“Making Mothers” To Premiere October 19

We are proud to announce the world premiere of our latest film Making Mothers!  The short documentary, commissioned by the DC Birth Center, is set to premiere Sunday, October 19, 8 pm at Busboys and Poets on 14th Street in NW Washington, DC.

Anike and Moses

Making Mothers captures the lives of two African American caregivers at the Family Health and Birth Center in northeast DC who help women during their transition to motherhood.  Midwife Lisa strives to provide the peaceful and beautiful home birth experience she had herself.  Joan, a Breastfeeding Peer Counselor, imparts her experience as a teen mom and former birth center client.  In pursuing their passion they empower the women they encounter, the community they work in, and ultimately, themselves.

The film will eventually become a part of the Birth Center’s educational outreach to local communities, helping to encourage African American girls to enter the health care profession.   The screening is free and open to all, so we hope to see you there!

Lisa examines Anike

Belly casts at sunset

The Short Subject Gets the Spotlight at Upcoming Film Festival

By Tessa Moran

The short film is slowly finding its niche in today’s era of limited attention spans, especially this weekend as a bevy of modern shorts are set to screen in Washington.  Thursday through Sunday, a total of 102 films will screen at the fifth annual DC Shorts Festival. 

The films range between 1 minute and 23 minutes, and include a variety of genres: dramas, comedies, sci-fi, documentaries and creative experimental.  Among the films selected from over 750 domestic and international entries, are 13 local films.  Surely, there’s something for everyone.  And if you’re less inclined to your girl’s chick flick or your guy’s sci-fi thriller, just remember the next flick is at most 20 minutes away. 

The “short” format is nothing new; think back to the early days of silent comedic films and news reels.  It’s since been largely overshadowed by the ubiquitous and commercial feature film.  Yet in the age of digital filmmaking, the low-budget indie community has embraced the form, and they’ve used it to tackle topics rarely portrayed in commercial features.

“You probably get away with more stuff in a short than you can in a feature,” admits DC Shorts Festival director Jon Gann.  He points to the fest’s animated piece about drug addiction titled, A Letter To Colleen, which he says is too provocative and intense to succeed as a longer film.  “Noone could sit through it.”  But as a short, “it’s one of those films you can’t turn away from because you never know what can be said next,” Gann says.

“I don’t think people really appreciate [the short] as an art form,” he adds, likening it to the short story. “If you are skilled and can tell a provocative story in ten pages or ten minutes, theoretically you should have a good film.”

Other festival highlights include the Irish comedy, “The Confession,” about a young man who tries to confess his sins to a priest more interested in gossip than absolution. Another is “The List”, a 5 minute drama about a young woman who is interrogated by the CIA for espionage. 

“I think they are all timely, they all have a message,” Gann says of this year’s selections. “They are just about humanity.”  DC Shorts will be held September 11-18 at the E Street Landmark Cinema.  Tickets are available online at dcshorts.com. 

Check out our post on Barberin’s premiere at last year’s DC Shorts!

Review – “Man on Wire”

By Tessa Moran

On an August morning over thirty years ago, Frenchman Phillippe Petit walked a tightrope illegally rigged between the two towers of the World Trade Center in New York City.  “Dancing” midair, some witnesses recalled.  No net lay below to catch him; no harness to prevent him from falling.  One mistep or gust of wind and Petit would lose his life. 

This is a true story, which Petit lived to recount in a 2002 book.  Yet it is James Marsh’s new documentary “Man on Wire” that gives this real-life heist the platform it deserves.  Though viewers know that Petit and his accomplices succeed in the end, Marsh never ceases to create suspense from start to finish.  Through the use of interviews and subtle recreations, Marsh transports the viewer to the scene of the “crime.” Every step is detailed, from making fake badges to enter the building, to hiding motionless as a night guard patrolled the premises.  Viewers feel complicit in the heist, yet happy in that feeling.  Afterall, it is a crime that causes pain to noone, notes one accomplice.  

He and the others talk little more about why they take part in such a risky endeavor.  For art, for the adventure of it?  Petit is perhaps more clear in his purpose, though his risk is indeed the greatest of all.  He scoffs at the media who posited “why, why, why?” as he was escorted to jail.  There is no why, he says. He simply revels in the beauty of it, “To die in the practice of your passion!” 

