Hot Docs 2009

We've finished film just weeks before the show. Milk in The Land "premiered" at Big Sky Documentary Film Festival in Missoula Montana last month but it wasn't done yet. That was a great fest and the audience and screening helped me see what had to be fixed. I went to work and changed a lot-- small things like levels and saturation-- but most importantly the text. I could see that the text was too cold and corporate for our approach. Using a free download of FrameTheif, I set up a video animation stand. I spent 4 days handwriting and animating all the text within the film. I think it made a huge difference. I hope I see some Big Skyers there (like Niklas Vollmer -a make-a-film-in -five days contest finalist) to get impressions on how the film has changed. Monte has finished the music. It's amazing. (He also did the soundtrack for our last collaboration "Hybrid" --Independent Spirit/Truer than Fiction Award, Fipresci at International Doc Fest Amsterdam) . He recorded everything in the barn behind our house with a laptop computer, laying down tracks one at a time. Sometimes Mark Hadsell would come over and the two would work for hours creating a piece for the film. Monte will bring cds. He wants to compose more, maybe for other filmmakers and not just for us. Maybe he'll write a few words about music later.