Monday, August 30, 2010

The next steps for iAmerica

So now that the tapes have all been digitized the next stages of work on iAmerica can finally begin. Though we filmed the documentary nearly 5 months ago, I'm happy to have had a bit of time to sit back and look at the footage with fresh eyes. What is the real story in there and what am I really trying to say.

I'm glad that it isn't far from what I wanted it to be, it's just that I may tell it in a different way. So instead of showing the journey that we did with tuttle2texas as a backbone and driving force of the story, I think the interviews we did tell the story I want to tell. And it was only by watching the 3 days worth of footage, that I realized the strength of that. Unfortunately, the real story didn't come before we pitched to Channel 4 - but either we can approach them again or if we get accepted, pitch to hundreds of possible distributors and broadcastors at the Sheffield Documentary Festival.

So that leads onto the next step. Applying for the Sheffield Meetmarket. Anyone can apply for £10 and a pitch package including a 100 word pitch, a 500 word one, a summery of the people working on the project, a budget and a one minute trailer.  

I've been working on the trailer for the past week and just finished it on Friday as you can see here:


One minute is not a lot of time to say what an entire documentary is about, so it's a challenge to tease out the right quotes. Trolling through 30 plus hours of footage to find quotes can be quite daunting but luckily as we digitized we also pulled out quotes we thought may be useful. As inspiration, we watched documentary trailers and loved the drama of "Man on Wire" and thought we'd play with mocking the form of it.

I've drafted out the 2 pitches with the hopes that it will explain the essence of what we want to do. It's now with a few people for a sense check and then one more look through from me and it will be done.

Luckily for me, the budget will be done by the lovely Katie Kinnard of Free at Last TV.  She has been helping us along the way since we pitched her a documentary about the only UK cowboy and she seems to continue to like the ideas we're bringing her so I'm happy to have her on board. I also hate doing budgets so this means I can concentrate on the things I do like doing - writing and filmmaking.

All of this goes in on 1 September and then we wait. The festival is at the start of November so my hopes is that we can get in.  I'll keep working on the next stages (transcription and scripting) but really, until we get some funding, we can't complete this documentary. As much as I don't mind not getting paid, I do hate asking anyone else to work for free. And my DOP Michelle Tsen, who is also my editor, already shot the whole thing for free so I can't really ask her to continue doing so.

I'll keep you posted on the process as we go. If you have any questions or want more details, let me know. To see more on the Sheffield Documentary Festival, go to: http://sheffdocfest.com/

Posted via email from Oot and Aboot

Friday, August 27, 2010

Around the World @upstairsritzy celebrates Madagascar

Tuesday, August 24, 2010

We're really making a movie...

Sunday, August 22, 2010

What do you want to see from the #tuttle2texas documentary?

Impromptu drumming

Thursday, August 19, 2010

New writing courses at the Idea Store in Canary Wharf

Are you a budding writer? Have you always wanted to know more about
writing a screenplay?

My old screenwriting tutor Chris Fallon is starting an "Introduction to
Screenwriting" course which begins on Weds 8th Sept, and these from 6:30 -
8:30 for 6 Wednesdays. These courses are at the Idea Store in Canary
Wharf. The fee for the six sessions is only £60.

If you are looking for a more general course, he is also running a 6 week
creative writing workshop on Monday 6th Sept. The course runs for six
Monday evenings, from 6:00 - 8:00 and the fee for the workshop is £48 for
all six sessions.

What else can I tall you about them? Knowing Chris as I do, I think the
sessions will be a lot of fun, and practical.

If you want to find out more, check out the Idea Store website at
www.ideastore.co.uk

Posted via email from Oot and Aboot

The end of Foursquare?

As the gong sounds to end the Facebook Places announcement, I feel like
I'm watching some sort of frat initiation. If the geeks help the cool kids
with their homework, they can maybe come to the party. It doesn't mean
they'll get to stay but for one glorious moment they'll be part of
something. Until they wake up the next morning with a killer hangover and
'loser' drawn in thick marker on their forehead.