The sight of it is truly divine:  Petit’s black-clothed figure suspended mid-air against the blue sky and clouds above.  His then-girlfriend Annie remembers that day pointing into the air, gasping “look look, look” to passerbys.  Her recount is as heartfelt and passionate as if she were standing on that New York street thirty years ago.  It speaks volumes of Marsh’s talent as an interviewer; his ability to listen and to encourage the subjects to detail every sight and sound in first-person. 

Even so, it is clear these characters are natural storytellers themselves.  Petit, nothing less than enchanting.  Wide-eyed, he jumps around the room like a child, recounting the tension-filled elevator ride up to the top of the World Trade Center.  The camera lens spans his arms as they reach into the air, the light cast across his face.  Marsh anticipated the unconventional aspects of Petit’s active imagination and exuberant disposition, and he adapted to it beautifully.

Often what separates great documentaries from the rest is a certain level of taste, whether it is exercised directorially, cinematically or in the editing room.  Noteworthy is Marsh’s use of suggestive Errol Morris-style reenactments instead of the overly self-aware productions that clog other ”historical” documentaries.  Audiences barely see the faces of the actors, nor hear their voices.  Instead, we see cleanly produced black and white images of a van driving into a World Trade Center lot, or a policeman asleep at his post.  

Marsh’s distinct level of taste is particularly clear in his decision not to mention, or even allude to, the terror attacks of September 11, 2001.  Petit’s story is compelling enough to stand on its own, and would have been cheapened by drudging up that fateful day.   Instead, viewers see the towers as they were: so striking as to compel an individual to risk his life suspended between them.

Filming life, literally as it happens

By Tessa Moran

One of the greatest challenges in making documentary films is establishing a story line.  It’s what propels the film along and what keeps viewers interested.  The easiest way to establish a story line is to film a character when he or she is involved in some sort of event or contest.  That way there is already a pre-defined beginning, middle and end.  Although you cannot predict the challenges the character will confront or even the outcome of their efforts, you can be fairly confident that you will capture the essential pieces of a story on film.

The story line in  War/Dance – one of my favorite documentaries of all time — follows a group of children practicing to compete in a music competition in Uganda.  The backdrop to the story is their every day lives in a refugee camp and the haunting tales of the violence they endured.  Although this content was compelling enough to stand on its own, it was the story of their achievement at the music competition that really carried the story and delivered a message of hope that still resonates with me today.

The task of establishing a story line is made more difficult when you are producing a short documentary, and when there is a small time frame in which you need to complete the film.  For the birth center doc, the ultimate story progression seemed obvious: pregnancy.  Because of our time constraints, we couldn’t film a full-term pregnancy.  We would , however, have the time to film the final trimester and the labor leading up to a birth.

 By fortune, we met a young patient who agreed to let us to film her pregnancy and labor, one of the most personal and intimate moments of her life.  She was planning to have a natural birth at the center instead of at the hospital.  The prospect of filming a birth in the center setting was thrilling to us.  It’s quiet, home-like and intimate.  Not to mention filming in a hospital has its fair share of legal implications. 

We got the call at 5:30 in the morning.  She had been in labor since the previous afternoon, but had only recently gone to the birth center.   I was so overwhelmed, it took me at least ten minutes to stop pacing across the apartment and actually do something productive. So next I scrambled to charge batteries.  Why hadn’t we prepared and packed the equipment ahead of time?!?  It was a lesson we had learned the hard way before, but apparently it hadn’t stuck.  Finally we arrived at the birth center — running no less – in anticipation of the baby coming at any moment.

Sixteen hours later, no baby.  Just hours of shooting labor.  In the bathtub, on the bed, down the hallway.  My favorite footage was that of the robed woman and her boyfriend walking down the light-filled hallway as the sun was rising in the sky.  Hours later, they walked the same route as the sun was setting.  Cut together, the scenes serve as a tribute to the long and hard work of natural labor.  For hours, she had the constant attention of a midwife, a midwife in training, and a doula (trained birthing assistant who provides emotional and physical support).  African American women caring for an African American woman.

 The midwife had told us the woman would give birth soon; she was dilated nine and half centimeters with closer, stronger contractions.  But over time the contractions began to slow, and after several hours, she still wasn’t fully dilated.  A decision had to made.  After over 40 hours in labor, she needed to decide whether she would stay in the birth center and have a natural birth, with a greater risk that something might go wrong.  Or, she could go to the hospital to be induced, which would mean stronger contractions that might necessitate an epidural. Though she had wanted a natural birth, the circumstances begged reconsideration.  And so she was transferred to the hospital, where she finally gave birth at 3 am the next morning.

