministry groups to work together. Oh, man. The stories we hear...

Thank you to everyone who came out to the late version of the show! Now, it's some sleep before we run the conference all day tomorrow and then a third screening on Sunday morning. Rest when we're dead, right?

Third Show Added at Cinequest!

Wow...and the hits just keep on coming! We've sold out our two scheduled shows at Cinequest and they have just scheduled a third in their 1100 seat theatre! That's the good news...the funny news is their only availability was on a Sunday morning. I teased the programmer that for any other movie, that would be great, but this one movie on a Sunday morning? Where does most of our audience spend Sunday mornings?

Well, since services can be on Saturday nights these days, hopefully we'll get lots of support. The challenge now is to promote it and let people know it's there. That's the big challenge...we'll let you know how it goes.

Sunday, March 12th 10.30am California Theatre downtown San Jose. Tix available at box office and online. See you there!

World Premiere of God & Gays a Huge Success!

Woo Hoo!!! We are on such a high right now, words just can't do it justice. We held a thank you reception for people who touched the project in some way before the premiere and over 70 people showed up. We had an open bar and vegetarian appetizers at the Blue Monkey in San Jose. At one point, the entire executive staff of Cinequest arrived...the founders, the program director, the PR director, the PR staff...I've never seen all of them in one place before.

Then, as we get to the theatre, we see this line at the box office with over 100 people in it. Then we walk into the theatre and our screeening is on the third floor. As we're walking up the stairs, we see the line for our theatre down all three floors, around the corner in the lobby and outside.

We are just in awe.

The Cinequest staff tells me they've never seen such demand for a film and tell me we're sold out for the premiere and for the second showing on Friday so they have to figure out how to accomodate all the people in the box office line by scheduling a third showing.

The energy was just electric in the theatre and all through the line. The crowd was fantastic. The audience was at least 90% heterosexual couples, all kinds of ethnic backgrounds. I saw pastors there I knew from my past when I worked in doing drama productions for churches. It was just fantastic to see the curious and willing show up and be interested in how they can be a part of the solution. They will help so many people in their world. One guy who came with his girlfriend told me after the show how his mind was just racing on ways he could help make himself be a safer person for people to be who they are, as they are. I didn't know this guy at all and he was compelled to really share that this movie really challenged him and how empowered he felt to be able to do something.

We had a ton of comments...all of them positive...that we'd love to share with you. Right now, I need rest...if I can sleep. We'll see how Friday goes. We're so thrilled! Thank you to everyone who came out to the premiere. Your presence and enthusiasm really matters.

Straight, married, white men love the movie!

We had a recent big ah ha. We've been getting interviewed for the Cinequest premiere by a lot of San Francisco and San Jose mainstream press and every one of the reporters have been straight, white, married men. They tell us they "had no idea this was going on" and by their other comments, they clearly get what we are trying to say and do. Some grew up Christian or the like and have since not been affiliated with a church. Their comments were striking to us as it helped us understand our scope of people who can really rally behind these people and these issues in the documentary. We were extatic to have their support, it gave us great hope that they are representative of a truly thinking public that will accept this movie and be moved to make positive change in their world.

So, a little on how the PR process has been working lately..we partner with Cinequest's PR team to come up with ways to pitch our movie to press outlets. They have a bazillion of movies to push, they only have so much bandwidth so it's up to us to kick it into gear and make it happen at a grass roots level. When Cinequest gets a request for interview, they contact us, acting as our PR rep since most of us indy filmmakers can't afford a PR person on retainer.

Lately, we've been contacted by the Metro, San Jose Mercury News, KFJC radio, KUSP radio, the Spartan Daily and several others have put us in their events calendar.

We've grown up in this area so seeing this community give back to us and support the movie means a lot.

Metro Cover

Okay, we've been working hard...Cinequest has been so fantastic in working with us on all kinds of PR opportunities prior to our showings next month. We've been interviewed for a cover story in Metro San Jose and Metro Santa Cruz. Richard von Busack is the Metro movie reviewer and he is widely very well respected. He met with us recently in a coffee shop in our little town and spent over an hour with us getting to know our movie and what we're all about. It was a great conversation. The result of that conversation can be found on our website under press links.

They did a photo shoot with us and a couple of the photos I really liked. Although we didn't have the whole Hollywood makeup and hair stylist team helping us out, it really is amazing how much better we look in photos. Weird. It was a windy day and we were on a roof so my hair is doing all kinds of fun frizzy things. It has a lot of natural wave in it and whenever it can, it'll curl up. I can easily make my hair look like I've done a perm. Although I'm not a fan of the frizz, I do like having multi-talented hair.

