Believing in the Impossible

It’s such a big leap isn’t it?  To really believe that anything is possible. For me it’s far easier to believe that anything I put my mind to is possible than to think that everything is hopeless. It’s a simple mindset and a way of life.

Think about it for a minute.  When you are convinced that you have the ability to make the impossible – possible – then you will put your dreams into action.  You will take that chance and by doing so you are creating your own reality instead of reacting to what others have created for you which may not be in your best interests.

I’ve never been a big fan of hearing “you can’t do that” or “it won’t work”.  Those are fighting words to me because no one can predict the future – so I find comments like that offensive to my very being. I’ve come up with my own theories about why there are so many naysayers in the world.  One theory is that misery loves company and because there are some people who stop themselves – they seem to take comfort in deterring others from their dreams.

Stay away from the naysayers and remind yourself that they don’t know the future – nobody does.  Hang around people who are crazy enough to brazenly go forward and pursue those thoughts and dreams that live deep inside themselves because they are listening to their inner spirit.

They say the spirit inside never ages.  I believe that and I know when I feel aligned with my spirit because I feel child like – filled with wonder, curiosity and belief in myself and my dreams. When I tell people about my wild notions, they get caught up in my passions and spur me on.  These days with social media we have the power to turn one person’s simple idea into a collective thought – into a possibility.  Imagine the power in that thought. That’s the power of the individual to create change and change starts with that one crazy thought that someone had who listened to their spirit inside.

Let’s hear some of your own crazy notions.  Who knows it just may spark something in someone and change their life.

Editing a Trailer – Part II

First let me thank everyone for his or her comments and suggestions.  It’s very difficult to cut a short trailer because I’m so close to the story(s) that it’s hard not to make assumptions or see the obvious.  I’ve always found that getting feedback from people is important at a certain point in the process.  I want to be far enough along in the edit that it’s “almost” there but not so far that I’m reluctant to change things.

My first impulse after reading everyone’s comments was to take all the suggestions to heart and I started implementing the changes. I quickly realized it was starting to feel like a corporate job that had been designed by committee and it was somehow missing the mark.  I was trying to cover all bases, trying to please everyone and I was losing sight of my own insights.

I took the weekend to revisit the trailer every now and then, in between socializing with my brothers and sister and their families.  It was the first time we had all been together since my mother died, over 7 years ago.  My brother was up from Florida and it was his kids first time seeing snow.  It brought out the kid in all of us – throwing snowballs and sledding down our front yard, which is pretty steep, and not for the timid.

As usual, taking a break from the technology brought everything back into perspective.  This morning I knew what I needed to do.  I shuffled some things around, cut 20% out, adjusted the sound and the text and came up with something I think that I can live with.  It’s not perfect but like Maggie says in the trailer “If I waited for things to be perfect, I never would have done it”. So I’m throwing this out to the universe and see what transpires.

http://www.vimeo.com/21598761

Thanks again to all who took the time to watch and comment on my previous renditions.  I appreciate your comments more than you know.  Occasionally, when I’m at a conference or another professional event, someone will come up to me and thank me for what I share in my blog or tell me that something I said inspired them.  The truth is it works both ways because I get so much in return.

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Editing a Trailer

Like anything else the best way to learn how to do something is to “see” how it’s done.  I wanted to create a trailer for my documentary.  I’m working with a professional editor on this project but while he is getting acquainted with over 160 hours of footage, I wanted to challenge myself to see if I could create a trailer.

For me, it’s always much harder to edit a very short piece. Everything becomes more critical – every cut – every shot – every sound bite and sound effect – every slate and every high and low in the music. And trailers are the ultimate shorts. You need to peak someone’s interest and make them wanting more.

