Meeting with the People Who Made ‘Hoop Dreams’

I met with Kartemquin, the film production company that made the Oscar-nominated documentary Hoop Dreams.  Which is really awesome and more than I could’ve hoped a few months ago.

So I was all hyped for this meeting; it seemed incredibly legit to me that the people who had made this amazing documentary – one that I had been required to watch as a student taking film classes 8 years ago! – were interested in discussing my project with me, and potentially collaborating in some way.  I sent them all the materials I had written up outlining our budget, the aim of the project, and my goals for the scouting trip over Thanksgiving.

They were very nice, and they’re willing to help, but I hate to admit that I left somewhat disappointed.  They were enthusiastic about the idea behind the film, but they didn’t seem to have gone over a lot of the details in the materials I had sent over.  I think my inexperience also made them skeptical – but I think my inexperience is also an asset.  I’ll approach this project in a wholly explorative way, because everything is new to me, and I think that will be good for the documentary.  And I have a great team surrounding me.

They said the budget didn’t make sense, and estimated conservatively that a feature-length film of the scope I want to make should cost at least 4 times as much.  This was somewhat disheartening to hear, but I realize that we can make the film more cheaply than that – it’ll depend on how much travel we’re doing, who we’re taking, etc.  They’re right though – the budget definitely needs work.  There are areas that I have no frame of reference for whatsoever, so I need to fix that.

They offered to host a community screening for me once we’ve made a 5 to 10 minute demo of the footage I get while on the trip, and they said their feedback will be “brutally honest.”  Awesome.  I’m going to shoot for having that happen after the 1st of the year.

Bottomline, a lot will come to light after this Paraguay scouting trip.  I’ll have a more concrete vision for the documentary – how to tell the story, who the key players will be, etc. – and I’ll have more material with which to approach potential donors and other film production companies of Kartemquin’s caliber.

My Paraguay tourist visa came in the mail today – thanks entirely to my awesome friend Megan!  So relieved.  It’s gonna be 9o degrees everyday for the duration of my trip.  Will be nice to feel the heat as Chicago continues to edge its way toward what’s sure to be a blustery winter.

4 days and counting…

Good Friends and Cameras

I know I’m lucky to have friends as great as the friends that I have, but this fact was only confirmed last week when I frantically emailed my good friend from college, Megan, who now lives in D.C., to ask her if she would be willing to undertake the annoying, pain-in-the-ass task of physically walking my Paraguay Tourist Visa application into the Embassy since I messed up and didn’t know to take care of this weeks ago myself.  Not only was she willing, she was super nice and gracious about the whole thing.  Megan – THANK YOU.  For the record, our Producer Lou, who has been hanging out on a farm in Cali for the past few weeks, was also awesome and totally willing to take the application with him to the Embassy in San Fran.

So if all goes well, I should receive the Visa in the mail later this week.

Our DP, Steve Hiller, also did me a solid (I kind of hate this expression, but am apparently using it) this past week in that he generously offered to lend me his XL1 professional grade camera for the scouting trip.  He gave me a second, smaller camera to use as well, for “touchier” situations.  My sister is going to lend me her digital camera for stills.  All in all, I’m saving hundreds of dollars in rental fees because of these kindnesses, which is wonderful in general, but in this case is especially great because money is already tight.

One week and counting to go before the trip!

Marginally Freaking Out

I’ve hit the first major snag in this process, and I only hope I’ve found out about it early enough to not mess anything up.  I was talking to some of the guys at work about the trip, and one of them has traveled extensively in South America.  From there it came to light that I need a Tourist Visa to even enter Paraguay – and it can take as long as 3 weeks for them to mail it.  I leave in just over two weeks. 

So this sucks, and there isn’t a Paraguayan Embassy in Chicago – they’re in New York, San Francisco, and D.C.  Had I had some foresight, I could’ve taken care of this the weekend before last when I was in New York, but unfortunately I had none.  This is exactly the kind of logistical mistake that I have to eliminate.

I frantically emailed my aunt and a good friend who live in D.C., and our Producer Lou is in the San Francisco area right now, so I’m hoping that one of them will be able to help me.  I think that if I send someone my documentation and they physically walk it into an Embassy, we’ll have more time, and hopefully things will work out okay.

Got my fingers crossed…

Gearing up for Paraguay

I leave for the scouting trip to Asuncion in 3 weeks, and I’ve got a lot to do before then.  Oh man.

The organization I’ve been in contact with there is looking to connect me with a local news crew, so that I can potentially have an Associate Producer on the ground who can film any important events that may happen when we’re not able to be there ourselves.  This is a pretty big concern, as the logistics of the trip are going to make it impossible for us to follow any of the women for prolonged consecutive amounts of time.  To get around this, we want to find women in various stages of the microlending process – and in doing so, we can also hopefully avoid finding stories that are maybe too similar on all three continents.

