Editor with a Heart of Gold

Hawaii Documentaries Sizzle for PIC

2012-01-23T11:11:00.000-08:00

http://shirleythompson.net -- The newest trailer we created for the good folks at Pacific Islanders in Communication features film by and about Hawaiians, and will be featured on their website and Facebook page, as well as used for broadcast promotions and fundraising. A lot of strong films, made right here in Hawaii nei, including One Voice, Papa Mau: The Wayfinder, Under a Jarvis Moon, Pidgin: the Voice of Hawaii, Nā Kamalei: The Men of Hula, Dreams of a Pagan Tattooed Savage, Holomua, Keao, and the Sacred Land Film Project. Enjoy!

New Years Revolutions

2012-01-09T11:20:00.000-08:00

More water. Less gluten.

More walking. Less driving.

More blogging. Less procrastinating.

More hiking. More dancing.

My friend Trayc calls them revolutions, instead of resolutions, which I really like. Like most folks, I always begin the year with at least one big goal. Last year I vowed to use less disposable plastic, and that shifted everything about the way I interact with the world of commerce. It became a one woman revolution...much more than a resolution. I wound up meeting many new cool people, learning lots of new things, having lots of frank discussions about product packaging with all sorts of vendors and getting some to change to greener packaging. I started purchasing alternative products from great local vendors who are not using plastic in their packaging. I stopped buying and using a lot of things altogether, because I didn't want the disposable plastic it comes in, and realized that I can actually get by with a lot less "stuff" overall. My carbon footprint is a little lighter, and I now look at the world in a different way.

I can also still do better. Check out this photo:

These are the plastic caps I collected over the course of the last 12 months. Fourteen and a half ounces (I weighed them)...nearly a pound of plastic caps, indicative of all the plastic bottles that continue to come through this house. Some were grandfathered in (plastic containers that were in the house before I moved in with Stan), some were impossible not to get (how do you get a prescription medicine without a plastic container?), some were ongoing conundrums yet to be solved (deodorant, dental floss), some were plastic caps I collected while walking on the beach (tiny penance for the rest). They cannot be recycled in our recycling bin because they are not #1 or #2 plastic, but I can drive them to the local recycling collection center and drop them off where they say they will be recycled (hmmm...). It was an interesting exercise to see how much plastic managed to sneak in, despite all my good intentions. But I bet I cut it down by 75% of what used to come into this house and office.

So now it's January 2012 and I'm shopping for this year's revolution. It hasn't come to me yet, which is partly why I'm writing my New Year's blog on January 9th. But I'm looking for something transformative, from which I can learn and live in a more positive, healthy way. All the usual suspects have been considered: I should meditate, lose weight, etc., etc. But the white flash of realization hasn't hit me, so until then I'll keep searching for inspiration. The word "fun" keeps coming up for me. I've often advised people that we're supposed to be having fun in this lifetime, and that each day we should simply think of the most fun thing we could possibly do, and do it, and use that as a mandate for our day-to-day living, which in turn would shape our entire lives. For me, the next New Year's Revolution will certainly have a fun quotient, I'm sure.

What's your revolution?

Happy New Year. May your year be filled with positivity and goodness and healthy living and joy.

Happy Holidays from Shirley Thompson Editorial!

2011-12-23T12:53:00.000-08:00

Aloha and much merriness from my little red edit room in the tropics to you and yours. It's time to take a little break for the holidays, soak in this solstice time of renewal, rest, and regeneration...I'll be back cut, cut, cutting away after the first of the new year. Thank you for all the great sharing and collaboration and inspiration you all give me throughout the year. I look forward to much more fun, creativity and juiciness in 2012. My gift to you...here is the 2011 version of my Aloha Holiday Mix for you to enjoy. Mele Kalikimaka!

Micronesian Films Highlighted in New Sizzle Video

2011-12-19T07:47:00.000-08:00

I confess that when I began watching these films and working on this trailer, I searched Wikipedia for maps of Micronesia to learn where these small island nations are. There's an amazing amount of history out in the Pacific, peoples and cultures that go back thousands of years. For some of these nations, fortune shifted in profound ways due to geopolitical interests and policies of the U.S. I was woefully ignorant of most of this history. Fortunately there are talented documentary filmmakers doggedly pursuing and recounting these stories. And a terrific organization like Pacific Islanders in Communications making sure that these films are getting funded and getting on the air. Here is a small sample of the films about Micronesia funded through the good folks at PIC.

Pacific Islanders in Communications New Promo

2011-12-08T15:05:00.000-08:00

Think you know Pacific Islanders? Well, there are so many stories, yet to be told. That's the theme of this newest promo for Pacific Islanders in Communications, featuring the films that they fund and broadcast on public television. It was so great to get to watch literally dozens of the latest films executive produced by the good folks at PIC, and search for those "chicken-skin" moments that make you want to see more. I am so grateful to get to work with such terrific people who are committed to getting these voices and these stories out into the wider world. Enjoy...

Mahalo nui loa to composer David Kauahikaua for his spirited music, Amy Kalili for her warm, wonderful voiceover performance, Ross Okamura/Audio Bytes for his great sound recording, John Dennis for his terrific sound design and mix and Stanford Chang/Gravity for the beautiful online.

Plastic-free Editing in Paradise

2011-12-07T09:49:00.000-08:00

Watch out, this is a little rant.

Stop using disposable plastic, for crying out loud!

There is a floating garbage patch in the middle of the Pacific Ocean north of Hawaii the size of Texas. No lie.

Where did all that plastic garbage come from? It comes from you and me, folks.

You can never imagine how far and wide the plastic you throw away travels. And the truth is there is no "away." Think your plastic get recycled? Only about 27% of plastic gets recycled. The rest gets dumped into landfills or washes into the ocean where it kills fish, sea animals and birds. Don't believe me? There's a terrific documentary on the topic: WATCH IT.

And if you're in the media biz, listen up...in this era of YouTube and Vimeo, we have got to stop using DVDs. It's estimated that it will take a CD or DVD a MILLION years to decompose in a landfill. I shudder to think about those hundreds of AOL disks I tossed in the 90's. So how do I deliver quicktime movies of projects without burning any DVDs? I now deliver all video projects on hard drives or flash drives (either mine or the client's). I don't even have DVDs or CD's in the office anymore. A link to a Vimeo or YouTube page works great for almost all clients and projects.

So what to do with the DVD's and CD's you need to get rid of? Recycle them!