The geeks? Foursquare, Yelp, Gowilla - any of the lot that have been
working and growing the whole geo-locations game. They have been trying,
failing and trying again at seeing how this whole new malarkey works. Then
Facebook comes along and they suddenly have location based check in and
beyond. So here is the Vice President of the department of something or
other looking like a deer in headlights, nodding along to the excitement
of this 'new shiny toy' that Facebook has put out. The nice shiny toy just
like the one they've been sweating over for too many months and too many
packets of instant noodles to count.

But hey. The geeks get to be the first to use the Facebook APIs. Yay. So
all those foursquare fans can post to Foursquare AND Facebook. But wait.
If you can just check in on Facebook, why do you need to check in on
Foursquare too? Isn't it easier to have everything in one handy to use
application? You know...the Facebook one?

I feel sad watching this. The party has started - the food is outside with
plenty to go around. But for how long? The gong has sounded. Will mayors
and passport stamps be retired? Is this the end of third party check-ins?
Is this the end of foursquare?

Posted via email from Oot and Aboot

Facebook Places: a game changer or has the game already been changed?

So I have a confession to make. I've never been a user of Foursquare. I
don't want people to always know where I am - not that I'm paranoid but I
don't need my mom to have a list of every bar I've visited. Of course you
can always opt out of pushing your location to the masses but I feel iffy
about the whole thing. I do like the yelp type reviews but then again, I
can look at Yelp.

Instead of sleeping as I should be, I'm watching the Facebook Places
announcement. Hmmm. So Facebook Places. It's foursquare. On Facebook. So
you now can check in and everyone on Facebook (or just your friends) can
know where you are. Hmmm. Like foursquare. And you can tag your photos by
location. Like I do on Twitter. You can add reviews of places. Like
Foursquare or Yelp. But most scarily, unless you opt out (and this is not
a default setting), anyone can tag you at a place they check in to. And
your friends could be checking in to your house.

As the announcement continues, the initial partners include foursquare,
Yelp and Gowilla who are using the Facebook APIs to integrate their
applications with Facebook. Even though they were using this location
based application first. Hmm.

So what's the big deal? What's so innovative and new? Nothing. But
Facebook is a growing monolith with numbers unseen by any other social
networking applications. So Foursquare, Yelp and Gowilla, do you sit back
and say - "Hey. That's our shtick"? I guess the answer is no. But how can
they not jump on the Facebook bandwagon?

But what do you think? Is this a game changer or has the game already been
changed?

**One last note - one of the speakers is going on about how this is a way
to share human stories, interact, dust off old memories. I hope they also
have a way to disable pictures of exes. Some memories I may not want to
relive. In real time or not.**

Posted via email from Oot and Aboot

Wednesday, August 18, 2010

What's nxt for Drew Barrymore & improv on set

Drew Barrymore on why she is in film

Saturday, August 14, 2010

A little night music at Casablancas in Brighton

Wednesday, August 11, 2010

Empire Avenue - what exactly have I signed myself up for?

So I'm trying out this new Empire Avenue. You buy stocks and shares in people. I think.  I'm still checking it out. But in order to verify my blog I have to put in this code: EAVB_SVQEKVFEBR 

It then has to be read by the little spiders that the site sends out to prove that I'm really the owner of that glorious site.  I am the owner. And that's the code.

Check out Empire Avenue on www.empireavenue.com and let me know what you think. Actually let me know what to do.  I'm a little bit hazy on why I signed up but hey, it's worth giving everything a go at some point or other.

Posted via email from Oot and Aboot

Saturday, August 07, 2010

My first ever Edmonton Folk Music Festival experience

I grew up most of my life in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada which is known to most as festival city. Summer is a buzz with festivals celebrating food, comedy, theatre, music, cars - you name it, Edmonton has it. Despite this plethora of festivals on offer, I have been to relatively few of them which made my trip to the Edmonton Folk Music Festival my first visit ever.

Normally the festival experience starts with colours. People come down for 6 in the morning where they are alloted a number and are grouped with 25 other people. Once the numbers are allocated, one group at a time are allowed to walk (not run or god forbid, skip) down the hill and place their tarp down in front of the main stage. This is then their spot for the the rest of the day.

For me the festival didn't start until well into the evening at stage 6. This is where workshops are on throughout the day. I, being a newbie to this folk festival, was confused why they would have a workshop on a dedicated stage. Were they going to teach us to sing? Should I have brought a guitar?

