A DOC'S JOURNAL by Scott Solary

While Luci put together multiple festival submission packages, I made this:

After viewing the video, you'll see a series of suggested videos load into the bottom of the player. Hold your cursor over them to see their titles. Find the video titled "Why every girl should buy their boyfriend Wii fit". Click it. It used to be when you did this, you'd be transported to the YouTube page of that video, but now you stay on the page that you want to be on and watch other videos. Really cool! Someone's understanding something about embeddable distribution. That's Amanda Elend, MobLogic blogger and Wallstrip writer with hip-swingin' editor, Sean Smith. It was a light-hearted video response to this video:

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This is an awesome piece the regional network, SNN was running through the weekend of our screenings:

Here's an inciteful podcast from Noralil Ryan Fores who interviewed us for her excellent site ShortEnd Magazine: thoughts on independent film. To listen to the interview please click here: shortendmagazine.com/content/view/536/71
or find ShortEnd Magazine on iTunes.

From the Good Hard Working People blog:
She asked some really great questions, not only about All God's Children and our process, but also about other projects and our thoughts on documentaries and changes in that market in general.

We talk rather candidly about some of the obstacles and frustrations in making this film. It makes it sound a bit worse than the experience really was. At first I wasn't sure if it's such a good idea to talk about the struggles, because it may make us or our film look bad. But then I think that it's important to be honest with other makers and the audience: it's not all just fun or easy and we all go through difficult times with our projects. It's probably one of the bigger frustrations when you think to everyone else it's a piece of cake and you may be the only one struggling.

When talking about how "ill-prepared" we were or how difficult it was to conduct the interviews with the abuse survivors because of how emotional it would be for us, I missed to emphasize that a lot of the difficulty came from realizing that this was causing pain to the interviewees and that we were lacking the psychological training to know if we were handling this and their stories well.

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I returned to New York to my job, but Luci was able to stay for the rest of the festival. While there, she did several more interviews with local press. I'll post the links and videos when we get them. She did web, radio and TV! Here's some highlights. James Israel, of indieWIRE, gave us a shout out in his summation of Sarasota and Michael Tully blogged some kind words and awesome photos of our panel and screening.

Being interviewed for local TV

Enjoying the nightlife.

and Florida's west coast sunset

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FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW: 'ALL GOD'S CHILDREN'
Joel Rozen
Published Sunday, April 6, 2008 at 11:58 a.m.

It was hardly the study abroad experience their parents thought they were having.

"All God's Children"

Directors: Scott Solary and Luci Westphal. 63 min. 3:30 p.m. April 6. Hollywood 20. A-

"There was no place to run, there was no place to hide," says American Rich Darr, of his childhood in West Africa.

Growing up missionary kids in the 1960s, Darr and his siblings were exposed to a world of routine beatings, playground humiliation and sexual manipulation. They weren't alone.

These, they allege in a sensitive new documentary by Scott Solary and Luci Westphal that premiered Saturday at the Sarasota Film Festival,, were among the horrors endured by countless students at Mamou Alliance Academy.

The parochial boarding school for missionary kids in Guinea had served as a sort of practical childcare system for members of the evangelical group Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) during their time overseas.

Some kids were raped. Others whipped with belts until they bled. One woman recalls nights of fearing for her life.

For years, the abuse inflicted by Mamou educators and dorm staff was unknown even to parents. But decades later, as alumni began to uncover repressed trauma, many realized they were victims of a perverse educational system.

"All God's Children" gives them the voice they claim they never had. Drawing from personal photographs, home movies, old Super-8 footage and a bevy of interviews with Mamou alumni, Solary and Westphal's film is sad yet unflinching, and demonstrates what can happen when unsuspecting parents put too much faith in an institution. The tone of the film may be more than just cautionary, however: It could be humanitarian.

Mamou was shut down in 1971, but of the roughly 110 missionary boarding schools still in operation throughout the world, the film's subjects cite 21 accused of similar acts of abuse. More troubling, while missionary school abuse may be endemic, legal action is seldom taken against those inflicting the pain. It certainly never was at Mamou — the C&MA still barely acknowledges the "psychological, physical and spiritual" abuse they once backed. (In one memorable scene, International Ministries Vice President Bob Fetherlin seems to grasp at straws for an explanation. "We were slower to act than we could've been," he says. To this day, not a single Mamou staff member has faced any serious consequences.)

The strength of "All God's Children" lies in the way it captures the emotional ripples cast by the abuse. At a post-screening Q&A attended by the filmmakers and six of their subjects, one viewer was particularly intrigued by the parents' reactions when they learned about what had happened at Mamou.

"It was an ongoing grief for them," said Diane Darr, Rich’s older sister and a also a victim. "And it still is."

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This is an excerpt from the The Studio Upstairs podcast.

It's long, but enjoy!

The player I embedded is always on auto-play and was quite annoying, so click here for the permalink!

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Good Hard Working People
Contact: Luci Westphal
admin[at]goodhardworkingpeople.com

WORLD PREMIERE: ALL GOD’S CHILDREN, FIRST DOCUMENTARY EXPOSING CHILD ABUSE WITHIN PROTESTANT EVANGELICAL MISSIONARY COMMUNITY

Filmmakers and Eight Abuse Survivors Attend World Premiere at Sarasota Film Festival on April 5th and 6th

(Brooklyn, NY, March 2008) All God’s Children will have its world premiere Saturday, April 5, 2:30pm, at Regal Cinemas Hollywood 20 Theater 8, with a second screening on April 6th, 3:30pm, at Regal Cinemas Hollywood 20 Theater 11, as part of the Sarasota Film Festival. Eight members of the Beardslee, Darr and Shellrude families, who are featured in the film, are scheduled to attend both screenings along with the filmmakers, Scott Solary and Luci Westphal. Q&A sessions with the filmmakers and participants will follow both screenings.