Anyway, the experience was great. We've been contacted by several other press outlets and we are just swimming in a pool of appreciation that these guys are interested and care enough to get this movie out into the public discourse.

Screening Dates Announced!

Okay, we got word from Cinequest of our premiere dates and times:

Monday, March 6th 7.15pm and Friday, March 10th 9.30pm at Camera 12 Cinemas in downtown San Jose.

We're so excited to have the dates down. This morning we attended the Cinequest press conference and got to eat yummy quiche and sit next to a major newspaper writer while trying to not dribble my orange juice. We were one of three films featured by Cinequest at the press conference and it was an honor to be there. I ran into old radio friends of mine there. It's funny, since I worked in radio for eight years before crossing over to the visual medium, I have a sense of compassion for people working for big corporations like my radio friends do. On an individual level they totally support what we're doing and the curse is they are major media figures and due to corporate content qualifications, they can't touch subjects like this. Their stations are meant to create entertaining content to allow people to forget there's war, poverty, discrimination and the like. So there's no room for discussion of real issues like this on their airwaves. Makes one wonder how much we don't hear. How much content isn't talked about because it's too real.

Well, that's why there's documentary makers and film festivals. So, support them if you want to hear different stories and not just the message that "everything's just fine, now go back to WalMart." Speaking of which, have you watched the recently released WalMart documentary by Robert Greenwald? Make sure to watch the DVD extras, especially the parody commercials. Oh my gosh, the "sales associate" had me in stitches with that canned opening. That's a dream job for me, doing parody commercials...anyway, you can get the doc from NetFlix and a bunch of other outlets. Check it out. Don't be afraid to learn more about the wizard behind the curtain.

The Conference is Homeless

So it goes with event planning...you start with your dream and then life comes along with its lessons in variables and knocks out pieces here and there along the way. Where we wanted to hold the conference originally didn't have our date open due to a Quinceanera.

So, we're looking for a home to host our first Conference after the Cinequest showings. It's really important to us that we go to a church that is authentically open and affirming...it's not just a tag line AND it's not just for GLBT people.

Seriously, if we really want equality, then we have to live the equality we want to see for ourselves. Hmm...sounds like a good blog topic. I'll talk more about that when I'm not shopping for a venue.

Do You Love Me for Who I Am, or for What I Do?

I had breakfast with Rev. Deborah Johnson and Valerie Joi Fiddmont yesterday morning talking about the God & Gays conference. They are both in the documentary along with Mel White, Darlene Bogle and Mary Lou Wallner, all established leaders in this issue.

So, we start talking about how there seemed to be in our growing up within the christian church an intentional separation between sexual identity and spirtiuality. Latest example? A Dr. Phil episode. A woman was on saying she is a PK (pastor's kid) and at 18 had strong sexual feelings for her boyfriend. When they slept together, she felt such guilt that 10 days later they married. She's not on Dr. Phil telling the world how great their marriage is...even after kids of course. She's miserable. He's miserable. The kids are miserable.

Anyway, back at breakfast, Rev. D said that with that kind of learning, that kind of indoctrinating, the question deep down becomes for all of us, no matter the struggle we're in: do you love me for who I AM or for what I DO? If I know in my own personal truth that I'm gay but learned this after kids and marriage, I may fear how my husband and my parents or other family members may handle the news. Is it noble to stay in the marriage to please everyone else's agenda of what I should do knowing I cannot love my husband fully as he deserves and vice versa, having that lack of affection between parents be the norm for my kids and lose those years in a waiting game? Live in a broken home or rise up out of one? How do I live authentically, as I am, for who I am amidst these consequences? Some of us know the answers, especially if we're not in the situation...easier said than done.

Nonetheless, the lesson, the challenge and the question remains. The people who love me will love me for who I am: perfect, whole and complete. A work of art uniquely created by God. People who ask me to pretend or "do" something that isn't me and I oblige is my choice but also my situation that I create. If I'm unhappy, I made the choices to get myself there. If I'm not happy, I sure know that the people around me aren't either...not the kind of life I want (and choose) to live. But, I can choose differently. I work on being me and the fruit will bear from there. That's where faith helps me a lot. I gotta love me for who I am and not what I do too. I can't ask anyone else to do that until I can do it for myself. Rock on...

We're in Cinequest!

Okay, it's official. We're premiering the documentary at Cinequest which is rated in the top ten film festivals of the world and it's held in San Jose, CA. The doc is in the Documentary Competition so we'll have at least two screenings which is incredible. Our publicist at Cinequest is a fan of the doc and we're so grateful to have her helping us get the word out. It makes a difference when one works on something that one really feels passionate about and worthwhile. The programming guy at Cinequest is a huge fan too and working very hard to have the screenings at times and days most accessible for the greatest amount of people to come. It's awesome working with these professionals. This is a "2" year for us numerology-wise, from what I am told, which is about partnership and patience. So, having partners like Cinequest, PFLAG, SoulForce, First Congregational churches and Inner Light Ministries is great company to keep. life is good.

