Just Completed Rough Editing the First Scene

After some technical difficulties I have finished rough editing the first scene. It went well and has inspired me to keep moving forward. I've definitely got the editing bug now.

I'm really curious to see what treasure I can find in the 100+ hours of footage I've shot. Editing this first scene made me realize that it's probably not as daunting of a task as I sometimes thought it might be. I think if I take it in small chunks on a scene-by-scene basis then the editing could go really fast.

I work a full-time job so I have to edit during my "free time". It's so tempting to come home and watch a movie instead of make one. It's certainly much easier. Like the Brothers, I have a goal and nothing will stop me from achieving it.

It's a good thing I enjoy telling a story through editing or else it would never get done!

Wish me luck!

Cool pix!

The Brothers told me about LaoKingdom.com and I put these pics up on my profile:


Find more photos like this on Laobuddy

Post Production Begins

Capture. Log. Capture. Log. Capture. Log.

Ad Infinitum.

My Challenge, My Goal

I've been filming Racing Heart now for 18 months. I say "I've been filming". No, that's not it.

"I've been watching and experiencing an incredible story unfold"

That's more like it!

What I have to do now is condense this 18 month long odyssey I have witnessed into a 90 minute film. I have to convey not only the bare story that I have witnessed, but also the emotions I felt.

It's been quite a ride watching The Brothers balance their family and culture with their goal. A goal requiring late nights workingon their car after a full day of work. They have to solve problems only for new problems to surface requiring new and inventive solutions to keep the car from breaking down again.

I have to convey everything I felt while witnessing the story unfold in 90 minutes.

That is my challenge, that is my goal.

Power of Magnets

When I got back from my trip to Chicago, Chris showed me the magnet he printed out with Racing Heart information. He put it on the truck he drove down to texas. That was a great idea! I know when I'm driving around I look at bumper stickers and magnets that people put on their cars to entertain myself and to look up later if its  a business or product I'm interested in.  The point is, this magnet was a hit! The trailer was viewed a lot the day after.  Today I stuck on a cabinet near my desk at work so everyone can see it. The more merch or promotional items we can come up with the better it will be when it comes time to sell this documentary.  Please visit our site and sign up to our emailing list!

Life has ups. Life has downs.

When you're a competitor, things don't always go right. You lose some, you win some. But you can hold your head up high knowing that you took on the challenge.

To everyone in the Brothers' Crew: I'm your biggest fan and with you 'till the end!

There is no end of course. There will just be a point where I stop pressing the 'record' button!

Basically, this film is an eyewitness account of the Brothers' struggle to succeed. I have been behind the camera 99.9% of the time. I haven't lost interest yet...I only get more and more inspired.

Watching them as I film this documentary has been intense and dramatic. If I can succeed in transferring a little of the excitement I've experienced in filming them then Racing Heart is going to be something very, very special indeed.

Sabaidee!

I hope that this film helps to foster cultural understanding. Stephanie and I have fallen in love with sticky rice and Phở. Pon's wife Sandy is an awesome cook and they have treated us to several meals and they are absolutely delicious!

It is my hope that this film helps broaden viewers' understanding of the human race.

It is the wonderful variations in culture that provide the spice and seasoning to an otherwise boring species.

Thanks to Everyone Who is Signing up on our Email List!

We do have a list going that you can sign up located on the racingheartmovie.com main page. Just scroll down a bit and you'll find it.

We won't spam you. I promise. It's pretty much just let you know when the film is released.

Commencement of Post Production

Although we are still shooting, we have gone ahead and started capturing footage from our tapes. This is the process where we dump video from the tape into the computer.

Logging comes next. That is where we watch all of the footage, organize it, and describe it. This is the time to be thorough. We are looking at everything and cutting it to bits and describing every little bit as detailed as possible so that we can find each little piece that we need while editing.

To use an analogy, let's say you're trying to get across town to work. Well, you could drive down every street looking for the building or you could name all of the streets and use the naming convention to guide you to your destination. Which way you think is faster and allow you to get more work done?

As an editor all I have is my time. If I can't efficiently find that little video or audio clip that I need when I need it I'm going to waste a LOT of time looking for clips when I should be using that time to piece clips together.

Doing a good job logging means that I can take more time being creative in the editing process.

And that is a good thing! Thanks for reading!

Garden of Hope

In 2002, a fire devastated the building behind the apartment building I manage. The vacant property now boasts a community garden. I enjoy caring for it. Now and then I indulge in some quiet time at the garden. Basking in the serenity I often think of Racing Heart.