Google "E-Waste (name of your city or state)." Find out if there is a recycler that will take them near you. Often there are Electronic Waste collection days that are scheduled...see if you can find one nearby. They will take your CDs and DVDs and also your old cell phones, old hard drives, old electronics. There's usual a small charge for taking old TVs and old monitors.

If there is no E-Waste collection near you, there are several companies that will recycle E-Waste for you for free or for a low charge if you send it in. Greendisk is a great company that I have used in the past...I have a box for used CDs and DVDs and old tapes in the studio and I save them up, then once a year I pack them up and ship them Media Mail rate (cheapest slowest postage) to Greendisk, who shreds them and recycles them. There are other companies. This one says they will recycle your CDs and DVDs for free.

And what about printer cartridges? I basically have cut my printing down to the absolute minimum. If I don't print, then I don't use printer ink in a plastic cartridge. I think I used half the ink this year as last year. Before, I think I was printing a Google map every time I left the house...now I just jot the directions down on a piece of paper using a pencil. Old school, but it works. Office Depot takes back old printer cartridges, any brand, and gives you $2 each.

Perhaps 2012 can be the year of living with less plastic for you. Here are some other resources:

My favorite reusable bags are ChicoBags. I get them for $3-$4 bucks, often the grocery stores sell them with their logos on the sides. They are super strong and fold down to nothing in their own little pouch, so you can always have three or four with you. I have some that are 5 years old now.

Stop using take out containers. Get yourself reusable stuff and only shop with folks who will refill your reusable container. My soup lady at the farmers market is tickled that I bring back my containers every week. And it saves her money (which she gives to me as a 25 cent discount). These are the ones I covet. I think they're nice enough to whip out in a nice restaurant instead of taking home styrofoam in a plastic bag. Styrofoam is gross.

Get yourself a stainless steel water bottle and an insulated stainless steel hot/cold beverage container...they sell them everywhere. If you have a Starbucks habit, buy theirs. They will give you 10 cents off your drink every time you use your own cup.

The main tip is this: whatever you think you can't do without that comes in plastic, see if you can use it half as much, and cut your use in half. Sharpies are my downfall...great tool that I love for making my post it note boards. Big nasty piece of disposable plastic. In researching this article, I did a quick Google search, found out that Sharpie makes a gorgeous Stainless Steel fine point marker! I just ordered three, plus 10 refills. No more plastic sharpie purchases for me! And that's how it works.

Editing Kukan

2011-10-14T15:04:00.000-07:00

This little editor has been so busy making edits that she hasn't blogged for THREE MONTHS. Thank goodness that she has friends and colleagues who blog. So I'm cheating...this is a re-blog...or whatever the blog equivalent of a Re-Tweet is. Lazy of me, I know, but I swear after I meet a couple of upcoming deadlines and after baseball season ends, I'll be back to my bi-monthly blogging ways. In the meantime, I offer you this wonderful blog from recent collaborator, Hawaii documentary filmmaker Robin Lung, highlighting our recent work on her film in progress, Finding Kukan. If you need me, you know where to find me...I'll be in the edit room, for certain...

My, that full glass of green tea is awfully close to that laptop....

Living in Public: Addressing Privacy Fears About Your Online Posts

2011-07-11T18:23:00.000-07:00

Would you hire me? Read on...

Usually, it begins with a comment like this: "Oh, I could never risk putting something out there on the internet, and have it come back to haunt me years later. That stuff never goes away. Once it's posted, it's on the internet forever." Lately, I've been having this conversation with certain clients, friends and fellow filmmakers who still are avoiding social media, because they fear that someone will post something unflattering about them, and they won't be able to control it.

And granted we hear stories about young people not getting jobs because a prospective employer looked at their Facebook page and saw some drunken party photo of them. And we see on the front page examples of knucklehead public officials and celebrities texting photos of their private parts -- as if the photo wasn't going to get saved and passed on? This is simply internet-imitates-life. (In other words, don't be an ass). And some folks have real-life privacy issues to reckon with because of the unfair world we live in. I was once at a gay friend's birthday party who reminded everyone not to post online pictures of him and his beloved, because he worked for "The City" and feared he could lose his job if he was outed at work. Still. In 2011. I don't want to trivialize how badly this sucks.

Would you hire ME?

But most of us, lets face it, are just workaday regular folks with relatively mundane lives. Plain and simple. And I think if you treat the internet like what it is, a public forum that almost everyone can see, then you have nothing to fear...and plenty to gain.

By making myself super easy to find online, and fostering a reputation as a subject matter expert through Twitter and Facebook discussions about my work and the industry, I give people a way to connect with me, get to know me, and begin a relationship with me. This, I hope, will lead to interesting and fruitful collaborations. To keep things interesting, I post a lot of personal opinion and ideas in hopes of sparking a connection with likeminded folks.

Okay, I'm not an expert on online privacy issues. I'm strictly speaking from personal experience. And my personal experience, in a nutshell, has been this: I've had my home phone number, address, photos of me in all manner of circumstances, two relationships, links to all my lefty, feminist political groups, and an endless supply of personal opinions -- on Facebook, on Twitter, on my business website and my personal blogs for almost 10 years now, and not one bad thing has happened as a result. I freely embrace the ethos of social media, of living in public, and have had zero negative repercussions. More importantly, I can't say enough good things about how having a strong presence on the internet has had on my small business. I make connections and get hired because people know me. And they know me, because I've given them a peek at my professional and personal life, online.

How 'bout this girl?

I have had people disagree with me. I have been "warned" by well-intentioned clients that perhaps it would be better to say less, for example, about my political leanings. However, I have never felt it necessary to hide any part of myself online, anymore than I would in person. Indeed, I would rather lose a potential client because they don't agree with my world view than have them hire me, because I'm pretending to be something I'm not. Authenticity, my friends is key.

The "official" portrait (thx Kris Hundt)

Here's another way to look at it. My website is my storefront, open to the public, easily findable via search engine and containing everything you could want to know about my professional life: bio, resume, awards, work samples. Ditto my LinkedIn account. My @shirleythompson Twitter account is an extension of my film editing business Shirley Thompson Editorial, and hence includes mostly tweets about documentary films, film editing and the film business, intermingled with personal and political comments and discussions about what to eat (a Twitter staple, but I happen to have made a film about local, sustainable food, so it works). My Facebook Page for Shirley Thompson Editorial is similar, with a lot more video links, since it's easier for the moment to post video on Facebook. This page is also completely public, and I'm pleased as punch that there are folks who have "liked" this page whom I don't even know yet. Note that on both Twitter and Facebook and newer sites like Google+, you can remove a post, a picture or a status update. So you can edit yourself after the fact, in case of a typo (the main reason I ever delete something), or because you've had a change of heart.