I started paying attention to the trailers on DVD’s and online. I watched them to see how they were constructed. I analyzed them and paid close attention to things like sound effects, music and slates and if it made me want to see the movie.  There were a couple of trailers in particular that I really liked, each for different reasons.  One trailer was for the film I Am.  This trailer gave me some ideas on how to use music and text to deliver the story idea in a concise way and get people’s attention. I also liked it because it was just vague enough to intrigue me but not to confuse me.  Another trailer I like is Dennis Connor’s Breaking Boundaries; the Art of Alex Masket.  There are a lot of things I love about this trailer.  Dennis’s subject Alex Masket couldn’t communicate verbally so Dennis blended visuals of Alex using other people’s sound bites as the narrative.  He also had a beautiful jazzy musical score composed for the trailer.

My challenge was that I had to make a trailer for a film that was about 11 stories. The first thing that I needed to remind myself was that it really wasn’t about  11 stories.  It was about 11 people but ultimately one story.  With that thought I started pulling together  my strongest sound bites.  One benefit of spending all that time editing the past few months was that I was very intimate with the interview footage and I knew where to look for the gems.  I was looking for provocative remarks that left one wondering and they needed to be short and to the point.

Once I got the stand out sound bites on a timeline I started looking for some live action footage and other b-roll.  Then I began to interweave the appropriate visuals with the sound bites – pacing them – giving the piece a bit of time to breathe.  I also added slates with text to help tell the story.

Once I got it down to a reasonable length – in my case 3:45 – which is still a minute too long – I started looking for the perfect music.  I came across Neosounds.com a royalty free music site with some of the best RF music out there.  Picking music for me is like picking wallpaper, going back and forth until everything starts to sound the same.  After making a few painful decisions, I integrated my musical choices into the timeline.  There was still something missing and that was sound effects.  There are hundreds of great free sound effects that come with Soundtrack Pro.  I picked a couple of them to boost and emphasize certain spots in the trailer but I wanted to keep them subtle.  For example I used a sound effect of a motorcycle in one spot and a jet engine taking off in another.

What has resulted from this exercise are two variations of a trailer.  I am sharing these both with everyone because I would like feedback. I don’t want to influence opinion here, other than to say one trailer has a bit of more information than the other. One is also 15 sec. longer. Any and all comments are welcome.

Which one should I use?

Watch the links in this order.

http://www.vimeo.com/21241911

http://www.vimeo.com/21376387

We’ve Lost a Blues Legend – Pinetop Perkins July 7, 1913 – March 21, 2011

Yesterday, legendary bluesman Pinetop Perkins died. Pinetop was 97 years old. He was one of the greatest boogie-woogie piano players ever to strike those keys. I could go on and list all of his awards and accolades because Pinetop has received some of  music’s highest distinctions. He recently received a Grammy, making him the oldest Grammy winner on record bumping George Burns. He had previously been awarded a lifetime achievement Grammy.

But rather than go on and list more of Pinetops achievements, which can be quickly googled, I’d like to share some personal experiences I had with Pinetop over the years. I first met Pinetop and his manager Pat Morgan in 2001 when I was shooting my Delta Bluesmen Project. It was my very first multimedia project where I was shooting still environmental portraits of blues musicians, images and b-roll video of the Mississippi Delta region and interviews of legendary blues musicians from this part of America. I had no idea what I was taking on by myself – I just had this crazy idea that I needed to document these men before they died and I had no time to waste since the youngest was in his 70’s. So, I just decided to do it with the unstoppable enthusiasm of a kid.

When I first contacted Pinetop’s manager Pat to set up an on camera interview with Pine, she quite firmly rejected my request. Pat was very protective of Pinetop and never wanted to overload him with interviews and fan requests and she had already granted an interview to another filmmaker, so I was out of luck. But I was persistent and Pat finally said that I should come to Pinetop’s homecoming party at Hopson’s Plantation in Clarksdale, MS and get what I could catch of Pinetop there. The day of the homecoming, I was allowed to put a lav on Pinetop to get better audio of his interactions with people throughout the day. One reason Pat thought the homecoming would be a good opportunity for me was because Ike Turner was going to be there. Pinetop had taught Ike to play piano during the 1940’s when they were both working at Hopson’s Plantation and this was going to be a true homecoming.