'Editing is Montage', professor Ben Meade used to say. What is montage? It is a mixture. A mixture of sequential images that is more than the sum of it's parts. It contains meaning. It's the subtext. It's code for emotions. With Montage, you can 'read' and 'feel' between the lines. Editing requires I draw on my experience and knowledge of philosophy, music, aesthetics, psychology, spirituality, ethics, performing arts, language arts, culture, history, graphic design, computer technology, office/financial, and communications.

I love editing!

Documentary Story Script

Alrighty! Tonight, I printed out the plot outline for everyone to look at. Stephanie, Gabi, and I all sat down and produced the first draft of the final story script. Which is more like an outline because this is a documentary. Anyway, it's a big achievement and I'm proud of us to say the least. Like I said before, the team exceeds my expectations at every turn!
.
We will script some dialogue also. We will do the some of that but the entire film isn't scripted well ahead of principle photography like a narrative film. I'm filming in a situation where the outcome is unknown. That makes things interesting. For example, as of right now I have NO idea how the film will end!

It bakes my noodle but at the same time it's great because I'm a creative and I WILL find the right and natural ending for this film.



Here is the poster that Stephanie blogged about in the last post:


Click on the thumbnail to view the larger image 204kb.

Posters

Chris made awesome posters for racing heart. they look very professional and im sure will be catch alot of attention from the people that see them. Chris framed a few to give to the brothers and Greg. It was a nice touch. The poster makes the movie feel even more real. I cannot wait to see chris acomplish his dream of making films, I say films because I have confidence in him that he will be making more. One day he will be famous.!! Im not as computer savy as he is so wait for him to put up a pic of poster, that by the way you can buy to support Chris. more details about cost later

The Momentum is Great!

The energy of Racing Heart is spreading.

The people that I have invited to join the Racing Heart team are surprising me around every turn. Many ideas are experiments, tests, and trials. Ideas flow and we react immediately to the situation at hand. Teamwork. Plain and simple.

We are aiming high and achieving a great deal of progress. I made a lot of mistakes last year and learned from every one of them. This year I have taken that knowledge to a level beyond what even I had hoped for!

Labor Day! BBQ and Show of Footage

Chris and I had a BBQ for the Bros, we made chicken and shrimp kabobs. We wanted to show them some footage to get them excited about the film again. Its always good to keep them and us encouraged. I wanted to have a familiar food for them so I looked online for recipes on how to make sticky rice and I tried it out but I used Jasmine rice so it didn't quite work out. Jocelyn is going to email me the recipe. Pon ate it anyway, so I bet it was not so bad for being my first time.

Saturday and Sunday! What a weekend

Saturday we scheduled an interview with lucky but it didn't happen because of time-crunch, he needed to work a that evening so we set a time for sunday. I asked Lucky if he remembered where he met the brothers. He said "Yeah" it was on 12th street by the Kemper Arena. Since we were not going to interview lucky and we do not have the wide angle lense to go shoot b-roll of kansas city we decided to go check out the location where chan and lucky met. While driving around looking for the place we came across a wall with cool graffiti on it. We loved it, so we decided to do the interview with Lucky at this location instead of doing it where they met. It was a great place that really brought out Lucky's personality. After that we went home and looked at footage with Gabi. We got her familiar with some of the footage and she got a final cut pro lesson. This day was great!

Sunday, we interviewed Lucky; The wind was kinda in the way so we might have to re-do but we all learned so much from this. Thanks Lucky for your time and effort!

Interviewing Lucky in the West Bottoms using a Wheelchair!

On Saturday we went scouting down in the West Bottoms. That's where Lucky met The Brothers.

We found this great location in an alley between two very old industrial buildings. It was a long wall with a graffiti mural that extended the length of the wall. A smoothly paved receiving dock was right in front of the mural. I immediately got the idea to have Lucky walk along the wall for his interview while we pull the camera mounted on a wheelchair in front of him. We immediately went on Craigslist and purchased an old wheelchair for $25.

The next morning before the shoot I braced the wheelchair up with some 2x4's. That made it sturdy enough to mount a tripod and get a smooth shot of Lucky's walking interview.

The cinematography of the interview was great! That wheelchair did the trick and it looks great!

Here is a screen shot of Lucky from the camera mounted on the wheelchair!

Chris and Gabriella record

The Crew: Gabi, Chris, and Stephanie working hard to make it happen.

