First Meeting Down
There is nothing wrong with meeting till 2am, right?
By MARK PERRY
Since I started moving forward with things, it feels like there has been meeting after meeting. Had the first meeting with my producer to get things moving. It felt great to have someone else commit to helping work things through at this stage. We started working through potential crews and direction of the film. I have to say that I really am super excited for this project. I am really terrified as to how everything might come together, but I have faith that it will all work out.
Whats coming next? I am planning to meet with my producer on a semi-regular basis to gather a focus on what needs to be done and how its gonna get done. Also will be meeting with the head of the film department soon to talk about the parameters of the capstone project and what we will be the process of traveling abroad. As well as meeting with the professor who will be leading the senior capstone class.
Right now we could use prayers about finding direction of the film and starting the process of getting the details in line. We are trying to find the best way to approach the process because depending on the direction and approach we choose it could change the way we prep for everything.
“It feels like every time I am with Will it turns into the next Africa meeting. It does not matter what was going on, at somepoint we get going on planning stuff.”
After hearing the stories he told about what they were able to do in that community and the goals that he had for his organization, I had an idea. At the time it felt like a crazy idea and I just kinda put it in the back of my mind. As this past semester came to a close the idea came back to the front of my mind.
I still thought it was a crazy idea, but I couldn’t get it out of my mind.
After spending some time thinking about it and praying about it, I wanted to talk about it. Bringing up the idea with other people always ended the same way, “This is really cool and I really think you should do it.” This prompted me to start moving things along, meeting with some people and to get the details rolling. Now we will see where things go! There are lots of things that gotta be figured out before this project can be officially green lit, but I think its time to start working on those details.
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Our first big screening of the film was with the senior showcase in May 2020. The next step for the film was to submit to a variety of film festivals. We got some great news from the 15 minutes of Fame Festival. 15 Minutes of Fame is a Film Festival based out of Florida, and is a collection of films produced anywhere in the United States or Canada that are under 15 minutes in length. Submitted films were viewed by a panel of five judges and the highest scores became official selections. We got our Official Selection notification at the end of October. It is with great anticipation that we look forward to the digital screening of the festival that runs for the month of December. We are one of two documentaries being screened.
Before being brought on to this project, I had already edited numerous short documentaries and short films both at Stevenson and my various internships. I knew how to organize and prepare footage, but I was only doing it at a semi-moderate level. Most of the time, the footage was on the same hard drive as the project and I was only dealing with-on average-maybe two hours of footage in any given project. I knew that this would be a totally different animal so I had to make sure I was ready.
I like to play with hypotheticals in my down time. It could be what would happen in a class, or writing a project, or a later conversation I’m going to have with a person. They’re easy to come up with and I can think of some crazy hypotheticals when I want to. Going to Africa was no exception. I was going to a place I was unfamiliar with having no experience in Africa with Alang having made the mission trip once before. Since he grew up in Cameroon, I felt better, but that didn’t mean that butterflies went away.
I woke up at 3:00 am the day we left for Toube. My mind was coming up with all types of ideas on what to expect to see in Toube. Would this be when culture shock hits me? Will I feel like I’m starving myself to death? Will I be able to handle some of the sights I see? I didn’t go back to sleep. Everyone else woke up around 5:00 am. The ride to the boat was one of the smoothest rides we had so far. There were actually roads (most of the trip) and they weren’t in terrible condition. Plus, not many cars were out at 6:00 am (understandable). Police/military were patrolling the roads and pulled us over a couple times wondering our reason for traveling. Geh showed his military ID and explained what we were doing as other men shined flashlights into our van. We were cleared to go but it was a little nerve wracking watching men with guns tell us whether or not we could go and wondering what would happen if they told us to exit the vehicle.