We decided not to go to the hospital.  The legal implications of filming there was a beast we chose not to confront.  And after nearly two days of working without sleep, the midwife we were following had to hand off the job to another midwife, who happened to be caucasion.  This, inevitably, would throw us off of the film’s focus — African American women caring for their peers. So we handed off a small camera for the family to use, and decided to scrape any needed footage from that.

Clearly, our story line didn’t progress exactly as we expected.  Life never does.  But we were presented with an entirely different story line, in which a group of African American women worked together to make an important decision in the best interest of a woman and unborn child.  The bonding that took place that evening was extremely moving, and we caught it all on film.   We sought new opportunities that arose, made the quick decisions needed, and adapted to the new course of action.  That is what makes the job as a documentary filmmaker so unique and exciting.

Review – “Bulletproof Salesman”

By Tessa Moran

“The Real Iron Man,” one viewer called the documentary Bulletproof Salesman during a Q&A following the film’s screening at the Silverdocs Film Festival.  He was encouraging the filmmakers to take on the concept as a marketing avenue for the film.  Q&A at these events often turns into an unwelcomed platform for viewers to share their own life stories, conspiracy theories, and “brilliant” marketing ideas.  But the viewer’s comparison wasn’t half bad. 

After all, the film’s main-character Fidelis Cloer, a German armored-vehicle salesman, is a war-profiteer just like Tony Stark.  Only Cloer is selling protection, not weapons.  He’s also a womanizer, which we fail to see in the film but later learn during Q&A.  Still, this fact isn’t suprising from what character exploration we do see in the film. 

Perhaps it is the ease with which Cloer travels in highly dangerous areas of Baghdad when conducting business.   He is seemingly unaffected by the sight of burning buildings or the sound of gunfire; loads his automatic weapon in the car as if he were just buckling his seatbelt.  Even so, Cloer is anything but reckless.  Rather calculated in his entry into Iraq, just as could be expected from the never-fail heros played by Robert Downey Jr., Jason Statham or Bruce Willis.  He stays in hotels located nearest to military posts, and wears a Keffiyeh (traditional Middle Eastern male headdress) as disguise.   He rarely travels in “soft-skin” cars, ever-confident in the armored protection of his vehicles. 

Filmmakers Petra Epperlein and Michael Tucker are extremely successful in visually developing Cloer’s character – smooth, calculated and confident.  In one scene, Cloer methodically clips his fingernails as he explains that looking sharp is essential to gaining trust from clients.  In another scene, he sits in an armored car as a client shoots rounds of bullets at it.  A good salesman must always believe in his product, he says.

These scenes set the stage for some level of action from Cloer, and yet the film fails to fully deliver on our expectations.  It comes close during one scene in which Cloer and his colleagues notice they are being followed on the highway by a couple of suspicious-looking vehicles.  We see the cars nearing in the rear-view mirror… Cloer loads his gun… the suspense builds… and then it is uttlerly squashed by the most irritating screen text telling us exactly what we are seeing. 

This wasn’t the only instance of the VH1-like pop-ups, which appeared frequently throughout the film, particularly in the beginning. Coupled with punchy music, the pop-ups set the tone for more of a music video or cheesy reality show than a cinema verite documentary.  Thankfully, the text pop-ups petered out towards the end of the film. 

Despite the distraction, the filmmakers were able to tell an unnerving, yet compelling story about the business of war.  As the story unveils, viewers are conflicted over how to define Cloer.  Is he the action hero we want to root for, or the villain war-profiteer we despise?  Though Cloer admits flatly that war is “good for business”, in doing that business, he is also saving lives.  Can the ends justify the means?  The film’s greatest success is in exposing this duality without seeking to answer it.

Review – “Bigger, Stronger, Faster*”

By Tessa Moran

In America, success is earned when one works hard and plays by the rules. At least that’s what Arnold Schwarzenegger says, the Austrian body-builder turned actor turned Governor of California. Success was certainly in his cards, but whether he played by the rules is questionable, especially as Mr. Universe later revealed that he used anabolic steroids.

