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Updates

Now, in Vancouver

Bicycles and boats, sunset at Jericho beach

I’m heads-down, working away on the final touches to my film and sheltering in Vancouver while we all wait to see what happens next. A gracious friend has provided a place to stay while I search out housing for my two-week-turned-indefinite hiatus here. I’m safe and healthy, grateful to be in a country with an excellent public health system. I miss my artist & close friends in Brazil, Albuquerque and Paris. Like almost everyone I talk to, it feels like the human species is waiting, holding our breath, in limbo. It’s the strangest kind of liminal space.

I’m working on the final tweaks to the music, sound design and colour for Cántame. Most of the film festivals have I’d planned to show the film at have or are in the process of being cancelled. I’m not sure what’s next for the film, but I know I want to finish it well and for as many people as possible to get the chance to see it.

For now, I’m spending my time inside like everyone else, peeking out for groceries and exercise, taking in too many zoom calls, learning, waiting and watching. 

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News

Cántame

The film is complete. And it has a title. The IMDB submission has been made, festival submissions are beginning, and work on the trailer has begin.

What an unbelievable three years.

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Updates

It just might be…

finished?

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Photography

Limeira Del Rei

I’m in Brazil to screen the film with some participants. It’s an opportunity to reconnect without the camera and get their feedback to ensure they feel well represented by what I’ve put together. It’s been an amazing time. We’ve all matured in the two years since I first started filming, and I’ve enjoyed following Ale, Cata and the rest of the crew as they do workshops around the south of Brazil.

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Photography

Making progress

My work nest here in Albuquerque
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Updates

Assembly complete!

A quick note to say not only has work re-started on my latest film, but I’ve also (finally) finished the first full assembly! This is a major milestone. It’s the first time all the material I’d like to see in the film is collected in order on a single timeline. Now I can see the shape of it.

A process that ended up being tremendously helpful was to allow my intuition to make poetic associations between visuals, largely based on mood and emotion. Then I might write some music to match the mood, and edit a scene in that flow. This led to some surprising discoveries of connections between material and, I hope, a much more interesting film to watch.

It’s been a long, iterative process. I’ve been through three or four major reorganization of the material. As it stands the film is two hours and 40 minutes long, with 90+ scenes. Time to start cutting it down to just the essence!

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Updates

422/129

Outline view in my writing software

I search for the line of the film from amidst a mountain of impressions, annotations and intuitive connections. To get there, each of the best moments receives a digital “3×5 card” with a title, impressions, tags for scene type, songs and characters, and a summary transcript or translation. With just the best material, I have 422 index cards—too much to parse. So I slice further to just the scenes that send shivers down my spine.

I must be easily impressionable because after the latest cull I still have 129 “so great it has to be in the movie!” scenes…

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Updates

Phase 1 Complete! Begin Phase 2.

Fifty-one weeks after my last day in Argentina the process to organize, import, transcode, sort, log, keyword, transcribe, translate and most importantly review and annotate 128 hours of footage is complete. My bullet-point notes add up to 87000 words, 350 pages of observations and insights. My plan was four months. It took almost eight. It’s a tedious process, and though I learned a lot and experienced some spine-tinglingly-great moments, I’m very glad it’s done.

Now on to the next phase of creative work: to transform a few moments from the mountain into 90 minutes of movie magic.