I just wanted to leave a little re-direct note here. I will no longer be posting to this blog. Instead if you are interested on seeing what is going on with Haku Inoa: To Weave A Name. You should take a look here www.paradocsproductions.blogspot.com
So the big news is that I am starting to use up that travel grant. I have relocated to Seattle for the next few months so that I can have some room to breath and work on editing. I almost have an assembly edit completed, and I will easily be able to reach my goal of finishing the assembly before the end of the month.
But in even bigger news I will be traveling to New York to work on the animated portion of the film in a few weeks, and the week after that I will be traveling to Hawaii to meet with a few people for potential funding, including the Vice President of Creative Services at PBS Hawaii.
Thank you so much to Laurence and Roberta at the Ford Foundation! I just got approved for $3,000 toward the project!!!! Hopefully this will be the first of many more good things to come.
I also just got back from Los Angeles. I am applying to Film Independent's Project Involve program for promoting diversity among emerging filmmakers. You can see more about the program here
I visited with some old friends and made a few new ones. Thanks Karin for letting me use your office, Echo Park is really great!
That is my new motto. The beginning of February was taken up getting together my application for the Pacific Islanders in Communications Media Fund. It was a really crazy few weeks actually everything that could go wrong went wrong. There were a lot of silly technical difficulties. Like going to digitize the last tape of a sequence and the deck for some reason would not accept it. Making it so I had to run out and borrow another deck.
There have also been housing difficulties with insect infestation. Really? I don't think I need that.
My friend Fran is helping me with a website, and I am very excited about it. It looks really good, and it should be up in the next couple of weeks.
I am also going to Los Angeles for job interviews next week. Since I am thinking about moving there. I will also say hello to some friends from NY who have moved and see how they are doing. It should be a fun little trip.
I have digitized all my footage!!!! And I did accomplish my goal of getting a trailer together before I left for the holidays. However it is pretty slapdash, but I am eager to begin cutting together the larger piece, so at this point I am just going to move forward with that and say to hell with the trailer. It will be easier to distill a trailer from a larger piece anyhow. I think?
I am always looking for feedback though, so please do not hesitate to write me with any thoughts that you have about the movie from what you see in the trailer. What draws you in makes you curious and want to see more and what you don't like.
Currently, I am about neck deep into the long and arduous process of logging all of the tape now. I am already on tape 10 so not it's coming along, but I can't wait until all of that footage is just embedded in my brain so that I can just play around with it.
I am also very excited about fund raising in the upcoming year. I have gone to two workshops given by Morrie Warshaski this weekend on the subject of fund raising. He empowered me with the brand new knowledge that between 82 - 89% of all money given to independent filmmakers is given by individuals and not foundations!!!
Especially for emerging filmmakers such as yours truly. This is obviously not the sort of thing I am very comfortable with, but if I am serious about making a career out of making films, and since I am. That particular hang-up is something that I am just going to have to toss out. It is actually really exciting. In the upcoming year am ready to take some risks makes some mistakes, and make a lot of new friends.
I am about halfway through digitizing, currently tape 31 is in. Looking good! I have decided to import all the footage at low res and do an online later. I just didn't have the finances for enough drive space for all my full res footage, and I like to have everything on the drive to play with.
I do not know if it is too optimistic, but I am hoping to have my trailer cut before holiday vacation!
I am also beginning to devise a festival strategy, so wish me luck! I will keep you updated.
Amazing how much happens in two months. I have been back in New York for about three weeks since the trip to Hawaii. It was great to see everyone again, cousins, Mom, brothers. The boys (as I call my brothers) and I had a wonderful time. You can see a slide show of the family on flicker
Now that I have 60 hours of footage I think I am in a pretty good position. I just bought a 500 gig drive and am excited to start digitizing.
I also have a producer now. Johanna Voutounou, she is really committed to the project and I have known her and worked with her on all types of various projects over the last seven years. She is really going to keep me motivated. I definitely couldn't do it without her!
I have thought of a better title for the film as well. Haku 'Inoa: To Weave A Name. Let me know what you think about it.
Last week I met with KehaulaniKauanui, who is an associate professor of Anthropology at Wesleyan and the host of the of the radio show called Indigenous Politics you can listen online. She has been very generous with introductions to other Hawaiian and indigenous filmmakers. It is very exciting to begin making contacts with so many other filmmakers!