Karen Mundy, a family friend and editor of the local newspaper in my small Ohio hometown, The Press News (http://www.the-press-news.com/) is generously allowing me to write a series of articles as we go through the filmmaking process.  I’m excited about this, and hope that it’ll help raise awareness (and contributions!) in the community where I grew up.

We’ve got a goal to raise $50K in the next few months.  We’re going to do everything we can to reach it.

Website Launch, Scouting Trip to Paraguay

Hi Everyone on the Internets -

A lot has happened since I last rapped atcha.  The website has launched (though we’ve still got a few bugs to work out, edits to make).  We’ve built a great team – Steve Hiller, a veteran of more than 50 Hollywood studio movies, is our Director of Photography, and Lou Karsen, who made a documentary called Renaissance Village about a FEMA trailer park in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, is our Executive Producer (check out his previous work at www.rvthefilm.com).

I’ve met with a Producer and the Executive Director of The Kindling Group, a Chicago Film Production Company, and they’ve been way helpful.  They suggested that I go on a scouting trip to meet some of the women we’ll be filming before we start our shoot.  Ergo, I’m on my way to Paraguay on November 24th!  I’ll be leaving Chicago and flying through Mexico City and Sao Paulo to get there.  I’m going solo, and staying at the intern hostel of a local microlending institution.  The staff there has been very responsive and helpful thus far, and they’re providing me with information on some of the female microborrowers that I’m going to meet.

I can’t wait to go!!!

I’m also meeting with the Exec. Director of Kartemquin, the Production Company that made Hoop Dreams, in early November.  Should be really informative and awesome.

Thanks to Lou and his friend Andrew of 137 Films (www.137films.org) we’ve got a Kickstarter invite!  Lou and his rad girlfriend Stef have graciously taken over our fundraising campaign, and we’re putting together a traditional mailing in addition to launching the Kickstarter drive.  I’ll be sure to post about it when that officially launches.

Website Kickstart and More

So it’s gonna be hard for me to build a loyal readership if I never update this thing.  Ergo…

We are now in set-up-a-damn-wesbite mode (I am making an effort to make the content of this blog slightly less dry).  The consultant I hired to help with landing a fiscal sponsor recently updated her own website and it looks pretty rad – you can check her out at www.theideaanalyst.com – and she referred her web designer to me.  He wants to hit the ground running, which is great, and despite my total lack of tech savviness, with his help I was able to register a domain today for hosting, something that 6 hours ago I had no idea how to do (I figured it couldn’t be too hard though, right?).

So check out www.microlendingfilm.com in 2-3 weeks.  And you can make donations there to help make this shit happen!

I’ve been meeting with and interviewing a handful of really outstanding DP candidates in the past week; I’m very excited about our prospects, which is the chief reason that making a decision is taking this long.  Am considering bringing an additional person on in a sort of advisory capacity, or perhaps as producer, because I can’t justify not involving some of the people I’ve seen, given their level of talent and enthusiasm for the project.

Lastly, one of the DP candidates I met with gave me a great tip about a fundraising site for artistic projects that launched fairly recently – kickstarter.com.  Problem is, you need an invitation from someone already posting to post your own project, and invitations are hard to come by.  If anyone happens to have one or knows someone who could help out, please let me know!

Am almost finished with Kristof and WuDunn’s ‘Half the Sky: Turning Oppression Into Opportunity for Women Worldwide,’ the indirect inspiration for the film.  It’s a terribly moving read, and swift.  Naturally I recommend it.

Boy, would it be great to get those two on board.

Out of town for the weekend….25.5 today.  By 26, life will be looking very different.

Choosing a DP/Finding Funding

The search for the ideal DP continues, but I am really excited about some of our prospects.  I’ve got a guy with 30 years of experience in studio filming who’s looking to get out and do something philanthropic, and I’ve got an NYU grad based in Hawaii who served in Bosnia and has combat shooting experience, to name a couple.  A guy who put together a documentary on people living in FEMA trailers in a sort of makeshift village in the aftermath of Katrina is also in the mix.  It’s making me really happy to have this kind of quality in the candidate pool.

And best of all, literally every single one of these people seems to be really excited about this project, which is vital and awesome and just what I hoped.  What’s more, I had only posted on craigslist in the Chicagoland area out of a kind of sense of loyalty to Chicago’s awesomeness and the importance of regional filmmaking (although this thinking is obviously flawed, because I’m going pretty far out of my region to actually shoot this film), so may also open the posting to New York and L.A. to see what else I may be able to find, in spite of my initial Chicago-exclusive posturing.

But the primary focus needs to be on garnering funding – and this is becoming more and more clear all the time.  Historically, I have always been a shitty planner.  I hate planning out my weekends in advance, even.  But in this case, the more careful planning I do, the better.  It’s time to buckle down and get as detail-oriented as possible.