Racewalking, a FB featured activity!

My personal Facebook page is just that - personal. You have to be my Facebook friend to see it, everyone else is blocked. There are 278 photos of me, my friends, my family, my sweetie, my cats, my garden, my travel, my parties, rainbows over Honolulu, etc. It also includes photos of me with ex-sweeties (one in particular who I still absolutely adore), a lot of party snaps with wine glass in hand (I do like my wine), the occasional unfortunate shot of my butt or with jeans that are a tad too tight. All those photos have a privacy setting that allows only friends and friends of friends to see them (and you can control who sees the photo even more). If it's a photo from someone else's Facebook account that I don't want published, I can always remove the tag with my name to disassociate myself from it, or report the photo and have the photo removed altogether if it's abusive. By the way, this has never happened with me. (You can learn all about Facebook privacy settings in the Help section).

It's all GOOD!

On my personal Facebook, I hold nothing back. So if I've deemed that you are a friend, I am going to share my life with you. Not everybody wants to be this open and free. I value being my authentic self, for the good and the bad of it, more than being closeted for the sake of any goal or personal gain. And I think that people who agree with or admire this approach will be more willing to hire me as a result of it, or "like" my company or be my friend.

So if you've avoided social media because you fear it, remember that you can control the message and the view of what people get to see about you, because you get to choose what you put out there. If you don't want to share it, don't share it! And if you do share it, be awake to the fact that everyone, including your mother, your minister and your future employer, may indeed someday see it, unless you learn how to use your privacy settings.

For a little levity on all this social media talk, here is a favorite humorous video on the topic.

Does this change your thinking in anyway about this social media stuff? Let me know what you think.

Filmmakers Using the Web to Build a Brand

2011-06-19T19:59:00.000-07:00

I am obsessed with social media. As a documentary filmmaker from the old fashioned school of long-form storytelling, I am completely taken with the newest form of telling a story: tweeting it in 140 characters or less on Twitter. Or telling the ongoing saga of your life in status updates, photos and links on Facebook. A blog like this one is so old fashioned, really. It's so 2008. But call me old school, I do like scribbling out a story, setting it up with a lead, even a rambling one like this one, and taking you, the reader, on a journey.

And Twitter and Facebook aren't all that different really...you're just telling a story serially, in small installments over time. And the totality of what you are crafting with every tweet and with every status update, link and post, is the story of you as the character in the movie of your life and career. In marketing terms, you are creating your brand. If you are a filmmaker, or any type of creative professional, the brand you put out there as "YOU" is what will get you jobs, funding, respect and recognition. Are you using the web as well as you could be?

Here is a fast list of web resources and some quick thoughts on how you can use them to tell your story, build your brand and get more recognition for the work that you do.

twitter.com - Are you tweeting? A Twitter account is a fast way to create an online presence and to start networking with like-minded folks who are interested in the same types of subject matter, be it film or the subject of your film. You can also, over time, build a reputation as being an expert in your area, and be in the same social media circle as other experts you would like to reach and collaborate with. Open a Twitter account and join the online conversation and meet some new people. Commit to tweeting 3-4 times a day for a short period of time so you get the hang of it, then you can just set up a time to tweet 1 or 2 times daily (first thing in the morning, and at lunch, for example). Or you can use a utility like TweetDeck or HootSuite to program your tweets. Post a picture of yourself and tweet like a person! And always thank the folks who follow you. BTW, you can follow me, too!

facebook.com - If you are a filmmaker, you should have a personal Facebook account, a Facebook page for your production company and a Facebook page for each of your film projects. Pages allow you to separate your posts by subject and relevance to different groups of followers. People can "like" your page, and that means that they will get a status update from you whenever you post a status update, photo, video or link. These are the fans of your work, people who want to hear from you. They are your allies, and a Facebook page gives them a place where they can contact you and keep tabs on what you are working on. You can build fans of your company and your film over time throughout your production and post production so that when the film is released, you have a small army of people who can help you spread the word and get folks into the theater.

YouTube.com - Go to YouTube and create your own YouTube channel and start uploading short video clips to share with your viewers or short work samples from recent or previous work. By building a body of work online you help create a powerful online presence for yourself as a filmmaker. The search engine for YouTube is the second largest search engine in the world, after Google. Shouldn't you be on it? Also, I can't tell you how great it is when folks want to see your work and you can point them to a link online. Super fast, and it makes you look like a real pro.

google.com/profiles - Speaking of Google, you can create a Google Profile, which includes as much information as you would want people to find of you online. This helps Google direct traffic to you when people are searching for you. And it helps you to control the links you want folks to see.

LinkedIn.com - I was one of the original LinkedIn naysayers, and years later, I admit that I was wrong and I have gone back and accepted all those invitations to connect. LinkedIn is serious business...folks in the business world look here to see your credentials and check out your professional circle. As a filmmaker as well as a film worker (and most of us are both), I think this is a great place to send folks to see your resume and your glowing references. You have gotten people to give you references, haven't you? Again, be sure to post a great profile photo of yourself. People want to see who they're doing business with. And film is a business...and all your connections on LinkedIn are people with potential funding and resources to help you make your film. And update your status regularly. My brother told me he once got a good paying gig because someone with whom he had never worked, had just seen a status update from him. Status updates = free publicity for you, your film and your work.

flickr.com - As filmmakers we are visual storytellers and we want to reach all those folks we are now connected to with images as well as words. Posting pix on Facebook is fast and fun, but it doesn't reach all those folks who are not on Facebook. But if you post your pix on one site, be it Flickr or Picassa or Twitpic, you can then post links to your photos on Facebook, Twitter, etc and you can email folks and send them a link to your pix. Carry a camera or your smartphone with you on every shoot and take behind the scenes photos, then post a photo or two to your fans and followers let them into your filmmaking process.

klout.com - Ok, for those A students out there, don't get addicted to checking your Klout score.
These folks have developed metrics to measure how effective you are at getting your message out through social media. You can check it over time and it will tell you how well your strategy is working, and you can experiment and see if your score rises or lowers.

These are just a few of the free resources that are available to all filmmakers on the web, to help you become your own best publicist and get the word out about your film and your work. Which one will you try first?

If you want to know more, I'll be speaking about this topic at the Honolulu Women in Filmmaking Hawai‘i meeting on June 29, 6:30 pm at the ARTS at Marks Garage. In my next post I'll talk about crowdsourcing and the Kickstarter phenomenon...