Gabi and Chris pose for a quick photo

Shoot with our Intern!

Last Thursday we met our intern, Gabi. So of course we wanted to get her to a shoot as soon as possible so we planned a shoot for the following friday. Needless to say, it was a great shoot. Gabi is very sharp,fast and super cool. we know that she is going to be a good person on our team. We were shooting the brothers because they are building their own trailer. yea! building their own! Pon is smart and has the ability to build things with just looking at the object first. The brothers started building on thursday after work and were done building that night! they are fast workers. On Friday, we met up and shot some footage of them working on the trailer.

Good Production Meeting and a Little About Editing

We had a great production meeting last night with Mark. We are nailing down the story structure on paper. This gives us a guide from which to proceed and divert. We also figured out the shooting schedule for this years races. We will plan on shooting interviews between the races.

Once interviews are shot I will complete a rough cut. Basically what I'm going to do is cut out everything that is entirely unusable. I'll probably end up with a 10 hour timeline! Oh man my system is fast but I hope it can take it the kind of abuse I'm going to give it with this doc. I made need to break the film up into different projects! We'll see.

For those of you who are interested I'm cutting on a quad-core Mac Pro and I'm cutting in native HDV as I plan on doing only little color correction. Editing HDV on this workstation is pretty nice because the quad-core processing really crunches through anything you throw at it. HDV works well here because it's low bandwidth and I've got only a two drive RAID. HDV is compressed so its low bandwidth makes accessing it from the hard drive faster. The other side of it is that the computer has to crunch the compressed data, which my workstation handles quite well due to it's four processing cores. It's a balanced system.

The fact that FCPS2 handle HDV natively very well is just icing on the cake. Everything works GREAT! I am REALLY excited to edit this project!

-Chris

I am behind the camera every moment. I wonder, am I telling the Brothers' story, or am I telling my own. The audience will be there every step of the way I as get to know these guys and their cultures.

From Film as Art:

Sometimes the filmmaker does not want smooth camera movement, preferring a bumpy, jiggling image. Commonly this sort of image is achieved through use of the hand-held camera.

Often the hand-held camera functions as a special form of subjective point of view.

And for me, that's what it is. It's my point of view. I think I want to go in a new direction now because I feel that I am a part of the story now. I've become another member of the racing team so I think I'm sacrificing objectivity unless I appear int he film or my voice is heard. I didn't mean for it to happen this way but here's the thing: I've been watching this movie for the last year, in full 3D. And reality is an interactive medium.

I just couldn't pass up the chance to be a part of it. Like those 3D video games that are first person point of view I have become part of the action and because of me the story moves along. I started seeing the film differently when the Brothers told me that if I had waited a week longer to call them and tell them I was going to continue filming, they would have pieced the car out. From that moment on, the film is from my POV. The philosophy involved is staggering and is really something that needs to be explored.

Just as the lady in Born into Brothels, was the prime motivator of the action I am here in Racing Heart. Born into Brothelswas a VERY good doc by the way so go watch it. We saw Jesus Camp recently and found it to be entertaining and informative as well. If Racing Heart can hold up well to those, I will be very pleased!

Street Racing Buddhists. I LOVE this story!

Even when we are doing something else, Racing Heart is involved:
Stephanie and I were in Olathe today to visit my parents in their suburban neighborhood. Garage sales everywhere. There must've been 50 garage sales within a square mile. It is a yearly Persimmon neighborhood thing. I bought a bag to carry lights and gear. I bought a mountain bike for $20. You can visit a lot of garage sales in no time with a bike. Just ride up close enough to the goods so you can quickly scan the scene and check out if nothing catches your eye. Stephanie bought some clothes that caught mine!

I was also looking for a billiard cue. Not really a cue, but the box that holds the cue. I want one to protect the microphone boom pole that costs over $100 when its not being used. I didn't see one at a thrift store we went to but I found a pair of khaki pants. Stephanie bought some Oil paint at Walmart and a canvas at big lots. I'm curious to see her paintings.

She is a really good photographer! She just started but is already taking photos that amaze me. All with a point-and-shoot. One day we'll get her a digital SLR and she'll really do some neat stuff. I love to encourage my wife. She is a really great person and I want her to explore her artistic side because she has this really great point of view I don't know how to describe it.

I'd like to thank Dad & Diane for today. And a happy Mothers Day to all!

Photos from Lao New Year Celebration!

Here are some photos from out shoot in Saginaw, TX where we followed the Brothers to capture them celebrating the Lao New Year. We'd like to thank Mark for all of his help!