All God's Children is the first documentary to expose issues of child abuse within the Protestant Evangelical missionary community. The film takes a personal look at the consequences of the abuse through the eyes of three former missionary families. While the parents were stationed in remote outposts throughout West Africa, the children - starting at the age of 6 - were required to attend Christian and Missionary Alliance (C&MA) boarding school in Mamou, Guinea. Cut off from their parents and without any reliable means of communication, the children suffered extensive abuse at the hands of the all-missionary staff.

It took the children decades to acknowledge the effects the abuses had on their lives. When they finally dared to speak out, the C&MA denied all allegations and refused to help. The children and their parents took action...

In Attendance:

- Scott Solary, New York (director, producer, editor)

- Luci Westphal, New York (director, producer, camera)

- Ann Beardslee, Florida (parent & former C&MA missionary, member of MK SafetyNet)

- Dr. Howard Beardslee, Florida (parent & former C&MA missionary, member of MK SafetyNet)

- Dianne Darr Couts, Ohio (former student)

- David Darr, Ohio (former student)

- Dr. John Darr, Massachusetts (former student, professor of theology at Boston College)

- Rev. Richard Darr, Illinois (former student, Methodist pastor)

- Marilyn Shellrude Christman, Washington (former student, member of MK SafetyNet)

- Beverly Shellrude, Ontario (former student, member of MK SafetyNet)

ADDITIONAL PRESS CONFERENCE:

The MK SafetyNet is an advocacy organization for abused MKs. Many of their founding members are featured in the film. They are holding a press conference preceding the premiere on Saturday, April 5, 1pm at the Selby Public Library, 1331 First Street, Sarasota.

Website (Trailer, Hi-Res Stills, Press Kit & Synopsis): http://www.allgodschildrenthefilm.com

To request a DVD Screener of the film: info[at]allgodschildrenthefilm.com

Filmmakers Scott Solary and Luci Westphal are available for interviews.

Please contact Luci Westphal, admin[at]goodhardworkingpeople.com

Good Hard Working People, LLC, P.O. Box 170077, Brooklyn, NY 11217 http://www.goodhardworkingpeople.com/

BLOGS:

Good Hard Working People blog: http://goodhardworkingpeople.blogspot.com/

Scott Solary blog: http://blogs.indiewire.com/swestphal-solary/

Posted by Scott Solary at 10:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Once we finally had our 2 master digi-beta tapes dubbed, it was on to producing all the promo needs for the festival. Roman Bodnar also edited an awesome trailer which I posted previously. If you're a Facebooker, check out the fanpage we set up.

First we made the graphic for our screener DVDs:

Then we needed postcards:

FRONT

BACK

and of course, the poster:

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edited by Roman Bodnar

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REPOSTED from Good Hard Working Blog:
Oh, how naively I wrote on Monday, March 17th, about finding some flash frames in the master DVD of All God's Children and worrying that it would take ALL DAY to get a new one made. It took ALL WEEK! Every single Groundhog Day started with me proofing the DVD I had finished making by 2am-ish the previous night - only to find something else wrong (flash frames, glitches, drop-outs, fuzziness, interlacing... - all things that did not reveal themselves on the Avid timeline) and having to figure a solution to the issue and starting the process of Avid to tape to FCP to Compressor to DVD Studio to DVD (with variations) over again. Every day I watched the film at least twice - without ever looking away as to not miss any frame-long errors.

And I thought on Monday I might risk my sanity. You should have seen me by Friday.

But the spirits of low-budget filmmaking prevailed again and we now have a master DVD. By the way, one of the secrets was to add a frame to each clip going into each cut, skipping Compressor all together and bumping up the bit rate on DVD Studio to 6.8.

Two more days of interlacing (Why is all the Super 8 3:3 instead of 3:2 pull-down? Must be the slow-mo.) and drop-out scares (How in the world can drop-outs sneak in during the encoding of an uncompressed QuickTime file out of Avid?) and with the help of the wonderful Scott and Jessica at Atmosphere Pictures I now have a final DigiBeta master. Actually it's in the mail and should arrive in Sarasota at noon today!

All in all during the last 10 days I must have watched the film about 15 times without ever looking away (not counting the times I watched it casually while it was being digitized or laid off). But a week like that is totally worth it when you receive unexpected emails from people who somehow have heard about the film and share their own stories of abuse at missionary boarding schools and their anticipation of our film helping them and others in making this topic public. I hope the film won't disappoint.

What I know won't disappoint is the trailer Roman Bodnar has cut together for us. It should be up here and on the website later today or tomorrow.

Posted by Scott Solary at 05:16 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I've put off posting about this until everything was in place, but at last I can blog that "All God's Children" will have its world premiere! And it's in my home state of Florida. I feel like I've probably told everyone that reads this blog the good news, but wanted to make sure it gets its own post and that the words of happiness and thanks are recorded in the annals of blog history.