Old Editor New Trick...Staying Current in a Rapidly Changing World

2011-05-22T16:15:00.000-07:00

I wonder if DeDe Allen ever worried about going out of style? For those of you not in the know DeDe Allen was one of the greatest film editors to ever live. She had a fifty year career, and edited so many groundbreaking classic films: The Hustler, Bonnie and Clyde, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, Reds, The Breakfast Club. I wonder if she ever worried about staying current or relevant?

My gut says no: she was a film editor working in Hollywood. She did one thing for her entire career. She edited film. But then I did a quick Google search and found a great interview with Ms. Allen where she talked about editing The Wonder Boys in 2000 and how she learned how to edit digitally on a computer after 50 years of editing on film. Old editor, new trick.

Remember these? Anyone?

Nowadays the change of pace is downright dizzying. I began editing almost 30 years ago in 1982, with a razor blade, a splicing block and tape to stick the edited pieces together. I then learned how to edit electronically on video, then with a computer using a controller with a joystick. Then with bigger more powerful computers. And then I went through the desktop revolution, where suddenly we were all editing on Macs. For the past five years I've edited on a laptop and delivered my content over the web. Now, we can shoot videos on our phones and upload them to the web where we can edit them with cloud-based software and publish them in minutes for all the world to see on YouTube or Facebook. With all that technical capability in the hands of every single person, why does anyone need to hire a professional editor anymore? And why would they hire me?

I never want to be in a position of justifying my professional existence. And in this time of diminishing film budgets, greater competition for work, and ever more rapid pace of change, I find that the best thing is for me to continuously hone my skills and work harder to learn new ways of working. Fortunately I'm lucky in three ways: I love being a filmmaker, I love change and I love learning new things.

My latest fascination is with video on the web and with social media and thinking of ways to connect the old and the new in order to communicate compelling ideas and stories. My partner Stanford Chang and I have created a company that focuses entirely on creating video for the web, and we have immersed ourselves in the social media world, schooling ourselves by creating highly evolved Facebook pages, YouTube channels, LinkedIn Profiles, Twitter accounts, websites and then interconnecting them and using them to create and build new relationships with a bright, exciting new community of engaged people. I'm even dabbling in newer and more specialized social networks: Namesake, which is more personal and utopian in approach and less about business, Kanu Hawaii, which is about social justice and community building.

Through it all I have met, either in person or online, dozens and dozens of new people, all of whom are extremely excited and passionate about what they do. The social media crowd is a curious, chatty bunch and by their nature they push me to put the best, most honest, most authentic version of myself out there every single day. This journey has also put me back in touch with long-time colleagues and given me a platform from which to reach out, reconnect and build on those relationships. And with each new task I have tackled I have learned dozens of new skills, from building our website to understanding HD video and the myriad ways one can deliver it on the web, to creating video for mobile devices. I feel like I've learned more in the last three months than I've learned in the previous three years.

So for now I have my sights set on using my filmmaking skills from nearly 30 years in the business to continue creating stories and conveying ideas, but equipped with the latest tools and savvy about new approaches. I think more film and video is being made and watched now than ever, and I am stoked to share my knowledge and use it to help the people I collaborate with achieve and communicate their highest goals. Life is juicy...I feel lucky to be on this path right now. Old editor, new tricks!

Want to continue this conversation? Leave a comment, or connect with me on Facebook, Twitter, or LinkedIn.

Laughing Samoans Kick off with Samoan Documentary Trailer in Hawaii

2011-04-19T20:33:00.000-07:00

I had never heard of the Laughing Samoans before, but it turns out that they are pretty funny guys who travel all over the world doing stand-up comedy about Samoan life and culture. The good folks at Pacific Islanders in Communication in Honolulu tapped me to create a 2-minute trailer highlighting their documentaries about Samoa, which would show on a big screen before the Laughing Samoans' concerts while on tour in Hawaii. Pretty cool! Hope I get to go to Samoa someday...looks beautiful. And the films I pulled from were so interesting, including: The Calling, Skin Stories, Polynesian Power, Made in Taiwan, Black Grace, Goodbye Charlie, A U O Le Taupou and O Tamaiti. Check it.

Pro Bono Editing - Good Business, Good Cause

2011-03-04T15:18:00.000-08:00

They caught me on a good day.

I was reading the SF Cutters Final Cut Pro editors listserv when a post appeared seeking editors for a pro-bono editing project. Great music, great cause, no pay.

I was feeling rather sorry for myself that day. This first quarter was typically slow...folks tend to start projects at the beginning of the year, and my business is finishing projects. It usually takes until March for my business to ramp up. But in spite of 20+ years of seeing this pattern in my freelance business, it still saddens me to see nothing on the calendar. "Not booked for the rest of my life," I joked with other freelancer friends, laughing while trying to push down the worry over my ever shrinking bank balance. "I've always worked and somehow always paid my bills," is my mantra. You can't be a freelancer for twenty years without being able to surf the waves of lots of income followed by no income. However, on this day, the worry was winning, and I was feeling low. I needed to work.

So I emailed my interest in the project, and over email and phone I met Joe Baker, the director of a project whom I have yet to meet in person, in spite of the fact that we made a rather nice music video together. Joe is making a CD/DVD compilation of African and American music, with collaborations by accomplished African and American musicians. It's "Playing for Change" meets contemporary African music, where by the magic of editing, musicians in different cities and on different continents play a song together. Proceeds of the project go towards building a school for village children in Ghana, through a non-profit run by Joe's brother. You can learn all about it by "liking" The Africa Project on their Facebook page. Anyways, Joe was agreeable to working with me long distance, with him reviewing cuts over the web in the Bay Area and me editing at home in Hawaii.

So for a week, I threw myself into editing African music and images. The project had its challenges. Joe is a first-time filmmaker, and some of the footage reflected that. But the recording was rock-solid and he and the project have enormous heart. You could tell that it was recorded and filmed with a lot of love, if not expertise.

I found myself with footage of 10 musicians, each filmed in a different location and I needed to sync them all so that they appeared to be playing together. I created a poor-man's multi-cam by just syncing all musicians and their individual music stems, plus the final recording, in one big sequence. Then I cut for performance until I got the very best moments of each musician, looking always for opportunities to show musicians playing "together" through split screens. Once the performance was edited, I turned to the b-roll material looking for a character and a story. The piece became a road trip through Ghana, with the driver as main character, which lined up nicely with lyrics about the beauty of Africa and its people. It was a great stretch for me craft-wise...I found myself using my FCP software in ways I haven't used it before, and the effects I chose required a lot of precision. This turned out to be much harder than I originally planned. I loved being challenged.