Lao New Year

We had a great time down in Dallas. The Lao New Year celebration was really fun and I learned a lot about their culture. We got TONS of great footage. I really liked the inside of the temple. Well, of course I'm super busy so I gotta go talk at ya later.

Lao New Year!! Year of the Rat

I am in love with the Lao People. This event was amazing. From the temple to the food!! Shooting was great on Saturday, it was about 70-75 degrees. The first thing we explored was the inside of the temple. It was filled with people sitting on the floor listening to the monks and praying. There was so much to see and learn that it was even hard to concentrate on the filming, well for me anyway.

After that we met up with the brothers and we filmed them celebrating the New Year. There was beautiful Lao Music playing all day long. The kids were running around with shaving cream all over them and of course shooting water at each other. Saturday we met Maniphone from Lao Star Media. She is a very nice lady and when we told her we were there filming a documentary on the brothers she interviewed them so they will be on TV!! Lao Star Media is broadcasted in the 50 united states and Canada!

Thai TV was also there, I gave them a DVD of Racing Heart Trailer and they said they would be contacting us because they like to help promote films that are about Asian Americans. To say the least, Saturday was an incredible day. When we got to our hotel room we were all so tired that we crashed, Chris and Mark watched a movie, I pretty much snoozed as soon as my head hit the pillow.

On Sunday, it was cold and cloudy so we didn't film much. We did find the closest whataburger and had Mark eat there for the first time. We left Texas pretty early and were back in Kansas City by midnight Sunday. Oh what a Trip!! it was a blast!

THANKS!

I want to dedicate this post to Mark and Micah. We really appreciate all the help. You guys are great to work with and hope that you can keep on this journey with us to make and finish this film.

Thanks,Gracias!!
Chris and Stephanie

Sopping Wet

Today we went and shot the brothers taking their car to get painted. Luck was on our side. Just as our shoot ended it began to rain. Minutes later is began to POUR. Stephanie had gone to get pizza for the crew. She returned just as the gushing rain commenced. The smell of pepperoni took over and we ate right in front of a gas station. Then we got gas and drove home in the rain.

And then we came home and finished the commercial we shot last weekend for a Chiropractor.

Proposal Kits - Yay!

Right now we are building Proposal Kits with slick folders and DVD's in them to prepare for the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce gathering at Crown Center on May 9th. We ran into a contact on Saturday at the Foundation and she said it would be a good place to seek funding. Wow, how many times in your life does a lead like that fall into your lap! So we're jumping on it.

-C h r i s

Challenges of Indie Filmmakers

Being a filmmaker is hard, okay let me re-phrase that, being a "poor" "indie" filmmaker is tough. Since we don't have money, it is a challenge to get people interested in helping us, although we have found a great guy, his name is Mark(Director of Photography). He is truly passionate about film and has done a great deal for this movie. Thanks!!!

Another challenge that filmmakers with no money face is the lack of equipment. Luckily, we have an film organization called the IFC(Independent Film Coalition) that rents equipment to local filmmakers. We were able to rent a light kit for super cheap. Renting is good but we want to own our equipment. Yesterday Chris put in the order for equipment that will keep this movie going.
Yay for Tax Return Money!

If any of you would like to donate $$$ or equipment we would really appreciate it!!!You will be recognized in the credits!

Here is another day in the life of two filmmakers...happy earth day

Getting Ready for Lao New Year

It is Monday April 21st, 2008 Chris and I are trying to get everything ready for our shoot in Saginaw Texas this weekend. We are going to shoot the brothers as they celebrate the Lao New Year. This is going to be a huge event. Lao New Year is celebrated all throughout the United States beginning on April 13th.

Here is a little knowlege about the celebration:

*On the first day, houses are cleaned and food is prepared.
*On the second day, which is the "day of no day", prayer and gifts to the monks
*On the third day, the festival marks the manificent New Year

Water is poured on the elders,then the monks for blessings of long life and peace and lastly they pour water on each other.

The idea of water came from the legend of King Kabinlaphom, whose seven daughters kept his severed head in a cave. The daughters would visit the fathers head every year and perform a ritual to bring happiness and good weather.

If you go to Lao New Year, be prepared to get WET!!



Location**Wat Lao Thepnimit, 7105 Marvin Brown St., Saginaw, 817-238-8543 April 26 and 27th. A Miss Lao New Year pageant will be held April 26, with the winner to lead Sunday's parade.