If you scroll down the right of my hompepage and in the Categories section and click on the "All God's Children" link, you'll see how long I have been keeping record of the progress of our film. Basically, right after we received the Jerome Foundation New York Media Arts Grant. We had interviewed the Beardslee family, but the Darrs and Shellrudes were yet to come.

I feel very fortunate to have been on the minds of the indieWIRE guys when they were thinking who to invite into the new world of blogs they would host. The only thing cinematic going on in my life was the doc, so I figured I'd use the blog platform to serve as a journal for the films production, hence the name, a doc's journal.

Regardless of why you make films, after you've shot and edited and often before, you begin thinking about who will see it and where. We thought we were finished many times before and have entertained many festivals as its' first screening. We've even contemplated the sad realities of not having that opportunity at all. But then comes the kind words of Tom Hall telling you that your film, "is a powerful story of abuse and the path to recovery and we would be honored to show the film at the festival." And we knew Sarasota was perfect. We have only heard rave reviews of the staff, screening venues, accommodations and hospitality from filmmakers and industry alike.

So we will have two screenings within the opening weekend of the festival: Saturday, April 5th at 2:30 and again on Sunday, April 6th at 3:30. All but two of the participants in the film (as well as their families) will be attending. Most of my family and even a posse of our dear old Florida friends will be attending. There is also rumor that there will be a press conference. And because the denomination has a large retired population living in Florida, we may even some controversy. We could only hope.

We are utterly ecstatic to be premiering our film at this years Sarasota Film Festival. We think it's a perfect fit and an awesome place for the film to begin this new leg of its journey.

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We successfully launched our new show, MobLogic on Friday. If you haven't seen our beautiful website, CLICK HERE. While you're there, please check out our archive, subscribe to receive daily updates and leave us a comment on your thoughts. We really want to be reflective of what the people are thinking so let us know. If you want to know what makes Lindsay the smartest and most talented actor/host in the world, read this interview in CNET. Here's some other press: Silicon Alley Insider got the inside scoop, followed by New TeeVee. Luci also has a great post at the Good Hard Working People blog.

I can't say enough about all the people I work with. Talented and driven would be a gross understatement. Check out our "ABOUT" page to see the faces behind the machine.

We have a Flickr page that we're trying to populate with pics from our misadventures and I'm trying to Twitter often. If you want to follow my silliness, search Scott Solary.

I've met a lot of filmmakers who will also be in Sarasota screening their films as well as some nice festival programmers who expressed interest in seeing "All God's Children" so keep your fingers crossed that they will like it enough to program in their festival.

We're having our launch party today at 3. I'm hoping the weather holds out. I'll have to post more later when I can catch my breath.

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This year's SXSW fest is going to be a busy one for me. I'll be wearing several hats throughout the week.

First, we'll be launching MobLogic.TV on March 7th. I'll be producing a show on Friday in and around SXSW to air on Monday. We'll overnight it and have the guys in New York cut it to air on Monday. HERE'S OUR FACEBOOK PAGE.

I've been instrumental in organizing the party for Sunday. Our decision to have ours at 3:00 has proven to be a good one. There seems to be 5 other parties happening that day, but they're all starting at 6:00 or later. We'll be draining our last margarita by then.

Secondly, I've written about the Exquisite Corpse Filmmaking Project I'm a part of and on Tuesday, I'll be in front of an unknown amount of people talking about my process of making my 4-minute contribution. I shot my part 4 weeks ago and handed off my minute to Scott Colthorp a week later. VIEW MY LAST MINUTE HERE! I have to say, I'm really proud of my piece. I can't talk about it too much yet, because other filmmakers aren't allowed to know. Shhhh!

Thirdly, I'll be going down to Austin this year to promote "All God's Children". We received great news last Monday night: our film was accepted to the 2008 Sarasota Film Festival and will be screened twice between the 5 - 8th of April! We are so excited by this news. It will be our official World Premiere and we can think of no other festival that would be better than Sarasota. I hope to meet some people who are also planning on being in Florida in April that will come support our film.

We have lots of family and friends in and around Florida who are planning to attend. There is also a sizable C&MA community there as well. It should be a full screening with a lively Q&A afterwards.

The festival makes its formal announcement very soon. It'll get its own post after that. (and I'm sure plenty more surrounding the experience). This is the beginning of yet another leg of a long trek with this film. One we've been looking forward to for quite some time now.

Somewhere between all that I had a birthday. It was a wonderfully relaxed couple of days with friends, food and shopping.

Posted by Scott Solary at 08:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

As unbelievable as it may seem, my little video hit the 1 million views mark. In 2 days. Check it out:

I tried to have some merchandise for sale (not for profit), but Cafe Press shut me down before I could even buy a T-shirt for myself. I had men's organic cotton T's, women's tank-tops, coffee mugs and buttons all lined up for purchase. Cafe Press expressed concerns with my compliance to their corporate "Content Usage Policy (CUP)" namely the part pertaining to "...designing, manufacturing, marketing and/or selling products that may infringe the rights of a third party, including, copyrights (e.g., an image of a television cartoon character)..."

"I personally believe" that their concerns are totally unwarranted. But here's what the T-shirt would have looked like had they let it go. A screen capture from the video with her famous first words subtitled, "I personally believe" gracing the front and my alter ego, POPobscura's logo stamped on the back.

Of course, all this means is that I'll have to find an alternate route for printing. Leave a comment to place your order.