I put the wireless on Pinetop and kind of forgot about it as the day went on. I was roving around the plantation getting great b-roll and then went into the commissary where there was a big music jam going on. I had taken my earphones off outside, but quickly put them back on to protect my hearing in this incredibly loud environment. I dialed the audio way down on the camera mic but Pinetop’s wireless was still loud and clear. All a sudden I heard Pine and Pat talking about giving Ike a little tour and showing him Pinetop’s old sharecropper shack. I glanced around the commissary looking for them and couldn’t see them – I could just hear them. So, I raced outside, camera in hand just in time to see Pat, Pinetop, Ike Turner and a couple of other people walking across the grounds of the plantation headed toward Pinetop’s shack, just as the sun was setting. I caught up to the group and managed to get some great b- roll and audio of this historic moment. With camera running, I followed them inside the shack where Pinetop naturally sat down at the piano and started to play with Ike chiming in. I was in b-roll heaven and just hoping I was getting it right in camera.

After that little tour was over Pat came up to me and told me that she had worked with a lot of photographers and filmmakers over the years but had never seen instincts like mine. She said she was blown away when I just showed up out of nowhere to film this mini event. Then she told me that if I could come by the next morning, I could get an interview with Pinetop. I did come back the next day and spent a memorable morning with Pinetop on the porch of his old shack. I will never forget that morning – the quiet and the warmth of the place and the man and the moment. You can see some of that footage in this 7 minute sample of my film. The still images and video component of that project is still being exhibited around the country.

I’ve stayed in touch with Pat and Pinetop over the years. In 2005 when Pinetop was awarded the Lifetime Achievement Grammy, the producers used some of my interview footage of Pine in his tribute film. I was there with Pinetop and Pat and a whole lot of rock legends like Jerry Lee Lewis, Ike Turner and Jimmi Page. Another memory etched in my mind.

The last time I saw Pinetop was at the Arkansas Blues and Heritage Festival (aka King Biscuit) in 2009. We were driving somewhere with Pat and she noticed that we had a small army blanket in our car and asked to borrow it for Pinetop that evening. It was a chilly October evening and she didn’t want Pinetop (95 years old then) to get cold that evening as he waited in the wings to go on stage. That night when I was shooting from the photo pit I saw Pinetop sitting just off stage with my army blanket wrapped around him and his customary cigarette hanging out of his mouth. I thought for a second, “I hope he doesn’t burn a hole in my blanket” and then I quickly thought that I wouldn’t mind if he did. In fact if he did burn a hole, I’d be reminded of him every time I saw it. The blanket was returned unscarred – but I still think of Pinetop every time I see that blanket in the back of my car.

I’ll miss you Pinetop. But I sure am glad I got to know you. We’ll always have your music and the wonderful memories you gave us all.

Some Useful Information for Workflow

I made a few new discoveries this past week.  Forgive me if these items aren’t new but they’re new to me.

One item I discovered was Drop Box and the timing was perfect.  Drop Box is a sharing and storage site.  I can upload files and documents to their server and share those files with anyone who has Drop Box installed on their computer. For instance, I am able to share project files and updates with the editor that I am working with on Opening Our Eyes.  This past week, I was working on a new trailer for my film and I was able to share that updated project file with him, along with the RF music that I licensed for it.

The other thing that I love about Drop Box is that I can share files and info with the various computers that I work on.  No more emailing docs or copying media to a DVD so that I can transfer files over to my laptop.  With Drop Box installed, I can share files, media and calendars with any and all of my computers.  As a bonus, Drop Box acts as an off site storage solution as well.