Fundraiser for Racing Heart

I have been pondering the idea of having a fundraiser/Benefit for our Documentary Racing Heart. Today, Chris and I sat down to discuss this and will be taking the first step to make this idea a reality. As newbies to this we will be doing some research, we will have to spend some money on a venue and other things so of course it makes us nervous because we don't want to end up losing money, the purpose of this benefit is to raise money!! : ) If any of you would like to help with this or have input as to where to start when it comes to organizing a Benefit please email us, our contact information is at www.racingheartmovie.com or www.myspace.com/hydeparkpictures

Thank You to all of you that have been there for us during this journey!

KC Jubilee Party

So we went to the KC film jubilee party on April 19th at The Mutual Musicians Foundation located in the heart of Kansas City's historic jazz district. It was lots of fun. we meet filmmakers and film enthusiasts, lets not forget that we met ninja girl, kelly! : )
It is always good to have fun and network. As a hispanic filmmaker it is going to be very important that I meet some people at the 'fiesta' hosted by kansas city hispanic chamber of commerce. Right now, racing heart is in need of money to continue. We want to meet people that will give us the chance to tell them about our documentary and how successful it can be if only we had more money. This documentary is like no other, it is a documentary by definition but we have added our own touch that will make even those that hate documentaries love it!!
please check out our promotional trailer www.racingheartmovie.com and donate what you can! Money, help on shoots, equipment, spreading the word!!!

Not going to do the VOA interview

After thinking about it a while I decided not to do the interview with VOA. The U.S. government has it's reasons for doing the broadcasts and I just don't want to get mixed up in anything political. Racing Heart is not trying to make a statement and since I can't control how the VOA uses my interview, I think it's better to just stay out of it.

I think that there are going to be more opportunities to get the word out about Racing Heart in that part of the world at a later time.

Contacts, Contacts, Contacts.

Well, I've spent the past few days lying on the couch ill. But that can't stop an independent filmmaker from moving forward!

I did a lot of searching for Laos media outlets and organizations, in order to get the word out that this documentary is in the works. I emailed a few, so hopefully that helps.

There are some 500,000 people in the United States that can trace their heritage back to Laos. That's much larger than I realized and I am sure a lot of them would be excited that two brothers from Laos are being featured in a documentary. You just don't see many Laotians in the media, especially film!

So I sent some emails in hopes of getting the word out. An independent film needs good contacts!

Voice of America Interview

The Voice of America Lao service wants to interview me and The Brothers about the documentary. They will air it on their daily 30 minute news program that they beam into Laos.

Now, I have to admit I'm a little iffy about this and I'll tell you why. As a documentary filmmaker it is important to me that my doc not cause problems for the subjects.

You see, The Brothers are citizens of Laos, and are welcome back there anytime right now.

I would hate for anything to get in the way of that. As true and honest documentarian I will not let Racing Heart be a political statement from the outset.

If Racing Heart makes a political statement it will do so on it's own accord and not because it was forced upon the story.

I won't speak for all citizens in my country, but I firmly believe that each country has a right to its own sovereign laws and culture.

It should be a cause for concern when the U.S. government tries to interfere with the sovereign rights of other nations and am not quite sure I agree with using a radio service to export American values.

I just want to let the world know about my film without stirring up any negative sentiment. I consider it not my business what type of government the Laos people have. It is their right to determine for themselves what that should be.

Storyboarding Under Way!

Well, I posted a huge white plastic board on a wall in the studio. I am going to write the scenes across the top and then list all of the audio/visual elements we will need for each scene on 3x5 cards.

I can use this as a tool to arrange the story. This should prove to be pretty useful during the editing phase.

This is a method that I learned from Barry Hampe's book Making Documentary Films and Videos, which is a great resource for any of you interested in learning about making documentaries.

Craigslist Ad Worked!

I put and ad on craigslist.org in hopes of finding some hidden talent here in the Midwest. Well, it worked!

We now have a great roster of people who wish to work on the doc with us. I set up a Google Document to share with everyone on the team the schedule and the roster with everyone's contact information.

I just want to thank everyone for your support. It is because of you that this documentary is going to have the extra professional touch it needs to get some attention when it comes out.

The Racing Heart Production Journal

Well, this is it! We are well underway to having a great year. This is THE place for the latest news on the documentary Racing Heart, now being filmed.

I am the director, Chris Williamson, and this will be my journal as I work to complete my first feature-length documentary. I hope it's a good read and you enjoy following me on this interesting journey.