Miss Teen South Carolina was on the Today Show where they let her off the hook so easily and gave her a second chance to answer the "confusing" question on LIVE television. Golly, aren't Ann and Matt swell? I don't think they should have laughed in her face, but they could have given her a little harder of a time. Watch:

"ALL GOD'S CHILDREN" UPDATE:

We received a DVD in the mail the other day containing some nearly pristine Super 8 footage from the early 60's of the Mamou Alliance Academy, the boarding school that is one of the central subjects of "All God's Children." Over the next week, Luci and I are going to work it into the cut. It is absolutely amazing. There's children traveling to Mamou in the back of a jeep, getting out at the school, scenic Africa shots, children playing and more and more. It's unbelievable.

The woman who sent it to us saw our current version of the film and her response reinforced the reason why we're making the film in first place. It's not to please festivals and/or distributors, but to help all the adults that are still dealing with surviving an abusive childhood under the dogma of a "tortured theology." (to quote my Uncle Howard) But her words of praise and thanks for our filmmaking efforts moved Luci and I deeply. Most of our faith in ourselves was returned in one short email. We can't wait to unveil yet another (and this time final) version of "All God's Children."

Unbeknownst to me, Luci was writing an entry in her blog about the same thing. The similarities are uncanny, but then again, that's what makes us such a team. Read it here.

Posted by Scott Solary at 12:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

We are making yet even MORE changes to the film. Or at least, we will be soon. We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of a video tape full of Super 8 footage of children at Mamou!! This is what we feel our film has been so desperately needing and we can't wait to integrate it into the cut. We hope it will really liven up some of the interviews and replace some of the static photography.

Having migrated to Final Cut Pro from Avid, I feel lost going back to the interface. It feels so archaic and clunky. Avid requires you to click so many times before you can do a task, whereas Final Cut, you can one-click the same task most of the time. I really don't know how I ever did it and liked it so much.

I feel like I've been out of the doc scene for a while since I've been concentrating so much on online video production. I just came across this mention in an indieWIRE article from March -

Here's an excerpt:
And let's not forget about some of the fine doc-focused blogs housed right here on indieWIRE, including Steve Rosenbaum's Docu-Blog/Steve's POV. Although there is a lot about documentary film in the blog, Rosenbaum also offers his unique take on everything from Web 2.0 to the fate of television as we know it. Amy King, Associate Director of SILVERDOCS, provides her own fresh perspective on the world of documentary film on King Blog, managing to incorporate welcome doses of humor while writing about festivals, seminars, and things in the news of interest to doc makers and lovers.

Sounds right in line with our plans. READ THE ENTIRE ARTICLE

i was thrilled to read this article and quite honored to be mentioned along side all these other bloggers. It gives me all the more reason to commit to updating more often.

And here's something funny:

Posted by Scott Solary at 08:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Over the last two weeks Luci has been building a website for "All God's Children".

From the Good Hard Working People Blog:

"It's still a work in progress. Actually in some ways the site will continue to change as the journey of the film progresses.

One addition we hope to make soon is a trailer and a few clips from the film.

If you have any suggestions (especially for the links/resources page) feel free to contact us through the email address on the site."

So please check it out: www.AllGodsChildrenTheFilm.com

Posted by Scott Solary at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week CNN's Anderson Cooper 360 aired a show about Headline News anchor Thomas Roberts who was sexually abused as a teen by a Catholic priest.

I'm not sure if there will be further re-runs of the episode but you can read a statement by Roberts by copying & pasting this link into your browser: http://edition.cnn.com/2007/US/03/09/roberts.btsc/index.html

A lot of what he has to say resonates with the experience of the victims we interviewed for "All God's Children" who were abused by Evangelical missionaries, not Catholics. The shame, the inability to tell others, the decades that pass - and then the courage. A courage which I applaud in Thomas Roberts as much as in any non-celebrity.

What struck me most was this:

"When I was in college, another boy, Michael Goles, came forward and reported his abuse at the hands of Father Jeff. I knew I could help Michael if I, too, revealed Father Jeff's abuse, but out of a feeling of self-preservation, I remained quiet. Michael wasn't believed, and his case was thrown out of court." - Thomas Roberts

How big the shame, how terrible the fear must be that you are not able to step up when someone else has already gone public and a conviction may depend on your testimony.

This is also something we came across in the making of our documentary with one of the alleged perpetrators. The person making the accusation still stands alone with no one braving to speak up against the alleged abuser.

Then the closing words of this article struck me. While I'm currently in the midst of submitting our documentary to festivals in hopes to bring it to an audience and maybe open the doors to wider distribution - worrying if it's good enough, if programmers will select it, if we cleared all legal rights, if the color is corrected, if we can afford another submission, etc. - I'm reminded again of what really matters. The people in our film suffered a lot and making this film may have caused them some more agony, but just like Thomas Roberts, this is why they told us their stories:

"If this story compels even one person to seek help for being sexually abused, then it is all worth it. All it takes is telling one person. From there, strength grows and you can tell a second person and so on. Then you can finally have control of your life back." - Thomas Roberts

POSTED FROM THE GOOD HARD WORKING PEOPLE BLOG

Posted by Scott Solary at 11:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Another milestone - over the weekend we designed the DVD cover and label for "All God's Children".
We hope that soon we'll be able to fill the more sparse corners with film festival laurels...

________
For efficiency reasons this text is a copy of an entry from the Good Hard Working People blog.

Posted by Scott Solary at 11:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Color correcting at Glue Edit & Design featuring Rich Darr in All God's Children

It's been a little over three years since we conducted the first interview for our documentary feature All God's Children...