But the best part is this. The instant I started working on it, the phone began to ring. I don't know why this happens, but it's always been true: work begets work. If I'm sitting around doing nothing, I get a whole lot more nothing. But if I'm busy working, even working for free, suddenly I'm in the mix, interacting with folks, and inevitably I get a call for paying work. It happens every time.

So I made a deposit in the karma bank and was immediately rewarded with a paying job. But even better, I have a credit on a nice little music video, and I met a whole new group of folks that I never would have met otherwise. Hopefully we'll all get to work together again in the future. And most importantly, the kids will get their school, which is the cherry on top.

Long Form Documentary Editing Workflow I - Organizing Your Project, Bins & Clips

2011-02-14T12:59:00.000-08:00

Recently a colleague who was setting up his first long-form documentary project asked for advise about how to best organize his footage. Specifically, he asked, "How do you/and your editor review and log the observational footage and determine what is relevant? How do you organize your selects inside FCP? (By scenes, events, themes?) Any red flags to be aware of that might bite me in the rear 9 months from now?"

I loved his last question...it really cuts to the heart of the matter. A recent informal survey I conducted among a few filmmaker colleagues revealed that most long form docs are edited over 4 months, many over a year and some over as long as 5 years. How do you create a system that allows you to be able to find that one favorite soundbite or image on the last week of the edit as easily as you found it on the day you logged it?

Here were my recommendations to him...what would you add to this list of things to consider?

In response to his first question, I think the director has to look at everything and determine what is relevant. How does the material "hit" you...how strong is it and to the point of your subject? As editor, I rarely see 100% of the footage (there usually just isn't enough money or time...although by the end of the edit, I've often seen most of it...it depends how much footage we are talking about). Often I'll ask the director to start off by just showing me their "star" takes...or the best 30 - 40% of the footage. But sometimes a director will want to screen whole interviews with me...this is really a time/money issue.

My first pass of organization is usually to work with the filmmaker and the assistants to begin, as early in the process as possible to come up with a label and numbering system for the footage that tells me what I need to know. For example, the last couple of documentaries I've worked on had multiple cameras. So we came up with a reel naming convention that allowed us to know right away what camera we used:

So clip 1 from tape 1 shot on the Vericam was

LL_001_V_01

That's LL (name of project), reel 001, Varicam, clip 1

LL_001_HDV_01

That's LL project, reel 001, HDV cam, clip 1

This way, every media file has a unique name, and the media file name precisely matches the clip name. For me, matching the clip name and the media file name are crucial to long term media management success. The specific content of the clip name depends on what's important to you....the date it was shot? The location? The character's initials? This can all be encoded as part of the clip name. Consistency is key.

I use "Master" Bins to first organize the clips by tape or groups of tapes, so I can find things in tape order or chronologically. I then make additional work bins to organize material by type: Music, Voiceover, Interviews, Interviews by character, Clips by scene, clips by location, archival, archival by subject, etc. It really varies depending on the project. Then I use a combination of Markers and the Log Note & Description fields in the FCP Browser to write additional logging information about shots. If I have time, I'll sub-clip material to further break it down and log and organize it. You can always make more bins, and create bins of bins to better organize as you go.

Generally, I love having every bit of interview material transcribed and transcripts printed and in binders. Often the director and I have our own separate sets of binders so we can each scribble and write on the transcripts. I also want the transcripts as word documents, or as one giant word document so I can search for keywords. Often the director will use these paper transcript to literally circle the best takes when they review footage, and create the first subset of "star" takes for me to watch.

My biggest advice to you is this: By all means make a duplicate set of media and put it in a safe place. I recently had a brand new out of the box, 1 week old, 4 TB G-Raid, fully loaded with media, just stop working. It would no longer mount, and the only recourse was to send it back to G-Raid, who took a month to replace it because it was out of stock! So on all documentary projects, once I have all my media loaded, I make an exact duplicate of that media, and put it on a shelf (it's an assistant's job to be sure to duplicate all additional media, once a week). That way if a drive goes down, you have a back up on the shelf, and you are back up and running in minutes. The best insurance any edit room can buy...and cheap!

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The filmmaker also mentioned that he was setting up his projects according to this very good article by documentary editing teacher and author Karen Everett. Worth a read.

What Impact Does Video Have on Your Website?

2011-02-07T12:51:00.000-08:00

What a difference a video makes!
A small non-profit with a big heart and even bigger goals and aspirations puts it all out there on their home page with this short rock-umentary style video, directed and produced by long time co-collaborator Tacy Hess Gaede, co-produced and edited by moi, with some hot graphics and effects by Stanford Chang. A great team effort to showcase the big talent and enthusiasm in a sweet little Colorado town... Almost 500 hits on Vimeo already, and another 50 or so on my You Tube channel as well. The good folks at SpokesBuzz are perfectly poised to launch a big promotional push for their upcoming showcase at South by Southwest in Austin next month, reaching out to tens of thousands. Stoked to be part of the effort to get the word out. How are you using video on your website or social media page? What results have you seen?

Heartbreak, Lies, Film, Healing & Justice

2011-01-28T13:55:00.000-08:00

I wonder at what point I became aligned with the underdog? To me, it feels like it's coded into my DNA. I naturally want to support and back David instead of Goliath...the A's instead of the Giants...and of course, never the New York Yankees. This sentiment serves me well as a documentary editor...the most interesting stories are about those who are down and out, disempowered, disenfranchised. Those who must somehow rise above insurmountable odds to speak their truth to power, or find justice, or sometimes, just make it through the day to live like anyone else.

Today I listened to this amazing radio story, one that has been developing for some time. Over a year ago, Hector Salgado, the hero of our documentary Special Circumstances, forwarded to me the most amazing letter, written to him by a woman in Chile who believed her father was somehow responsible for wrongdoings during the 1973 coup in Chile. It was a heart-wrenching letter, and I remember crying when I read it; this poor woman struggling to come to terms with her own fear of asking the hard questions, and yet unable to stop herself from wanting to know the terrible answers.

Now, the woman, Paulina, has come forth, in an exclusive radio interview with Dick Gordon on American Public Media's THE STORY. Paulina's story picks up where Special Circumstances leaves off...Hector has told his truth, and now people in Chile are beginning to ask questions, like: "Dad, what did you do during the war?" Paulina found Hector through Google...just like Hector found most of the perpetrators in his search. And through emails she discovers that her father worked at the prison where Hector was held as a prisoner of war; and Hector knew him and remembers seeing him. I get chills just thinking about it. Their entangled histories are at the heart of this radio story, which is well worth listening to.

