Happy Holidaze!

I am now in Pittsburgh, where I've had a busy and interesting week. I've met with several people that might be interested in helping produce Zambian Forge, and they were impressed by the trailer and the content of this film. I have also been spending time with Tom Silverman and Brandon from FORGE, hanging out, and doing prep work for the FORGE promotional video. I also got to meet several of the FORGE 2005 volunteers. The forward momentum continues..

It occurred to me a few days ago that I have now been working on this project for over a year. Cher is in Meheba again at the moment, doing assessments for next year - 1 year ago she was doing similar assessments that made FORGE 2004, and this documentary, possible. What a year it has been, and when Semester at Sea is included.. what a year and a half!

Blessings and thanks to everyone.. I'm looking forward to forging ahead in 2005! Take care, and enjoy the holidays.
David

Tough Week

Well, some weeks are better than others..
This past week I encountered my first major system failure with the project. FCPHD started generating system panics when launching my project. I still don't know why. After days of calling the useless Apple tech support system, writing to sfcutters, and calling friends, everything is up and running again. The kicker? I didn't fix it, I bypassed it. Meaning, I have no idea what caused the problem, or if it's still a ghost in the machine waiting to reemerge again..

I am, however, back up and I didn't lose any data. I am really thankful for the number of backup systems I have in place.

Of course, other things have developed in parallel. I recut my demo reel and sent it off to the hosting agency to place online. It now begins with the ZF trailer. I'm still looking for an independent place to host it, but at least I know it will be up somewhere soon.

All of the footage from the USA, South Africa, and up through our first week in Meheba is now digitized. Obviously a lot more is digitized as well, but it's great to have that solid block of 24 tapes finished.

Most importantly, my buddy odell is now officially on board to cut together the FORGE promotional video in January. He is arriving in SF on the 6th of Jan. from NYC. and will be here for a minimum of 1 month. He will also be working on cutting together scenes for the feature. Having a full-time editor working with me is really going to drive the progress forward. Check out odell's website.
http://www.dvdell.com/dvdell.html

In less than 48 hours I am leaving for Pittsburgh PA for the holidays. Hilary will continue working on my system while I am away, and I have more still photo editing I can do on my Mother's G4 iMac while I am there, in addition to watching all of these DVDs I have been making on a nice big TV.

Next update from PGH,
David

Trailer is Ready

The first piece of big news is that I now have an edited trailer ready to post online. I'm still working out the last details of the hosting and such, but creatively it's ready to go! I am SO excited about this. In just days, rather than trying to explain things to people, I will be able to show them. It's such a major step forward..
Thanks again to Nadine Laule for editing it! She did a really nice job.

I have made my first enlargements of my digital stills from the project. 7 shots at 12" x 18". I'm selling these to fundraise if anybody is interested. Asking $300 each. They are beautiful! They are printed through a photographic (not inkjet) process, so their achival value is the same as anything from a 35mm negative. Did I mention they look amazing? :)
Contact me if you are interested in picking one up.

Hilary and I have also been making more progress in the digitizing. (I can't believe I'm still digitizing!) Some things I've brought in since the last update include:
Major sections of the FORGE orientation in Jo'Burg South Africa before we headed north to Zambia.
Meetings with UNFPA, UNHCR, and various other NGOs upon our arrival in Meheba.
Interviews with me in San Francisco and Pittsburgh PA as I prepared for the trip.
Interviews with various members of the FORGE Botswana group.
A debate about whether Eric should shave his mohawk or not.
An interview with Lawrence in South Africa
Tom Silverman in Pittsburgh.
Taylor Algren, Executive Director of the World Refugee Academy
The trip to Victoria Falls on our last day together.
Another Repatriation Convey leaving Meheba.

I have also started going through some of the interviews and cutting those down to get into the real meat / gold. This has led to me cutting anywhere between 10% to 35% of the digitized footage. It also is making my newer rough DVDs much more interesting to watch. Speaking of which.. I've learned quite a lot about DVD Studio Pro and Compressor since upgrading to the production suite. I'm SO glad I did. I don't think I'll ever use iDVD again!

I started a yahoo group for the FORGE members and production staff to exchange thoughts.

I'm still trying to put together a deal to bring on a full time editor in January. It's looking good, so hopefully I'll have some more details on that soon as well.

This really is a monumental task, but I feel like every time I post to this blog, there have been major achievements. My excitement is only increasing.

David