After spending 23 hours straight (we saw sunset and sunrise) at a marathon color correction and mastering session we can finally announce:

ALL GOD'S CHILDREN IS FINISHED!!!

Now it's on to making screener DVDs and submitting to festivals.

The sun rises over the Hudson River (18 hours into it, 5 more to go...)

________
For efficiency reasons this text is a copy of an entry from the Good Hard Working People blog

Posted by Scott Solary at 11:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

For a more frequently updated BLOG about what us Good Hard Working People are up to, click here and bookmark.

Meanwhile, our sound designer is on a much deserved vacation and we are scheduled for a full day sit down on Thursday to listen to all his work and give notes. We're very excited about being able to hear our film crackle with life. He's done some cool things and we're sure it will really take it to the next level.

Posted by Scott Solary at 04:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The film is Picture Locked!!! I have to capitalize those words because of their major significance to finishing the film. The latest word from Tom, our sound editor and designer, is that he is about halfway through the sound work. We’re predicting to be entirely finished by the end of January.

Luci and I recently returned from Oklahoma where I assisted her with more footage for her documentary, Five Sisters. Okay, it was this Oklahoma. We also shot a “transition video” for my great aunt and uncle who are uprooting from OKC to a beautiful, but smaller place in Crescent Beach, Florida. It was a productive and fun visit. We saw the finer side of OKC through an upscale restaurant tour on our lunch breaks from filming.

We also have officially changed our company name from ein-blick productions to Good Hard Working People. It was our website URL and it finally grew on us, so we switched. Our website is currently being rebuilt and we’ve re-branded with a new logo, biz cards and stationary. Luci has started us a company BLOG for all things Good and Hard Working, so tune in for our latest there and bookmark it for future postings. This BLOG will stay here and continue to be the link to All God's Children as we embark on trying to get it premiered and then some distribution. Recently, the IDA enabled us to take online tax-deductible donations through their website. We're the 3rd film down the scroll. Pass it along if you feel like helping.

Luci has been writing entries for some time now and I just now had the time to read through them only to realize that we are being redundant. For a more detailed recount of our time in Oklahoma and a complimentary view on the last few weeks, please read through all the entries.

We’re back in Brooklyn for 5 days and then down to St. Augustine for the remaining 9 days of Christmas. Please read the latest from Boxer the cat, as we are giving up on his owners and trying to find a loving home for him.

From Luci and I and all our cats, we hope you all have a safe and wonderful holiday season! We’ll see you on the other side of 2007.

Posted by Scott Solary at 04:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I realize it’s been a while since I reported any new happenings on the film. There are a few reasons. The reason for the last few weeks was that I was having problems logging in, but after enough whining and complaining, it’s all good. The biggest reason for the lengthy lapse in updates is the sad fact that for quite a while there wasn’t any “news” to report on. The film had reached a wall of sorts. It was the financial wall. In short, we have managed to break through that wall with the help of several generous individuals. We will now be able to have the sound edit, sound mix, color correction and mastering done!!!

Read on if you want all the sorted details of the last few difficult months of our lives.

Luci and I needed to work as much as we could to make ends meet and therefore unable to dedicate little, if any, time toward finishing the film. But we weren't able to work so much where we could actually get ahead enough to pay for the thousands of necessary finishing dollars ourselves. We applied for several finishing funds from assorted organizations and outlets and were rejected by a few and are waiting to hear back from the others. From those we did hear back from, we were encouraged to resubmit future cuts and/or re-apply. So not a total loss.

While we were working to get funds for both living and finishing, our film sat idle in the computer. Luci and I had reached the difficult decision to just finish the film to best of our abilities and nt wait for the fiancial windfall needed to enlist professional help. Then, as if on cue, an email pops into my inbox enquiring about the needs of the film and one week later, we received a very generous donation from an amazing couple who like to provide financial support to organizations they deem worthy. This year, they chose our film.

We immediately started looking into the cut again to realize exactly how much work was left to do and wouldn’t you know it, our big LaCie drive starts acting up AGAIN (see earlier BLOG). Sometimes it would work and other times it’s totally inaccessible. At best, it was inconsistent and “hinky” making all work on the film slow going and pretty much futile. So, yet again, we played the troubleshooting game with our ageing computer and came to the conclusion that the drive has finally died and we’ll need to replace it. I went out and bought another 500 gig external drive to copy our 300 gigs of media onto. This time I chose Maxtor. We have 2 other drives from them and have had zero problems. Everyone I talk to about the problems with the LaCie drive are surprised and proudly report that they’ve never had any problems with theirs. LaCie told me that they have a 1% failure rate. Say hello to the 1%. I managed to copy over the data over the course of a week. In the meantime, for reason that are too lengthy to get into, we tried a different power supply for the LaCie drive and voila, it works like a charm, er, I mean, like it’s supposed to. So now we have an extra 500 gig drive.

Our great friend, amazing sound editor and morale boosting friend, Ruth Hernandez, spent a day with us “specing” the film for sound effects and making general sound notes for us. She also did some variations of our music to use in different places throughout the film. So at last, we have been putting all the final touches we can on it before we put it into the capable hands of our sound designer, Tom Lino and then the color correctionist who is yet to be determined.