I soon found out how wrong I was. Workshops are where the festival brings together different artists who are performing throughout the weekend to basically jam. So we had the pleasure of seeing the group dubbed "Talkin' About My Generation" made up of The Waifs, Patrick Watson (without the rest of his group The Wooden Arms), Lucas Chaisson and Kate Reid, take to the stage.

I have a Waifs CD in my collection so I had a certain sound in mind. But together with this collective, the styles of the musicians blended to become something entirely different. The music was mixed and eclectic, morphing into something new as each of the artists took the lead.

It felt like we were in someone's living room instead of the side of a hill at dusk. At one point, Patrick Watson, who was one of the hosts, asked if anyone wanted a drink. A couple mumbles of yes led him to bring out a bottle of whiskey for them to try much to the delight of the crowd. 

As the session grew to a close, Patrick asked for a random title for a song the group would make up on the spot. The only stipulation was that the title couldn't be one of a song that already exists. A few suggestions were thrown out and "Snakes and Ladders" was chosen. A few of the singers hadn't improvised lyrics before and they found it a bit of a challenge but the crowd was behind them every step of the way as you can hear here:

After sampling the festival food (the Indian food stall was supurb) and watching the latern parade, we joined our friends on the hill by the main stage to catch a bit of Calexaco. I heard them back in May at ATP in Minehead. I wasn't overly impressed by them then but maybe the indoor Butlins venue wasn't the best to hear them in. Out under the stars, their Mexican inspired spread an air of romance over the hill and more than one person in our group commented on how cute the lead singer, Joey Burns, was.

Though I only caught a part of the day, as a first experience, I can see why this is such a popular festival. I'll be back tomorrow to catch the wonderful Sarah Harmer who I've been listening to for the past 9 years or so. Now that I've stuck my toe in, there's no going back.

Posted via email from Oot and Aboot

Improved song: "snakes & ladders" at Edmonton Folk Music Festival #efmf

Wednesday, August 04, 2010

Sometimes it's good to go home

London to San Jose ponderings

I love to travel. I love mostly the public kind. Trains, planes, buses and road trips - as long as I’m not driving on my own.  I especially love the time I’m given when I’m travelling. I’m a mover and sometimes a shaker which mainly means I’m never home and never give myself a second for myself. Unless you count watching episodes of Australian Masterchef or napping in the hour between being somewhere and going somewhere.

I’m too used to not getting free travel, to making my own way, so when I get paid to travel, I find it hard to expect anything beyond economy. I’m surprised that someone will actually pay for a plane to get me somewhere.

So I’m on the way to San Jose for work. And on the way I’m not in business class (which I’ve never been in) but economy plus. I’ve discovered what the plus means. Wine.  I had wine before my meal and after and didn’t have to have my arm twisted for one more when he came round. But then a walk to a bathroom led to a run in with my steward. Another wine? Why not. And sitting writing, a wine was in his hand and then it was nestled on my lap. (a note to those who may cry abuse – he did hand it to me and I did nestle it in my lap myself).

So as I drink my forth mini bottle of wine, I muse. My ambition, I’ve realized, beyond being great at “things,” is to go to as many places as I can. I was my mom’s gypsy daughter. I still am. I can’t help myself. I don’t crave security or sameness or uniformity. Granted I may actually be thinking of getting a house and something more long term but I still like the ebb and flow of the crowd. A life of coming and going and coming back to somewhere I love, someone I love.

I asked my father advice the other day. Do what you love I’ve been told throughout my life but should I go for something secure but restrained or something fun but potentially will fall to pieces and I’ll be jobless. He said that I always land at my feet so I shouldn’t worry. He also said that he couldn’t really give me all the advice that I needed as he worked for the same company since he started working. In that way, I am not my father’s daughter.

But risk is what makes the greats, greater. I’m sure Richard Branson, Mr. Virgin himself, took more risks than I could count. But with risks, not only can you win, but you can majorly lose.  My life has been a series of leaps of faith, so taking a leap isn’t new. But maybe I’m getting older (well, yes, I am getting older as that is a biological fact) and starting to think that risk is good, but these risks should be a bit more calculated. What are the pros and cons of each choice and what is driving me to take this risk? Maybe this is what happens when you finally grow up? You actually think about things before you do them. Hmmm.

Posted via email from Oot and Aboot