This has been a hard week...kind of slow here in the edit room, and funding for documentaries is scarcer than it's ever been. Been having conversations with editor friends about the future...will we be able to keep doing what we do? How? It's good to experience a little tangible evidence of why it's so important for us all to keep fighting the good fight. Hector pursued the perpetrators of the violence in his home town of Tomé because he simply couldn't walk away. He was stuck in 1973 and he had to find the truth so he could move forward with his life. Through the process of making and showing the film, along with his partner and film director Marianne Teleki, they gave thousands of others a voice. Each of us a tiny grain of sand...yet all our energies adding up to big impact and big change. Adelante!

Computers & Water Don't Mix! Back up your work! And put your tea far away from your electronics!

2011-01-19T19:06:00.000-08:00

Okay, this is one of those cautionary tales you often read on the internet...starting with this question:

"If you kicked an entire pint of iced green tea on your computer right now, how much work would you lose?"

MacBook Pro motherboard, which I hope never to see again

I so know better than this! I've worked on computers almost 30 years. And when I work on other people's computers, I am meticulously careful to keep liquids and food away from them. And I religiously backup all work.

But working at home, on my own gear, sometimes I get lazy... It's Sunday morning. I'm super tired, a little sleep-deprived. I set the laptop on the ground to show Stan a photo on craigslist. I set down the iced tea, and I suddenly remember something I need from the other room. Step, kick, tea all over the laptop.

Ay, ay, ay!

I did everything they said you are supposed to do. The computer was in sleep mode when it happened, so it was powered down. I removed the power cord and flipped the computer over and shook as much tea out of the keyboard as possible. I dried as much as I could with a towel. I removed the cover and dried as much tea as I could see inside. I took a blowdryer and carefully blow-dried for a while, making sure to dry all ports and the connections to the screen. I left my laptop turned off and open in an inverted "V" with a small fan blowing on it for 3 days. Since it was just water and tea (no sugar, nothing corrosive), everything I read online said that as long it dried completely, there was a good chance it would come back on and work.

Finally today I turned it back on...hallelujah, it powered right up! I was beyond relieved.

In the last three days I was working on a deadline, of course. I had to deliver a show today. Because I was lazy and didn't back up my work properly on Friday, I spent half a day on Sunday rebuilding a day of edits. I actually remember thinking late Friday night, "I should back-up." And then I didn't! I swear, I think that's the voice of God when intuition speaks that way. Why oh why didn't I listen? I culled through emails to find copies of scripts I had emailed to clients. I downloaded reference videos I had uploaded to YouTube. Fortunately, I was able to reconstruct everything in half a day. But if I had backed up, I wouldn't have had to rebuild a thing.

The first thing I did when my computer came back to life was plug in the external firewire drive and run Time Machine to do a complete backup. Then I made additional backups of my current editing projects.

Thanks to Stanford Chang for loaning me his laptop, with the most current version of Final Cut Pro, so I could finish my show on time today. It's a blessing to have two editors in one household!

I think the key is to make backing up simple, so that it can be done more or less automatically, and then it happens, whether I'm tired or sleep deprived or not.

Resolved, I will backup my computer daily. And I will keep beverages FAR away from my poor computer!

Resolving to Use a Lot Less Plastic in 2011

2011-01-03T17:24:00.000-08:00

Happy New Year everybody from the edit room at Gravity, where my partner Stanford Chang has been kind enough to let me camp out today, this first work day of the new year. I love working at home, but sometimes it feels good to get up, get dressed and really GO to work. Today felt like one of those days.

So I've taken a personal pledge to use less plastic in 2011. I had switched to reusable shopping bags and have been avoiding taking any plastic bags for shopping for sometime. But plastic containers have slowly crept back into my life as a convenience, since they're all recyclable, right? WRONG! Not in Hawaii. Here in the Islands, it's not cost efficient to recycle a lot of things. The only things we can put in our curbside recycling are corrugated cardboard (no junk mail, magazines or catalogs, no paper and no chip board), glass bottles and aluminum cans and #1 & #2 plastic bottles. So all the rest of the plastic goes into the garbage can, and eventually to a landfill, or it get burned as fuel in Honolulu's garbage to energy power plant (which provides 8% of Honolulu's electricity). I truly hope all the tuna poke containers I tossed this year got converted to electricity, since they are made from petroleum products in the first place. But because petroleum is such a dirty business, environmentally and politically, I would rather use less, and not buying disposable plastic seems like a good place to start.

So I brought my water bottle today to fill and drink from, as well as my insulated drink cup so I never have to get a Starbucks iced mocha in a plastic cup again. I brought my lunch in two clean, reused Tuna Poke containers, when I sadly realized that both of my favorite lunch places near Gravity serve all their food in #5 & #6 plastic containers. Sorry Kakaako Kitchen and Paina Cafe...I won't be eating there any more. Ditto to the egg salad sandwiches packaged in plastic containers at Starbucks.

We'll see what the challenges are trying to run a small business...so many computer accessories come in those awful plastic packages that are nearly impossible to open, and it's hard to know how they come packaged if you order online. I think I'll be looking at the local office supply store for office supplies with minimal packaging.

For the record, it takes 500 years for a plastic container to start breaking down in a landfill. Paper takes 2.5 months. An orange peel, 6 months. A milk carton, 5 years. A plastic bag, 10-20 years. A plastic soda bottle, 450 years.

Join me. Buy less. And buy less packaging. And put it in your own reusable bag.

From a greener Shirley Thompson Editorial...

New Trailer posted for Women's Empowerment Global Initiative

2010-10-25T11:24:00.000-07:00

Aloha friends!

Recently wrapped post on this trailer for the good folks at ITVS...The goal is to pitch a multi-year global media initiative to promote women's empowerment, surrounding the PBS premiere of the HALF THE SKY series, based on the best-selling book by Pulitzer Prize winning journalists Nicholas Kristof and Sheryl WuDunn. 4 minutes of persuasion...what do you think?

Kudos to the incredibly talented and wonderful voiceover actor Cynthia Dorn, and to John Dennis for the kick-ass mix!

This week I'm back to work on documentary scenes for colleague Mark Birnbaum in Dallas...so I'm cut, cut, cutting away...

EATING ALASKA Ellen's Blog on HUFF PO...