That said, I had no fucking idea where and how to start.  All my online perusals have led me to websites that often haven’t been updated in years, which has been discouraging.  But I’ve been sending out random facebook inquiries to girls who have listed ‘filmmaker’ in the career section of their profiles (which, incidentally, was just what I did to find my current trading job), and from there I got my first lead.  I’m told I need to find a ‘fiscal sponsor’ whose goals are in line with what mine are for the film, and working with that entity will allow me to accept donations without having to go through the time and hassle it would take to incorporate a non-profit.  From there, other venues of funding, governmental and otherwise, will become available.

So there it is.  Now I just need to pin down the right organization and convince them to help me out.

Also in the works: I think it’d be really awesome if I could contact Kristoff.  Maybe he’d actually respond.  Am also going to try and contact Mariane Peal, author of A Mighty Heart and a documentarian/champion of women’s issues to boot.  It can’t hurt, I figure.  Maybe they’ll help.

First Signs of Progress

With the Sundance 2009 Official Submission Deadline coming and going this week, the timeframe breakdown for the next year is apparent in my mind.  I now have less than a year to complete this project, and it’s encouraging to be seeing the first signs that things are REALLY in motion at this time.

Case in point: my craigslist posting soliciting submissions of reels from potential Directors of Photogtaphy has garnered some response.  I’ll be reviewing the reels this week and responding to applicants, but am also eagerly awaiting further interest.  I think the kicker is going to be whether or not these people are willing and able to travel to Africa/South America/Asia for filming.  I think a lot of the applicants I currently have are students, so booking it out of the country just as the Spring Semester is starting may prove difficult. 

Here’s the link for my craigslist posting:

http://chicago.craigslist.org/chc/cwg/1365406883.html

If anyone is interested and/or knows someone who may be interested in and qualified for being the Director of Photography on this project (I keep wanting to write DP and then hesitating; craigslist banned this post at first, and I can only assume my gratuitous use of ‘DP’ was the reason), hit me up!  I’d love to hear from you.

So yeah, that’s awesome.  And what’s more, I got a response from the Fundacion Paraguaya expressing excitement at assisting me with my project!  Specifically, they’re willing to help me find the best potential candidates for subjects for the film.  I’m going to put together a synopsis to kind of clarify what I’m looking to do for them today.

Next up: the grant proposal.  My friend Megan is an awesome grant writer, so I’m seeking out her help.  Having something done that I’ll feel comfortable showing potential investors is another goal to be completed by week’s end.

I watched a friend-of-a-friend’s Sundance submission last night, and it was cool to see it, particularly at this stage.  I definitely felt like I came away from watching it with a more distinct point of reference as to what I’m going to need to do.  It was amazingly well-shot, for instance, and that fact emphasized even more in my mind the need for someone with experience to kind of guide my hand, since I’m totally green.  Probably bringing on an experienced producer would be a wise move as well.

Female Entrepreneurs in Impoverished Countries

Hey All -

So today marks the launch of this blog; huzzah.  Throughout the course of the next several months I will be updating you here on what’s going on with what will be my first film, a documentary cataloguing the experiences of female entrepreneurs in poor countries who are using microloans from organizations like Kiva – www.kiva.org – to start and maintain businesses.  The inspiration for this project came from a combination of what amounts to a quarterlife crisis for me, coupled with my recent reading of a Kristoff article in the NY Times.  Here’s the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/23/magazine/23Women-t.html

In sum, Kristoff talks a lot about how female entrepreneurs in poor countries are the key to eliminating global poverty, and something as important as that seemed like a subject that deserved a film.

So these things combined brought about a recent epiphany, and the making of this film seemed imperative.

Yeah, so a little about me: I’m Rachel, 25, living and working in Chicago.  I trade futures by night, and pine away for a career in film/writing by day.  I originally moved to Chicago after graduating from Duke in ‘06 to study writing and improvisational acting at Second City, but I’ve recently begun to feel like I’ve taken all I can from that institution;  it feels like I need to be doing something more meta.  It might sound like I make “a lot” of money or whatever trading, but that’s not really the case – I make enough to live comfortably, and enjoy to reflect on the fact that what I’m doing is totally soulless.  So I want to do something to help people, and this seems like the way to go.  Trading is awesome - to my mind it’s like playing videogames all day – and I really enjoy it, but at the same time, I need to be doing something to justify my existence on this planet, and being selfish 100% of the time isn’t that.

My film background leaves a lot to be desired; I got a Film Certificate at Duke and did a semester studying film at USC, but I basically know nothing about production.  This is going to be a situation where I’m learning on the fly.  We’ll see how it goes.

More later!  Thanks for tuning in, my brothers.