Things that have happened along the way:
Obviously from my earlier posts, you can see that we rescued an injured cat. He has recovered rather nicely and walks and runs and fights with our other cats. We thought there was good news when we found his owners, but it’s never that easy. Apparently they didn’t do much looking for him when he went missing, thought he had died and balked at helping us pay the vet bill. He’s still hanging out with us, but we are looking for a home for him. He’s about 3-4 years old, very outgoing and has a little limp.

I tried my hand at regaining my youth by building a skate ramp with a neighbor friend and was enjoying weekend sessions on Baltic Street until I fell and tore my left meniscus in my left knee. There goes my skate life. There may be some arthroscopic surgery in my near future.

I have done a couple of video jobs for our friends Jeff and Adam’s company, BrightRED Pictures. They hired me to interview people on the streets of NYC about different aspects of their faith and edit it all together for the website, Beliefnet.com. Click through them, they’re kinda’ cool. Through these projects, I was able to learn Final Cut Pro. Being a PC loyalist for so long, I have to say I am VERY impressed with the Mac world. FCP is like a nice marriage between Avid and Premiere. It does, however, allow you to be very sloppy and therefore I’ve noticed a few nasty little editing habits creeping in, but overall, I’m convinced.

After all our tech problems and frustrations I have decided that my next computer purchase will be a Mac. So bring on the "I told you so's!!"

Posted by Scott Solary at 08:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Luci took this picture last night from our roof in Brooklyn.

It’s such a different thing to be in New York and experience the feelings that linger while the rest of the world seems to still be able to find new ways to exploit and capitalize on these feelings. This 9/11 in particular has been very useful to the Bush administration to remind and refresh the voters how scared they should be and how they are single-handedly responsible for everyone’s safety before they go the polls for the mid-term elections. Be afraid. Be very afraid. I hope everyone can remember who voted to start the occupation in the first place and vote them out. Click Here for a reminder.

In other news, Luci and I have been trying to land some finishing funds and working freelance film jobs in the meantime, so nothing too new to report there. Hopefully there will be some news to report soon on that front, but it's too early to say anything definite. Everybody keep their fingers crossed.

Posted by Scott Solary at 10:33 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Sorry about the alarm last blog sounded. I am fine and there hasn't been any recurrences. Just a fluke muscle spasm.

Luci and I have been making some last changes to the film. I know I've said it before, but I think we are very close if not at, picture lock! Now to try and find those finishing resources.

We're heading out to L.A. on Saturday through July 3rd for an old friends of mine's wedding in Marina Del Rey. We will be staying in Santa Monica and Venice compliments of some dear old friends. It will be my first time to California and I'm very excited. It will also be my first time flying Jet Blue, which I hear is a amazing compared to other domestic airlines.

We also recently joined the Park Slope Food Co-op It's a long time overdue having lived in the neighborhood for nearly 5 years. The food is great, the prices are super low and the work is rather easy. I'm a stock boy. Always wanted that job and now I get to do it for 2 hours and 45 minutes every 4 weeks.

Posted by Scott Solary at 02:11 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Since last update, I have been in a knock down drag out fight with my computer yet again. After 6 days of troubleshooting a strange "pulse" coming from the computer to my tape deck, I have emerged triumphant, but without a defniitive answer as to what the problem was. I'm going to blame it on a Windows update. In short I replaced my firewire card, all cables, uninstalled and reinstalled Avid (even a newer version) and finally had to rebuild the entire OS. They call it recovery, but it's quite the opposite. It's more like losing years of preferences, updates and software. All that is left to do is try to get my computer to acknowledge a drive and we're back in business. I would have posted about this earlier, but I have had a difficult time logging in to my blog. Again, the technological planets aren't in alignment for me.

While I was in my bunker and locked out of blogville, I found a few interesting things on the web.

Apparently, the Colbert speech has been put back on line as well as the Bush comedy sketch. If you haven't seen it, you must: COLBERT and BUSH

A mother's day card everyone should have passed along:

And a game that will make you feel good.

And this little jewel of a guy at Denny's about to drive home. Scary.

Posted by Scott Solary at 10:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's been since March that I updated this blog of mine. Some things have changed, some things have stayed the same. We're still working 10 - 6, M-F and editing at nights and weekends. The struggle continues.

Most recently, Karen Schmeer, Errol Morris' editor, gave us some constructive notes and we've been addressing them. Luci and I went to Florida to begin production on a documentary Luci is directing on my Grandmother and 4 Great Aunts. She's heading to Gainesville today to follow up on a short doc she started 10 years ago. In the meantime, I am back in New York tweaking the cut of All God's Children.

To do a little bragging, I am now in my 5th week as a non-smoker. This is quite a big step for me and one I'm very proud of being able to take.

My lack of posting here has begun to fill me with anxiety and dread so I'm going to change the format somewhat. Up to now, I've try to restrict the postings exclusively to discussing the film, but in light of the fact that continuous postings of "we're still editing" is rather boring and repetitive, starting today, I will be posting anything I feel is worth posting. Hopefully my 3 readers will find it more entertaining.

Here's a few videos that I recently saw that I found entertaining. Stephen Colbert's closing speech at the AP Dinner with George W. seated a few seats away...I was going to include the clips from You Tube, but apparently they've been pulled down. Oh well. This is how all things technology have been treating me this week.
Instead, the always insulting neo-con ,Tucker Carlson, tries to make him out to look "unfunny" here (if you listen closely, they quickly cut away before the laughter):

I hate to spread his trash talking, but it's all I can get.

