The DREAM Act Documentary

[Laurel Scott]

Some of you may be wondering where we're at with the documentary. My partner for the project - Lorena Turner, a university professor - has sent me a string of edited clips. I'm super-excited about the technical quality of the clips, as well as the content. She and I still have a lot to work out in regard to organizing the clips and doing the narration so it all comes together, but right now I'm feeling more confident that our first documentary (this is the first venture into documentary film for us both) will be a something we're proud to show people (unlike my very first waiver packet, which I'm glad is not on public display, even if I did get an approval). I'd say we're still two months or so away from a finished product -everyone says the editing takes longer than the filming and they're right. Right now I'm predicting that it will be around 10-15 minutes long. The best news of all is that despite how incredibly small our budget is, we're actually under budget at this time.

[mi_corazon]

I bet that it will be fabulous! So are we all going to get a chance to see the completed product? If so...you will have to let us know when it is ready for viewing. :)

[Laura]

Laurel -- How/where will it be shown? I would love to work whatever connections I have in Milwaukee and Madison to get a showing at UW-Madison, UWM, etc.

[anndalla]

I would LOVE for it to be shown locally here as well, And will do anything I can to help get it done.

[Coventrated]

A friend of mine is just finishing up his first film.

He will be trying first to get it shown at Film Festivals, he did say that many Film Festivals wil only consider it if it has not ben released elsewhere.

[Laurel Scott]

We talked about showing it at film festivals, but apparently that's a much harder nut to crack for a short-film polical advocacy piece from unknowns who want to get it into the festival less than a year before the festival is taking place. You have to make your applications for festival entry pretty far in advance and until we bought our plane tickets for Denver back in April, neither of us was really sure we were going to go through with our grandiose plans.

[Coventrated]

Fair enough.

His is non political and feature length.

[sdgcas]

Could you post it on YouTube?

If you posted it, people from this board could place links to it on other forums to increase its popularity. This could reach a huge audience.

[Laurel Scott]

I've thought about YouTube. I have to check the YouTube rules.

My partner is getting more clips to me in the next week or so. I'm starting to understand why every documentary expert I asked said (a) this could probably be done in a month if I put in 40-60 hours a week for that month, but (b) if my partner and I were doing this on the side in addition to our other full-time jobs it would take 6-12 months. Well, the project got off the ground at the beginning of April, I guess, (well, after she and I first talked about it nearly two years ago and talked about some early in the year). So, its only been less than four months since we really got into it. But I constantly feel like its all taking longer than it actually is.

[tasksgirl]

Whatever happened to this??

[Laurel Scott]

My partner on the film had her baby a bit too early and has been distracted by the medical ramifications of this. And she has the tapes with her in New York. Even so, we're trying to finish up in the next few weeks.

[cindy101]

Sorry to hear that about your partner... My son came 10.5 weeks early, it does throw you for a loop.

Family first always, hope you guys get it produced and can't wait to see the finished product.