Documentary Storytelling-WORD

So its been a productive week. I finally recovered from my month long battle with pnemonia, taking a side trip in the middle there with the help of dayquil every four hours(probably the generic version...) to Puerto Rico for the LASA conference, which then took me weeks after trying to recover, but still one of the best experiences of my life...
And I finally entered the Brazil documentary into two film festivals (with the help of my filmmaking soul mate, Rinchen's hookups).

Tonight I went to a very inspiring documentary storytelling workshop with Adrian Belic and Aron Ranen

I took a final cut pro workshop with Aron about a year ago which not only gave me a jump start on my impressive (but still sometimes slow mo) editing skills, but also just inspired me to keep at it (you know this whole documentary passion) after a frustrating experience working on someone else's project who never let me touch the computer...booooo.

I wish I could take more classes with him cause he's a really great teacher with the right amount of nutty thrown in, but lately the classes have either been during times I am working or I have to decide between "uh rent, gas or documentary class?...hmmm." And believe me sometimes you just need to take a class that isnt a semester long and gives you some practical real world knowledge to recharge your batteries.

But luckily the stars came together and I made it out to one of lower cost workshops tonight. The combination of Aron's interview questions and steering of the class with his tried and true teaching tactics and Adrian's incredible passion, mind blowing globe trotting experiences combined with a dash of some of his real world success, reinforced some things I've learned on this path, gave me some new ideas to chew on, while giving me just the little push I need right now not to give up.

I'm still working on "The Last Word". It just needs some time and maybe some fresh eyes to get it to the point where I can say "its done". But I've been a little burnt out and am not the fastest editor in the world. I miss my German editor Daniel (he went back to Germany in January) which I was lucky enough to have throughout the beginning of the process and functioned on chocolate and cookies... but I think he went mad by the end in his dungeon cutting out "ums" and "breaths" to keep it under 30 mins... Too bad I didnt think to bring a copy tonight to get some input but I just couldnt pull that together since wednesdays are my most exhausting days...
I also miss the editing experience I had with Rinchen for the Brazil doc, where, you know, she just, completed me (*tear*)
And my co-producer/crime fighter/unit production manager "La La the Lakefish" with organizing skills the stuff dreams are made of, is just trying to graduate and working on some other projects...so maybe she doesnt love me any more...(*tear, tear*)

I also met two women who are doing their own documentary work, check it out:
Laura
Jennifer
It was really nice to meet other folks who are just as passionate about this as I am.

I need to learn how to make some cool websites and figure out the promotion side of this documentary mad scientist journey...oh and I need to rob a bank or at least pay off a credit card so I can max it out again and get a camera...one day.

And also I'm off next week to perform at University of Illinois...worked on the structure of our performance last night with the Las Manas ladies...more on that later...