Ranking right up there with William Shatner's rendition of Rocket Man (see below) was Bush's "routine" where he had a comedian doing a spot on impression of him acting as the voice in his head.

In the meantime enjoy:

Posted by Scott Solary at 04:44 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We have been editing the film as fast as we can. Still working out some pacing issues, but the slides and the music we got from Dianne are helping tremendously.
We went to the "Bring'Em Home Now" concert the other night. It was "celebrating" the fact that the U.S. has occupied Vietnem for 3 years, er, I mean Iraq.

Posted by Scott Solary at 05:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Luci and I recently went back to Akron, Ohio to visit Dianne (Darr) Couts to sift through and scan boxes of her parent’s slides from Africa. We rented a car so we didn’t have to deal with taking our scanner as a carry-on. To make a long story short, we ran into one technical difficulty after another, but were able to increase our library of images two-fold. We also recorded five more hymns and a little more interview material. It was a very productive trip and we’re currently rescanning the slides (part of the long story) and digitizing the footage. By incorporating all of these elements we hope to bring the film to the next level. We have solicited the editorial consulting services of Mona Davis. She was the editor of Love and Dianne and The Farm: Angola, as well as many others. We get along very well with her and completely trust her guidance. We are going to shoot for a Toronto submission for completion of the film sometime around June.

Posted by Scott Solary at 09:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We’re back from Germany, recovered from the jet lag and have returned to the daily grind of work and some semblance of our lives prior. We opted for Vienna to celebrate our 10th anniversary via a 9 hour train ride through Germany. It couldn’t have been more perfect. The German countryside was covered in snow and made for a moving vista outside the window too beautiful to take your eyes off of. Vienna had a snow storm the day we were there, but we managed to walk around and see some sights and have dinner at an upscale traditionally Viennese restaurant which included a 6 course meal with a different Viennese wine with each course. We returned to Germany for New Year’s Eve, or Sylvester as they call it. This involved a small party near the harbor and just after midnight walking to the water and blowing up fireworks that only professionals are allowed to handle in the states. Great fun!

Luci and I had a series of meetings mapping out what is left to do on the film as well as the possibilities of elements to integrate into the film to make it stronger. We recently bought a DVD player/burner and although it seems to work great on our end, we have had terrible luck with others being able to watch them. Very frustrating. Thought we made a great choice and in the end, we’ve had to go back to the old reliable VHS dubs.

Posted by Scott Solary at 12:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This has been the month of laying on the couch. First with the flu from hell and now with lower back spasms. Between the sickness and ailments, we did manage to make it to the indieWIRE/Kodak Gotham Awards and then to the "Be Here to Love Me" opening night after party and finally the AIVF holiday party, but since the back throwing have missed 3 other parties and 2 concerts. Work on the film has come to a stop because on Monday, we fly to Germany for 16 days. On December 30th, Luci and I will celebrate out 10 year anniversary in a yet to be determined location in Europe (hopefully somewhere that's somewhat warm).

Posted by Scott Solary at 09:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It’s been a while since my last post. Well, writing about editing just isn’t that exciting. And that’s what we’ve been doing over the last two months (despite the fact that we had the illusion of being close to picture-lock in September): edit, edit, edit. We’ve been battling the age old dilemma over narration vs. title cards vs. neither. It’s been tough. Luci and I have to work our money-making jobs full-time these days. Of course that eats up time and has slowed down the overall process on the film. But now again we have a cut we are very happy with. And we’ve finally begun submitting the film to festivals! We are still doing some tweaks and then are looking to do our sound mix and color timing once we’re definitely picture-locked and we’ve raised the money to pay for those final steps. -- Donations always welcome through our website: http://www.goodhardworkingpeople.com/AllGodsChildren.htm --

Posted by Scott Solary at 01:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We have reached a milestone: we have a rough cut. Very close to a picture lock, just a little hesitant to say that yet. There may be a sequence or two we still want to reintegrate into the film. The cut stands at 78 minutes. We recorded much more narration that really helps the pacing and timeline along throughout. One of the last things we did was a new opening title sequence.

Now Luci and I are trying to get back to work to make up for lost income while we search for those elusive finishing funds.

Posted by Scott Solary at 09:14 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Our travel to Colorado Springs went well. Although we felt a little rushed we were able to get what we went for and have edited a tight 5 minute piece that serves the ending well.

We had 3 screenings for friends and colleagues for much needed feedback. We felt very good about the response � for the most part we received either positive comments that were encouraging or criticism and suggestions that we believe will make the documentary better. Though we will still not be able to turn this documentary into a v�rit� film ;-) Thank you to all that were able to participate. One of the things that we took from the screenings is to add more background and factual information through voice-over.

We had the recording session scheduled for Monday, August 29th, but it fell through.That morning, Luci and I received the very sad news that my grandfather, Henry Capp, had passed away. We flew down to St. Augustine the following afternoon.

Luci and I had just been there at the beginning of August for his 80th birthday. That week he had been diagnosed with cancer. Last week he made it through his first session of chemo without any complications and returned home from the hospital. He went in peace without any pain and his memorial was beautiful. We all released his cremains into the Atlantic Ocean at Matanzas Inlet on Saturday and flew back to New York that night. He will be dearly missed by everyone who knew him. To learn about the Katrina devastation through all this made the experience even more surreal and emotional.

Now work on the film continues. We are rewriting the narration again and are tightening up the editing overall.