2010-10-18T13:18:00.000-07:00

Aloha friends...I am slamajama...and it's been tough to get to blogging, in addition to editing full-time, tracking October baseball with both the Rangers and the Giants in contention for a Pennant, AND now the Hawaii International Film Festival in full-swing. Fortunately, film co-conspirator Ellen Frankenstein has been blogging away, and so this week, a re-blog (is that like a re-tweet?), as featured in the Huffington Post:

See the trailer: http://www.youtube.com/user/EatingAlaska

Ellen Frankenstein

Filmmaker, Eating Alaska

Posted: October 7, 2010 08:07 PM

From Tofu to Muktuk

My hunt to make sense of what we eat and where it comes from started as a teenager. I rejected meat, scooped tofu at the food coop and read Frances Moore Lappe's Diet for a Small Planet. With a Fulbright Fellowship in film, I set off to the West Indies to look at how an island extricates itself from a plantation economy after 300 years of growing sugar. The hopes for diversification ran into dilemmas, like trying to sell seasonable fruits and vegetables to hotels that preferred to import uniform looking apples or potatoes from far away. I discovered that the history of plantations included keeping slaves and workers busy with sugar and not with growing food for themselves.

I'd grown up with a mother who made meals from scratch but also loved the newest conveniences, from trash compactors to TV dinners. In my work and on my plate, I found myself questioning the clash of what is modern and industrial with people's connection to culture, identity, land and food. I carried this from the West Indies to Alaska, for another project about Alaska Natives balancing the past and the present. Along the way, I met and married a commercial fisherman, a diver and a conservationist who hunts.

Alaska has a complicated and intertwined narrative of native cultures and resource extraction. I'm a transplant -- so is my husband and a lot of other Alaskans. We like to eat as much as we can from the land and sea and that has led me to slip from my vegetarian path. We gather, fish and hunt, knowing resource use comes with a tension of balancing local, commercial and tourist appetites, be it for halibut, herring, or salmon, not to mention all those non-edible things like oil and minerals.

I like to throw out questions, even if the answers are messy and open-ended. In my recent film, Eating Alaska, I ask Tlingit elder, Isabella Brady, "is there a way for non-Natives who really appreciate being here, to live off the land and not get in the way?" She says, "No." Isabella is referring to history, tradition and sovereignty. A Yupik friend reminds me Isabella is talking about a sense of community that might be hard for me to grasp, as someone who simply does not have a long, deep history with one place. It is a tie that exists along with modern accouterments from snow-machines to Facebook and that comes through in testimonies at countless community hearings and meetings over rights and regulations.

Native and non-natives should both be able to live off the land. We have to keep figuring out a balanced way to do this and keep wild and local foods safe, clean and accessible, Meanwhile, Isabella tells me I make venison stew with too many vegetables from my garden. When we tried to microwave some frozen whale blubber sent down from Barrow, we ended up laughing as the muktuk sizzled and got tough. Isabella and I both understand that the knotty mix of state and federal management of fish, game and other natural resources, the realities of a cash economy and the international hunger for drilling and mining will continue to pressure not only that sense of community and connection I admire, but the diets and health of locals everywhere.

Ellen Frankenstein is a filmmaker living in Alaska. Her latest project, Eating Alaska, is currently airing on PBS stations across the country. Check local listings for future air dates and times.

Moved by HALF THE SKY Women's Empowerment Project

2010-09-27T13:32:00.000-07:00

Speed-blogging today...got LOTS on my plate.

I am thrilled and honored and humbled to be working these next couple of weeks on a short splash video promoting long-time client Independent Television Service's involvement in the documentary film adaptation of HALF THE SKY, a New York Times bestselling novel by Nicholas Kristoff and Sheryl Wudunn. If you haven't read the book, go get it right now, drop everything and read it.

The book has spawned a worldwide movement to empower women and girls, as THE most urgent human rights campaign of our generation. This includes ending modern-day enslavement and sex trafficking of young girls, providing equal education, nourishment and health care to females around the world, and ending violence against women. Period. It's being tackled at the highest levels of NGO's and governments, but there is plenty that each of us as individuals can do to insist that it happens faster: each day, each hour, more women and girls die needlessly, simply because they are female.

You can open a Kiva Account and give a $25 micro-loan to a woman entrepreneur in a developing nation...you can easily do it through your Facebook account. There are loads of other things you can do...go get Nick and Sheryl's book and read it! There is an action list at the end of the book.

The book is being adapted into a series of documentaries that will air on PBS. ITVS is gearing up to co-produce and expand outreach. I am a tiny, tiny cog in this giant wheel...but I am so happy to be doing my little piece for the cause, editing a trailer for them.

Off to log footage...got boatloads to do...will post the finished trailer sometime down the line in my YouTube account.

Nice to be busy working on something that I care deeply about.

Twenty-one Years of Shirley Thompson Editorial: From Schelp to Flip

2010-09-13T19:19:00.000-07:00

The Avid Queen in the old BAVC, circa 1996

This morning I realized that my company Shirley Thompson Editorial is 21 years old...a reason to celebrate, if not pause and reflect. I consider my anniversary to be Labor Day, a good day to celebrate working for oneself and to celebrate being a successful independent contractor for all these years. August 31, 1989 was the last day that I worked in a full-time job, at WWL-TV in New Orleans. Immediately after, I packed my stuff into my Honda Civic Hatchback, drove west to San Francisco and began looking for work. I was an accidental freelancer. At age 26, I was looking for full-time work. But employers kept offering me freelance work, something that I had never really heard of or considered before. By the time these same employers knew me well enough to offer me staff jobs, I had fallen in love with the freelance life. In 21 years, I've never looked back. I am ever so grateful for all the work that has come my way over the years and for all the clients with whom I've spent thousands, if not millions of hours in the edit room. Many, many thanks to everyone: the mentors, clients, assistants, friends and filmmakers, who have helped make 21 years of Shirley Thompson Editorial possible.

Shiny new Mino HD Flip Camera

I was visiting friends in Paso Robles, California on Labor Day, and on my way, I succumbed to the urge to have a tiny HD camera in my pocket at all times. I am now the proud owner of a Flip Camera, specifically the minoHD Flip Camera, which is smaller than its cousin, the Flip UltraHD, but which still shoots 720p HD video on 8GBs of Flash Memory. So far, I LOVE it. The video isn't cinema quality, but for video for the web, it's more than adequate, and the sound and picture are remarkably good, considering what it is: a cheap, under $200 camcorder. I see a million uses for it, and I am happy to add it to my arsenal of small, portable filmmaking devices.