But we all cut corners, right? The documentary film Bigger, Stronger, Faster* argues that we do, using Schwarzenegger and the steroid debate as an emblem of American hypocrisy. Damned if you don’t become number one, damned if you do use steroids to get there. Note that the asterisk in the title is for the “side effects of being American.”

Another hypocrisy explored in the film is that while America shuns athletes who use steroids, it is seemingly unconcerned with students who use Adderall to get ahead in school or musicians who use beta blockers to curb performance anxiety. While the parallel seems a bit of a stretch, it does call attention to the very depressing reality that there are short-cuts to nearly every success.

And then there’s that hero complex that seems particularly American. The Terminator, Rocky and Hulk Hogan were just a few real-life heros director Chris Bell aspired to be as a self-proclaimed fat kid from Poughkeepsie, NY. His two brothers, nicknamed “Mad Dog” and “Smelly” for their vigorous, if not obsessive training regimens, also aspired to be body builders. Bell differed from his brothers in that he did not take steroids. He believed it to be cheating, even though every single one of his “heroes” had been a user.

So the film serves as Bell’s quest to divulge the hypocritical, and sometimes debilitating American drive to succeed, even within his own family. Bell injects himself entirely into the film as narrator, interviewer, subject and even, provocateur. His approach is similar to that of Michael Moore, taking liberties to ask the hard questions and knock down anyone’s door to get them. Thankfully, Bell appears to be interested in the “other side,” even though in the end he largely discounts steroid naysayers.

Among them is the father of a young steroid-user who committed suicide. He was relentlessly campaigning against steroid use, even though his son had been taking Lexapro, an anti-depressant associated with suicidal tendencies. Easiest to discount was Senator Henry Waxman, who headed Congressional hearings on steroid use in baseball, but came across as if he’s never heard of the topic. What better to hook viewers than an ill-informed politician to scoff at?

The film’s greatest success is in its depiction of the Bell brothers, whose dreams of being great at times bordered on delusional and destructive. Mad Dog’s quest for stardom involved relocating to California away from his family. He painfully admits that he would rather die than fail. Smelly challenges his wife’s request for him to stop taking steroids so that they can conceive another child.

In one heartbreaking scene, Bell’s mother tearfully asks what she did to cause her sons to be so unsatisfied, and to resort to drug use in order to get ahead. Yet in another scene, Bell freeze-frames a shot of his father and mother cheering at Smelly’s weight lifting competition. He comments that his father looked like he just won the lottery, and that his mother looks like she’s thanking God for her blessings. The juxtaposition of these scenes best explains the hypocrisy Bell is aiming to depict.

Not all issue-driven documentaries need a character study to be compelling. “No End in Sight”, Charles Ferguson’s film about the Iraq War is an example of this. But “Bigger, Stronger, Faster*” would not have been nearly as successful had it not explored the Bell family’s struggle to come to terms with simply being like everyone else. This character study provided necessary grounding for what at times seemed to be an overly-ambitious film. At one point, the film is addressing the health implications of steroid use. The next, it is discussing hero-worship in America. Elsewhere, it examines the lack of regulation and false advertising of nutritional supplements use. And so on, and so on. As a result, the film dragged on a bit too long. Even so, the film never ceases to entertain, and its honest look at steroid use in America opens up a fascinating debate about our incessant drive to succeed. A fine piece of documentary filmmaking.

A New Project.

By Tessa Moran

We’ve recently been hired to make a documentary about an independent birth center in NE Washington, DC. It is the only independent birthing center in the district that provides gynecological, obstetric and pediatric health care services to low-income women and their families.

The film will focus on the lives of African American women health care providers who work at the center. Its intent is to motivate young African American girls to enter the health care profession, with the knowledge that there are opportunities at any level and that health care can be a fulfilling profession.

One woman who works as a breast-feeding peer counselor, was a patient at the center as a pregnant teenager and now counsels other women who share her same experience. Another long-time DC resident and single mom is training to be a nurse part-time while she works as an office assistant and case manager. Another works as a midwife, and passionately talks about how much she loves her job.

Snafoo #1

Our shoot went really well, but not without our fair share of snafoos. Two days prior to the shoot was the first time we turned on our camera since we sent it to Canon for a minor tape deck cleaning over a month ago. When we turned it on, we noticed that the aperture, focus and zoom rings did not work. Something must have been broken in the process of the cleaning, and we quickly realized our error in not inspecting the camera immediately after it was returned. Now our warranty had expired and we were just two days away from our big shoot!