My other discovery was a royalty free music site called Neosounds. I’ve been searching through hundreds of royalty free music libraries over the years and Neosounds is definitely the best source for high quality music that I’ve found.  It stands out amongst the rest because their music doesn’t sound like royalty free music.  Recently, I needed  music for a new trailer that I was making for OOE and I was googling around for some cinematic sounds. I found the perfect background music for my film’s trailer.  I’m still tweaking the trailer a bit, but you can listen to a clip of music from Neosounds that I used in a short video I made that appeared on a recent blog post.

One last item that I’ll mention is a great source for travel guides – the unconventional type. They are called Unconventional Guides and are brought to you by Chris Guillebeau. Since discovering Chris Guillebeau’s blog The Art of Non-Conformity, I’ve become a huge fan of Chris and his writings.  If you haven’t discovered Chris’s blog , then do so. He has an amazing outlook on life and he articulates his thoughts  so beautifully in his blog.  His global view of the world and how to live life is truly an inspiration to me.  He’s definitely, a kindred spirit.

Back to tweaking.  Stay tuned for my next blog with links to some new samples.

Editing Tips From Kurt Vonnegut

Recently I came across a blog article entitled “Writing Tips from Kurt Vonnegut” which was posted on Melody Godfred’s blog “Write in Color”. It was short and sweet and to the point, listing 8 great tips. Two of those tips really resonated with me because at the time I read them, I was entrenched in editing my documentary and I was struggling with a couple of story issues.

• Write to please just one person. If you open a window and make love to the world, so to speak, your story will get pneumonia.
• Start as close to the end as possible.

For the most part when I write I’m usually writing with someone in mind. But I realized when I was editing the 11 stories of this documentary, I was getting caught up in trying to tell too many stories for too many people with their needs in mind. And in the process, I wasn’t getting anywhere in telling the central story of the film. After reading these words of wisdom from Vonnegut, the master of storytelling, I stepped back and envisioned myself with a friend, telling the story of my film and it became clear what I needed to do.

One thing I’ve always done when editing video is to create the beginning and the end first and then fill in the middle. So when I read the tip about starting as close to the end as possible, it reinforced the idea that I needed to have a very clear idea on how I was going to end this film. I had already decided that I wanted to contrast the beginning and the ending visuals so I applied this thinking to the story itself.

I get a lot of questions from people about the mechanics of editing video – like how to do certain things in Final Cut Pro or Adobe Premiere – and I answer the best I can. But I also point out that it’s easy to get caught up in what the software can do and forget about the story that you’re trying to tell. My advice is to read as much as you can about the craft of storytelling. I learned a lot about story structure from Blake Snyder’s book Save the Cat. I learned that every good story has a few key ingredients – irony, conflict, resolution, a hero, change – all basic universal themes. Tutorials on Final Cut aren’t going to help your storytelling skills and without a good story – you might just have some “eye candy” to music.

There is just one more tip from Vonnegut that I’ll leave you with – make sure you check out the other 5 tips.

• Use the time of a total stranger in such a way that he or she will not feel the time was wasted.

I Must Have Been Crazy to Think I Could Do It

….But I did.  Last night I shipped 3 hard drives with almost 5 terabytes of media to my editor. After 2 very long months of extremely long days – every day – I got through the “first edit” of my documentary.  It’s by no means finished, there’s a lot more editing needed to cut it down by half, there’s music to be composed and a narrative that has to be written, but I take great joy in the fact that I got through this part of the process – because it damn near killed me.

When shooting a documentary, you don’t work with a script or a storyboard – or at least I don’t.  I have a pretty solid idea of the “story” when I set out to shoot, but there’s always twists and turns with every situation and every interview.  But I love surprises and I make room for serendipity to happen.  What results is a lot of content that needs to be crafted and arced into a story.  And I’ve just finished defining that story and laying the foundation.

It hasn’t been easy.  In fact there have been times when I’ve wanted to walk away from this because it was so overwhelming.  Trying to tie 11 different stories into one, and looking through 150 hours of footage multiple times can be overwhelming for a team of editors, let alone one individual. I’ve also had my share of low moments these past few months with a grant application rejected and a broken promise by a friend, but somehow I got through it.  I got through it because I had desire.

