DVD for PRE-SCREENING COMPLETED!

I have just finished burning the DVD for the upcoming Pre-Screening. I am happy to report that all 6 shorts plus the mini documentary look VERY GOOD, and I think we have something very special going on here. I've made some minor revisions to the videos that have been assembled such as adding some musical scores (original music by our own Cheth Rowe) and adding credits. The total run time is 20 minutes. So we are now 3 days away from our pre-screening (our test screening) which will take place this coming Wednesday May 27 from 2:00pm-4:00pm at Citywide Community Focus Center where I work. This event is co-hosted by our Cultural Competency Work Committee and is being doubled as a Cultural In-Service workshop. The first hour is to be devoted to the screening with Q/A following. The second hour will consist of small group discussions where our clinical staff will discuss the films as well as diversity issues in general. This portion is handled by the cultural competency work committee.

2nd All Crew Meeting

Had our 2nd Meeting on Last Saturday. 

(1)  In our meeting we shared ideas about where we are headed, where we’d like to go, and we relished the idea that our future is open-ended. At this point, more questions than answers. But the notion that our digital storytelling project can evolve into a truly collaborative “intermedia arts project” (blending film, art, psychiatry, social work) was particularly exciting to me. 

 (2)  Thanks to Cheth for a copy of his music CD with some really interesting improvisational pieces. It was particularly refreshing for me to listen to Cheth’s feedback about our videos/slideshows as he reminded me how broad a concept we are dealing with when it comes to the musicality that is already inherent in our videos/slideshows. Elements such as language, editing, dialogue, etc. all possess “musical” qualities already, so most of our pieces may not necessarily need additional “music.”

(3)  Thanks to Scott for the wonderful slideshows and all the hard work that was put into it—meeting our clients twice a week is no easy task (especially commuting from the East Bay). Scott is also putting together some conference papers which will deal with our current project. Scott has been our resident scholar and theoretician. 

(4)  Sekyu—just checked his blog. He arrived safely in Korea and is enjoying his family. Per our conversation during yesterday’s meeting, I will insert the text into the slideshow to highlight the poem Debbie is reading. 

(5)  Last but not least, Vince stuck around after our Saturday meeting to help me fine tune one of my videos. He is such a technical whiz and a great Final Cut tutor! Thanks to Vince, again, for letting us use the LCD projector. Hopefully Vince will be able to come to our clinic this week to check out our sound system.  

(6)  Now that I have all the pieces assembled into my final cut pro, I am ready to burn them into the DVD. I just need to finish the documentary piece which will be very short. So here is the order of the lineup: (a) Eddie’s story, (b) Debbie’s poem, (c) Mike’s tunnel story, (d) The Bird’s Nest, (e) Cancer treatment, (f) and finally the documentary at the end. Probably 15-17 minutes long!