Fortunately, a friend of ours bought the exact same camera for his job at an independent polling company in DC. He and his boss were kind enough to let us borrow it for the day while our own camera was being shipped to Canon for repairs.

Lighting, and an unusual interview location

We also rented a set of lights for the day – a pair of Westcott Spiderlites. The result was fantastic – the lights provided a very nice soft light that was daylight balanced, so they matched the light of the sun which was acting as a back light.

The setting for the interviews was a big birthing room that was decorated like a bedroom, with a bed, curtains, pictures and candles. Our subjects sat on a chair in front of the bed, and the colorful pillows and headboard served as an interesting backdrop. One subject talked about how comfortable she felt birthing her own child in the room. The setting of the interviews will serve as a symbol of the home-like natural care offered at the center.

The only issue we ran into with our lighting was that two of the subjects were wearing hats, which shaded their eyes. In retrospect we should have asked them to take off their hats, so that their eyes would be better lit. But the faint shadows are just a minor issue – the interviews still look great.

Increasing confidence

Filming this project has been much easier than filming the last. We are working in our own country, our own city. Now we can digitize our footage, screen it, and send out audio files of the interviews to be transcribed. We had no access to a computer during our last film. Consequently, we relied on spotty notes and memory. And it wasn’t until months after that we were able to start loading and organizing our footage – seeing all of our successes and mistakes.

For the birth center project, our subjects all speak English fluently, unlike our subjects in “Keeping the Kibbutz.” They are all fully invested in the mission and intent of the film, which wasn’t necessarily the case with our subjects in the kibbutz film. Our filming in Israel was very exploratory. We didn’t know what we were intending to say. Rather, we were hoping to discover the story through filming. We did eventually find it, but I’m not sure our subjects really understood what we were doing or why we found their lives interesting.

Diving In Head First: The Pleasures And Perils of Editing

By Tessa Moran

We finally dove into editing. Head first would describe our efforts well, although I can imagine it’s simply impossible to carefully test the waters when it comes to editing. What pushed us off the starting block was an encroaching deadline for a grant we’ve had our eye on for some time. The grant funds would be used to help pay for post-production, including sound design, color correction, original music and consultation services.

The application required a number of components: up to three strong scenes from the film, two letters of interest from distributors/exhibitors, a detailed treatment, description of the film’s significance and dissemination plan, and an itemized budget. We began by working on the three scenes.

The first three scenes:

We had completed some rough editing, but we needed to fine-tune our footage so that it would demonstrate the style, pace, and subject matter of the film. We dedicated nearly every evening and weekend to the task. It was a slow and tedious process at first as we were overwhelmed by the breadth of our footage and the numerous characters and story lines we intended to include. Taking the advice of our academic mentor, we sought to focus on one character and one issue at a time. The advice seems straight-forward but it’s easy to wander into other themes and other characters when editing. At times I felt as if we should affix sticky notes to each other’s foreheads, so that we could remind ourselves of our intended focus.

The first scene we cut was of the “breakfast club,” the group of men that eat breakfast every day outside of the kibbutz kolbo (grocery store). We began the scene with shots of the tables being set with tablecloths, forks, napkins and utensils. Kathy, the owner of the kibbutz grocery store explains how the men, whom she calls the “refugees of the dining room,” approached her about serving breakfast when the dining room closed for that meal. We see the men as they each sit down, grab some vegetables and eggs and start creating Israeli salads.

This was one of the first scenes we shot, which was evidenced by the moments of shaky camera work, poor lighting and sound that we had to cut around. Fortunately we fixed our problems throughout the shoot, working with different angles, with and without the tripod, playing with exposure and depth of field. The variety lent to more options in editing. You really can’t underestimate the power that editing can have in making mediocre footage look fantastic.

The very last shot of the scene was nearly perfect. One of the oldest men, Hanan, straddles his ancient scooter and then drives away out of the frame. By fortune, the camera was perfectly positioned on the tripod, allowing for a smooth pan to follow his motion. Sometimes everything can be going wrong, but other times it feels as if the film gods are watching out for you.