Everybody Has Their "work"

Something I find really interesting is lately I've been watching Oprah. There was a woman who lost something like 160 pounds and she mentioned identifying with transgendered persons because she felt like a totally different person on the inside than who people saw on the outside. She always felt she was a skinny person but she was instead morbidly obese. First of all, kudos to her for putting more humanity and understanding to the transgendered reality. Secondly, kudos to her to put the dots together and feel a common link even though the "work" of weight wasn't exactly the same as gender identity.

Then I saw an episode of these beautiful creatures of God who whole-heartedly felt like they were as ugly as monsters. Oh, the pain they are in! Such distortion from their mind and the lies they believe about themselves. Oh, and the families of these people just felt so helpless, such dispair.

So, it became abundantly clear to me that even though there's such a focus on gay people (and nay a mention in the mainstream media of gay Christians) and their struggle when EVERYONE has their own struggle. I'm a teacher and I once had a student who is an NFL cheerleader. She didn't "come out" as a cheerleader to me until Finals. I asked her why she didn't live her truth and she was afraid of people not liking her, thinking she was sick or desperate or confused...the list went on but does it sound familiar?

There was another woman in her late thirties who still looked and acted like a six year old child when talking to her mother. She couldn't stand up for herself. She couldn't realize her potential as her past seemed to oppress her.

So, my work, my struggle in finding out who I am was about being gay and Christian, so it is with anyone else. For someone else their work is getting back their power from family members and doing the occupation they want. Oh, that reminds me again of some other students...so many have come from Business school or computer science and the like. They start in those majors for their parents, they say. Fortunately, they realize that is their parents' life and not theirs and went to a program they REALLY wanted to be in. Sometimes we get support, sometimes we get rejection, but as Oprah says, "the people that love you, will love you."

Our work is about having the courage to be who we are. Living our truth. Because we have to live with ourselves. We have unique fingerprints for a reason. That's not a mistake. We each have the journey to live our truth and truly be a blessing in this life and to this world. So instead of going out and "being somebody," just be yourself, where you are as you are. And have fun doing it! Woo Hoo!

Comfort Zones are Slow Dream Killers

This title is actually the title to my master's thesis back in 2000 but it holds so much value with the context of creating this doc and this conference. I mean, really, if I really acknowledge my comfort zones back when I was struggling with being gay and Christian, even though I was quite the sparkler in my group of Christian friends even then, my zones were still rather naive and narrow. I missed out so much on diversity of ideas, thoughts, creative ways of doing work and living a happy life.

If I didn't take the time and emotional challenge to identify my comfort zones, I wouldn't....I COULDN'T be where and who I am today. I wasn't aligned. I wasn't aligned with God, God's Will, with myself even though I was heavily involved in church. It took courage. It always takes courage to grow. But when you know there's gotta be something better, you have to do it. You have to for yourself, for your spirit. I mean better in God's way not like easier or anything. God's way seems hard but only because it's unfamiliar, it's based on faith, taking a step and feeling secure there's a ground to place your foot upon because God won't give us anything we can't handle. I keep telling myself whenever I get to another level and it becomes hard, "don't not do it just because it's hard."

We're "different" in this society for a reason. It's our responsibility to be who we are. I just don't have the guts to tell God that he made a mistake with me. Who am I to say that to the Creator? My comfort zones are areas of my patterns that I created and wrap myself around in. But I miss out in so much if I stay there. It's like my comfort zones are eating corn meal and water every meal, every day. Hey, at least I know what it is and that I can eat it. Well, then I'll never experience God's creations in other amazing tastes in foods.

If I chose to not push out of my comfort zones, my dreams of being self employed, doing documentary work, finding the love of my life, etc would never manifest. And that would have been my choice...out of fear and therefore untrusting of how God wired me. Finally, I got out of my own way and practiced surrender. My dreams are beautiful visions and not illusions. I hope the same for you.

I hope and pray that you too acknowledge your comfort zones and see where they may be killing your dreams. But, you are not a victim. You can choose differently. For example, it's not that there's not enough time in a day, it's that we aren't managing the time we have effectively. So, change the perception and see your dreams not as illusions but visions. As Reverand Deborah Johson says, "pain pushes, until vision pulls." I wish you the best in this new year. May it be a year of hugely beneficial change.

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...