Parameters

This past weekend we screened our short film, "A Country Wedding," at the Da Vinci Film Festival in Corvallis. While this marks what I hope will be the beginning of a strong festival run, it also marks the official end of a project. The short film has reached a sort of terminus. While I'd love to pull the cast and crew together again someday to make the feature version, Killing Crows, that would be a different project.

So now it's time to think of the next film, which is our wine documentary. The idea is still coalescing. Wine is such a massive topic, that we're going to need to find a narrative thread to follow. I imagine the first year will be spent seeking out the characters we want to follow in order to tell our story.

On the technical side, I'm beginning to have thoughts about how we want to proceed. This will be a very minimalist documentary from a production standpoint. I'm assembling a small bag of gear, and my goal is to shoot the entire film only using the equipment that fits in this kit. At the same time, I want it to look amazing, as if it was filmed on high-end gear with a full crew.

I think the technology has arrived that will allow us to accomplish this feat. I'm envisioning a crew of one or two people, a tiny bag of gear, and an attitude of humility and interest that will allow us to have frank, intimate and far ranging discussions with our subjects, as well as sit in the background and shadows and capture real, authentic moments that make up the labors of people who've traded everything in their lives to work in this industry. I'm anxious to get started. I'll be detailing the full process as we move forward.