Having a strong desire for whatever it is one wants to achieve is essential.  Many times we say we really want something, but that is far different than having a true desire to make something happen. In order to stick to something (anything) and follow through with it – no matter what – that desire must be strong and come from within.  It’s something that can’t be copied, taught or faked – you either have it or you don’t. It comes when you are true to yourself.

It’s hard to stay true to yourself.  Many times, well meaning friends or spouses try to distract you from your purpose.  I see this happen a lot when a significant other, who may not understand that in the creative world, the line between work and pleasure is quite blurred and sometimes may feel somewhat resentful of all the time their partner spends on “work”.  I’m lucky in that my husband is also my business partner and has a full understanding of those blurred lines between work and pleasure.  He also knows that when I have such a strong desire to do something, that he shouldn’t get in the way of me following that desire.  That is truly selfless and well meaning.

Since beginning this lofty project, I’ve gotten a lot of calls from people who are in a slump for one reason or another.  They look to me for some kind of guidance.  I don’t really know what to say, other than to tell them to listen to their true self – the one underneath the clutter of the ego – and to trust what it tells you. If I get one of those calls during one of those low moments in my life, I try really hard to stay positive even though I feel like a big fake, because I’ve temporarily succumbed to my own self doubts.  At those times, I try to be utterly honest, relaying the bitter with the sweet and say that bad times don’t last forever. But you have to let your spirit shine.

I wrote a blog once about the human spirit. I feel that the spirit inside me is ageless.  I know when people come up to me and say “you look good” – what they really see is my spirit – which never gets old because I keep it alive. When I’m true to myself, my spirit soars and I look back at my defeats and rejections with a different understanding and acceptance.

So today, with my spirit in tact and my desire ever so strong, I rejoice in the fact that I accomplished something – something that’s really meaningful.  That brings a big smile to my face and great joy in my heart.  What a feeling – it’s priceless.

Open Yourself to Possibilities

Thank goodness February is over. It’s been a long, cold, snowy winter here in New Jersey and February felt particularly brutal.  I can cope with cold weather pretty well but “cabin fever” can be deadly for me. And last month it almost killed me.  I had been in isolation editing video for 14 hours a day – every day. It was almost inhuman.

This weekend I headed down to Philadelphia to present a seminar at

©Douglas Bovitt

ASMP’s SB3.  It was just what I needed.  I needed to connect with people.  Conferences like SB3 are meant for stimulation and learning and everyone walks away with their heads exploding with new ideas – attendee and presenter alike.  But I walk away with so much more. What I get from interacting with people, learning from them, sharing with them is immeasurable.

Some things that stuck with me:

“Be awesome” Colleen Wainwright

“Hang out with people better than you” Blake Discher

And from Tom Kennedy
F.A.I.T.H

Freedom – to see – to be open to opportunities
Authenticity – be yourself
Intentionality – live intentionally – be proactive
Trust – in yourself
Hospitality – be open to the world

And I learned about a blog that truly resonates with me The Art of Non-Conformity
As all the conversations still run through my mind, I remember one in particular.  I was speaking with someone who had taken his own path – traveling a lot before going to college and pursuing other passions in life before settling down on a career.  He wanted to know if I would mentor him but he had so many questions, he was concerned he would infringe too much on my time. I smiled and told him that I was quite accessible and to feel free to call anytime. And that I’d let him know if he was wearing out his welcome He smiled back and said, “you have a hard time saying no don’t you?” My answer to him was “yes” and that I liked that word much more.  It opens up so many more possibilities.

If you haven’t attended on of the three SB3 events – there’s still one more in Chicago April 1- 3.  Check out what people are saying on Facebook. And then come and join us in Chicago and prepared for lots of “ah ha” moments. It could be life changing.  You just never know.