I’ve had a pretty disrupted couple of weeks, with the Easter long weekend and Lisa’s trip to Krakow meaning I didn’t have that many working days – Plus, a couple of short notice deadlines suddenly appeared meaning I had to do some newsletters for Pinnacle, an illustration for a company hiring nannys and a couple of reviews (although the reviews do mean I’ve now been able to play with up to date copies of Lightwave and Softimage!).

Anyway, having decided that fine editing is best done in half day stints because it’s so demanding, I’ve made some pretty good progress with the Vegas documentary…

Which I may be going to call “Bugdig”, “the search for Bristolia Insolens” or “the best way to dig a hole”… hmm… not sure.

However, I’ve now got it to the stage where the first half is now in manageable, playable segments. Each of the stories involved has been laid down and sliced into 1-2 minute scenes.

What I have to do now is assemble these into an overall story that makes sense. Which should be fairly simple. I’m not sure if having scenes of 1-2 minutes is going to work or whether they’ll feel too bitty, but we’ll see.

The second half of the documentary is more a single strand so I’ll be able to edit in a more linear way.

Either way, I can see it beginning to take shape now, so I’m a bit more positive about it. I’ve written and recorded the script for the second half, and now need to start building the shots around it.

Overall, it’s looking good – running a bit over time, but only because I’ve included a lot of material I can cut out later. It’s better to have more than you need rather than less….


Withoutabox
I’ve just signed up to withoutabox and I’ve discovered how easy it is to use. I’m launching my latest (finished) project (how to colonise the stars) at a few festivals – just to see how I get on and how difficult it is.

Early results seem to suggest it’s rather easy with all the hard work being done by the website. All I have to do is make some DVDs and put them in the post – which even I should be able to do.

I’ve given myself a budget of a couple of hundred pounds to spend on entry fees, and applied to about 10 festivals all in all (in a bit of a rush because for some reason I don’t understand, all the deadlines seem to be may 1st).

Anyway, this has really pointed up just how little I know about the whole documentary selling business. What are good and bad festivals? What happens at festivals anyway? who goes? Should I go if my film is chosen? What kind of films appear? I’ve got this feeling that my project is a bit too traditionally made and not arty enough– but again, I really don’t know.

All this stuff I’m reading about pitching meetings and getting industry people to attend your showings – I really don’t know anything about it. The top five documentary commissioners (if that’s even a job title, which I’ve no idea) in the world could walk right past me and I wouldn’t recognise them or know their names – should I? should I have a list of them in my top pocket along with a pile of ideas to throw at them if I ever bump into them at the groucho club (ha! I know what the groucho club is at least)?

Do I need to turn myself into some kind of frantic, coked-up cross between a film nerd and a used car salesman just to get… to get… umm…

And there’s the rub.

What exactly do I want to get out of the documentary business? Sure, I’ve got this great idea for a documentary I want to make – but nothing’s stopping me making it apart from time… and sure, I’ve got a few series I’d love to get off the ground if a broadcater came up to me and offered me a slot – but that’s not going to happen without immersing myself entirely in an industry I think is a bit… well, crappy…

Hmm.. I guess what this whole festival submission thing is about is just seeing where it takes me. When I finish my current project – the trilobite digging one, I’ll want to put it into some festivals because that will be one way the guy funding it will be able to see it’s a successful project.

When I do the feature documentary I’ve got in mind, festivals will be crucial – I’ll be shooting high and looking for cinematic release, but that’s a way off yet – and I need to insure myself all the way along the line so that if at any point it doesn’t hit the mark, I haven’t wasted a lot of time on it with no return at all.

And there are ways of doing that – ensuring that the research phase, the filming, the editing all pay for themselves as parts of other projects… but I’ll take you through that as it happens…

Right now, I’ve made a small foray into the festival world just to see what’s out there….