Posted by Scott Solary at 10:54 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Wow, it�s been a long time since I wrote anything here.

We have the working cut at 73 minutes with most B-roll added. We still have a few more elements to get and add, but all in all feeling comfortable with what we have. We leave tomorrow morning for Denver to meet up with Ann, Howard, Bev and Marilyn. Tuesday morning we�ll travel to Colorado Springs for them to have a meeting with the Christian and Missionary Alliance. There will be a 45 minute press conference after the meeting. The footage from the press conference and the verite footage of them before and after the meeting will serve as our ending.

Once we return, we will bury ourselves in the editing room and try to have picture lock a.s.a.p.

Posted by Scott Solary at 10:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We viewed the assembly edit for a couple of friends the other night and just having other sets of eyes watching made all the repetition and hard edits apparent. The feedback was great. Complimentary and also critical. Over the next couple of days, I cut it down to 1 hour 20 minutes.

Luci and I had a huge 4th party and it went off without a hitch. Everyone seemed to have a great time hanging out in our garden and later moving to the roof to watch the fireworks. Jeff Israel and Shannon Guirl organized some Super 8 films to play on our giant cinderblock wall. Lots of fun. We hope to have another garden party as well as outdoor films in the future.

We found out that the church (C&MA) have agreed to have a sit down follow-up meeting with some of our subjects in Colorado Springs in mid-August. We hope to have a picture locked version before the trip, come home edit the Colorado meeting for the ending in time for Sundance submission. We�ll see. It�ll be tight.

Posted by Scott Solary at 10:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Luci and I began work on the cut which started out as 4 hours and as of yesterday, we managed to get it down to 1 hour 45! A good start to say the least. We�re going to try and organize a few friends to watch the cut and give feedback before proceeding to place B roll and work on a picture lock which we hope to have by mid-July.

Fund raising goes slow and we�re still having to work quite a bit, but we can stay on schedule to have a rough cut by mid-August at this pace.

Posted by Scott Solary at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Newfest screening went really well. Rolls Razor Garden looked beautiful on the BIG screen. Of course, the sound wasn�t loud enough, but no complaints. There was an amazing turnout for an early Sunday evening. The other films were much further over the �fetish� top than mine. A few friends came out for the screening and we all went to the Art Bar for food and drinks afterward and then made our way uptown for the closing night party. Free bar ran out very quickly so we got our gift bags and came home.

Our recent fundraising efforts are working. Donations continue to trickle in and it looks like we may be able to fund our upcoming Colorado trip to shoot the end of the film. Of course, we still need more help to keep Luci and I full time editing. The assemble cut we have is currently a daunting 3 hours and change. We plan to cut it down to 2 hours this weekend.

Posted by Scott Solary at 10:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

We have taken things into our own hands! We are now able to accept online donations.

We are pursuing other means of fundraising as well, but except for the Herculean effort by the Beardslees, we haven�t solicited private donations yet. That time is now. Please visit our fundraising page and donate if you can. If not, please forward the link to someone you think may be interested.

We have our first assembly cut together and will soon start paring it down to a rough cut.

We have rebuilt the website featuring a design facelift, latest news section and links to colleagues and friends websites. Take a look.

NewFest starts Thursday and we�ll be attending some screenings and parties to promote �Rolls Razor Garden� as well as �All God�s Children� and support other filmmakers. Should be fun.

Posted by Scott Solary at 10:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Some disappointing news came yesterday. We received a �regret to inform� letter from a large foundation that we hoped would love our project. It is so offensive when we spend so much time tailoring the proposal and edit a tape together in preparation for submission when the foundation can�t find the time to give us ONE reason why that they weren�t able to �select our project for funding�. How about a simple, �We are currently funding verite documentaries� or �films having to do with the plight of third world countries�. Something would be nice. Am I bitter? No. Just feeling very disrespected. I understand how overwhelming it must be to have a stack of proposals asking you for money, but if they would give a simple reason, maybe less people would submit and they wouldn�t be so overwhelmed. Many offer little if any guidelines as to what exactly they are looking for. They should recognize the effort put forth and show a little respect.

On a lighter note, we have been trying every combination of files to burn a successful DVD of our trailer and 30 minute cut. We�ve been successful with a Quicktime Reference Movie for the trailer (6 minutes), but the 30 minute falls out of sync. We�re exporting from Avid Xpress Pro and using Ulead Movie Factory 2. If anyone has any suggestions of software or working combinations, please let me know.

Posted by Scott Solary at 04:29 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Mom�s visit was a success. We all enjoyed our time together immensely.

I was approached to submit a short film I made a while ago to the Newfest and recently heard back that it will be screening on June 12th at 6pm at the Lowe�s 34th Street Theater. I�m very excited to be a part of the festival and seeing my film in a major theater space.

The coolest thing is Guy Madden has a short film in my program. His film, "The Saddest Music in the World" is one of my favorite films I�ve seen this year. His short is called �Sissy Boy Slap Party�. It came in the special features of the Saddest Music DVD. It�s as funny as it sounds.

The editing slowly continues on the film, but we�re making progress.

On a side note, we went and saw Star Wars last night. The only aspect worth mentioning is the special effects. Amazing. Other than that, I don�t think it can be discussed as a �film� for all its flaws in direction, acting, dialogue and plot. Of course, that�s not why anyone goes to see it anyway.

Posted by Scott Solary at 05:03 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)