The next scene shows Frankie driving Eli, a handicapped kibbutz member, to the hospital. Eli explains that nobody will drive him to the hospital because he was a jerk to many kibbutz members when he used to be in charge of the communal cars. Frankie still drives him however, because if he won’t take him, then no one will. The scene then transitions to Frankie sitting in his yard, explaining his philosophy of giving to others. Frankie’s words segue into a short scene of him strolling through the kibbutz graveyard, reflecting on the peaceful elements of communal living – but also noting that those elements are in danger as the kibbutz becomes more like the outside “dog eat dog” world.

We have a tremendous amount of footage of Frankie, which in total, reflect his character well. But because of the breadth and variety of footage, crafting a story arc without being visually and chronologically disjointed has been a challenge. We find ourselves unintentionally drifting towards thesis story telling: clear argument supported by visual evidence. As we sift through footage of Frankie, his character presents many contradictions. While his contradictions may not fall into a specific thesis, or argument, they are authentic to his character. But oftentimes, human intentions, ambitions and actions are not always clear-cut. In that way, the editing process has also been a lesson in human behavior.

The third scene introduces us to Yoram, the sous chef at the kibbutz dining room. He explains that he has been working in the dining room for over 20 years, even holding the honor of having the first wedding there. Shots of Yoram chopping vegetables and cooking play as he describes the rotating menu system of the dining room. All is not well in the kitchen however, as the scene ends with Yoram getting into a fight with the head chef of the dining room, who happens to be from outside the kibbutz. Yoram has no problem speaking his mind to the chef, and later relates the emotional toll that hiring outside workers has wrought on some kibbutz members. The scene brings to the forefront one of the key issues of the film: the kibbutz has changed, and as a result, some people have been burned.

Stay tuned for more updates on our progress.

A Title and Much More to Come Soon.

Keeping the Kibbutz. We finally have a title for our feature length documentary. The title came out of many weeks of work we have been doing to apply for a grant for post-production funding. We’ve been so busy with the application, we haven’t had much time to post. But we promise we will post very soon with lots of good stories and info!

~ Eidolon Films

Adventures in Logging…

By Tessa Moran

We finally captured all 45 hours of tape, and have now embarked on the task of logging. That is, labeling and organizing all of our captured footage. We have tried to be very detailed in our descriptions of each scene so that we can use the searching function in Final Cut Pro to quickly find the footage we need as we edit. For each scene, we’ve included the time of day, the location, characters involved, any important dialogue, and on occasion, descriptions of our camera technique. Hopefully this will make the process of searching for footage much easier.

The hardest part of logging has been organizing the scenes we’ve labeled. We created several bins to sort the footage: bins by character, by type of b-roll, by group scenes and by interviews. But some of our scenes fit in more than one bin, a problem that occurs especially when there is more than one character in the scene. We’ve worked around this by establishing the following conditions:

1) Scenes in which one character is dominant will be placed in the corresponding character’s bin. All characters in the scene will be listed in the description.

2) Scenes in which several characters are involved, but no one character is dominant, will be placed in the ’social gatherings’ bin. Each character in the scene will listed in the description.

We originally considered separating our footage by theme, but we realized that the process would be far more confusing, and may limit our creative process.

Time Management

Logging has been a somewhat tedious task that we are finding ourselves reluctant to do, especially after a long day at work. Ben is working as a producer and editor, and I as a reporter. Both our jobs are demanding, and involve many hours in front of a computer screen. Frankly, its been hard for us to sit down, focus and edit instead of just crash on the couch in our pajamas. Perhaps if we were full swing in the creative editing process, we’d be less inclined to be lazy. But logging isn’t exactly fun and creative, so we have been putting it on the back burner.

Last weekend, we woke up late and went to the gym, making up for the sleep and exercise we failed to schedule in during the week. Then we watched movies and caught up with friends. As a result, we didn’t put any meaningful time into editing, which we have said on repeated occasions is our priority.

There will always be an excuse for why we can’t get around to doing it, but we went into making this film knowing full well that there would be hard work and sacrifice involved. And so, what we need to do now after a week and weekend of procrastination, is to evaluate our limitations and to develop a realistic schedule for editing.

We know that we cannot possibly edit every evening after work. We would burn out quickly if we did. But a couple of nights during the week of about one to two hours each is a reasonable commitment. On the weekends, we know we need to catch up with sleep, exercise and friends in order to stay sane. But we can free up an afternoon or morning on Saturday and Sunday. It won’t be easy – sacrifice and hard work never is. But our vision for the film, our love for documentary filmmaking and our desire to succeed should hopefully help us meet our goal.