In my past life as a cameraperson, shooting with the Ikegami 730A, circa 1988

I can't help but also be reminded of how I began my career as a production assistant, schlepping a 3/4" U-matic portable deck (it had to have weighed 25 pounds!), tethered to a cameraman who schlepped an Ikegami 730A camera (at least 15 pounds?). Cameras and decks were beastly heavy back in those days, and I seriously used to go to the gym and lift weights 4 days a week in order to build the strength needed to carry the equipment all day everyday and not get injured.

Now THAT's a camcorder! WWL, 1989

Fast-forward 28 years (yes, it's been that long since I was a production assistant), and now I have an HD camera that fits in my palm and can be carried in my pocket. My main problem with all these little cameras is that they aren't heavy enough to hold steady...my breathing, even my pulse, registers as shakiness, unless I use a tripod or prop it against something sturdy.

I just transcoded all the video to Apple ProRes and brought it into Final Cut Pro and I plan to edit it this afternoon. So look for a post on my YouTube channel in the next day or two. Off to play with my new toy now!

PIDGIN THE VOICE OF HAWAII on PBS Hawaii THURSDAY!

2010-09-07T16:32:00.000-07:00

Aloha! Just a quick note to remind all the folks in Hawaii that our documentary PIDGIN: The Voice of Hawaii, will air on PBS Hawaii Thursday night, 8:30 pm, Channel 11. And for everybody else, there's a wonderful interview with filmmaker Marlene Booth with highlights from the film on You Tube! And you can see our trailer on my website.

Featuring a terrific original score by Honolulu composer David Kauahikaua, and funded by the good people at Pacific Islanders in Communication.

Eating Alaska PBS broadcasts have begun!

2010-08-30T13:14:00.000-07:00

EATING ALASKA, the local, sustainable food movie by local, sustainable filmmaker Ellen Frankenstein (and co-produced by me!) has a busy month of September, airing on PBS stations from Houston to Juneau, from Charleston to Milwaukee.

As many of you know, this film was a long time labor of love for me and Ellen, born out of Ellen's experience as a vegetarian who moved to the wild Alaska frontier and being confronted with the question, "What's the right thing to eat?" I had a similar experience 8 years ago when I moved from local, organic food friendly San Francisco to Dallas, Texas, where, despite being surrounded by cattle, the only local organic beef I could find was trucked in from Portland, OR. Eventually, I found my source for local organic beef, raised only 30 miles from my home. But Ellen and I realized that there was a budding food movement happening, and that EATING LOCAL was one way that all of us could have a powerful impact on creating a better world by supporting our neighbors who are food producers, helping keep local agricultural lands in the hands of the families who tend them, and using fewer fossil fuels to transport food. This film is the culmination of two years of research, and Ellen's hands-on quest to explore all the possibilities of eating local in her rural Alaska island home. EATING ALASKA is a wry, provocative, fun film with amazing Alaska scenery and real Alaskans, including women hunters, Wasila vegans, native traditional food gatherers and regular grocery store shoppers all wrestling with the question of what's the "right" thing to eat, ethically, environmentally and tastefully.

Help us spread the word about upcoming PBS screenings near you or your friends and family:

UPCOMING PBS BROADCASTS:

Houston, TX- KUHT-8.2: Mon 8/30 at 7 PM, Fri 9/3 at 9 PM
Evansville, IN- WNIN-9.1 & 2: Thu 9/2 at 9 PM
Austin, MN- KSMQ-15: Fri 9/3 at 12 PM
Broomfield, CO- CO KBDI-12: Sun 9/5 at 8 PM Charleston/Columbia/Spartanburg/Allendale/Beaufort/Florence/Sumter/Greenwood & Conway/Greenville/Rock Hill, SC: Sun 9/5 at 5 PM, Fri 9/10 at 9 PM
Greenville, NC- WNTV-29.2: Fri 9/10 at 9 PM
Anchorage, AK- KAKM: Tues 9/14 at 7 PM. ***LIVE SKYPE INTERVIEW***
Durham, NH- WENH: Sat 9/18 at 8 PM, Fri 9/24 at 1 PM
Keene, NH- WEKW: Sat 9/18 at 8 PM, Fri 9/24 at 1 PM
Littleton, NH- WLED: Sat 9/18 at 8 PM, Fri 9/24 at 1 PM
Eureka, CA- KEET-13: Thu 9/23 at 10 PM
Elmira/Syracuse/Utica, NY- WCNY-24.1: Sun 9/26 at 6 PM
East Lansing, MI- WKAR-23.4: Mon 9/27 at 9 PM
Milwaukee, WI- WMVS-10.1: Mon 9/27 at 10 PM
Fairbanks/Bethel/Juneau, etc, AK.- AlaskaOne: Th 9/30 at 9 PM, Fr 10/1 at 3 AM

You can see some scenes from Eating Alaska on my website:
http://shirleythompson.net/video_eating_alaska.php

MANY MORE SCREENINGS ARE COMING, including another major PBS release for Earth Day 2011. For an up-to date listing, please visit our blog. Keep in touch with us via our FACEBOOK page.

ONE VOICE Trailer Sneaky Preview

2010-08-23T13:39:00.000-07:00

Aloha friends! Excited to share the ONE VOICE TRAILER which I edited for the good people at Pacific Islanders in Communication, a fantastic organization that channels Corporation for Public Broadcasting money to Pacific Islander films and filmmakers (they also do great education and outreach, in addition to funding). Anyways, there is nothing more fun than editing something and immediately getting to see it with an audience. I put the finishing touches on this trailer, made a DVD and the next night, got to see it projected BIG and LOUD at the I Heart HIFF party, a mixer for the Hawaii International Film Festival. It was thrilling to hear the crowd at a noisy party in a bar quiet down when the kids voices rose up in song. The film ONE VOICE will have its world premiere at HIFF in October.

Mahalo to voiceover talent Nolan Hong (ADR Agency - Honolulu), and audio engineer Ross Okamura at AudioBytes.

Enjoy!

Edit Room painted red!

2010-08-10T12:39:00.000-07:00

I am NOT a Feng Shui expert. But I do think the basic principles of Feng Shui jive with the basic principles of good design, and I used Feng Shui to help design and decorate the last two workspaces, which were both very successful. So Stanford and I read a couple of books, found a few websites and watched a few YouTube videos. They all said the same: in order to be the most successful space for personal growth, creativity and making money, the new World Headquarters of Shirley Thompson Editorial needed FIRE. So we painted the edit room red. Red Ochre, to be precise.

Furniture arrives today...can't wait to have the studio fully set up! Watch this space...

Our Doc Special Circumstances Nominated for an Imagen Award!

2010-08-02T13:03:00.001-07:00

Another great nomination for our documentary Special Circumstances by Marianne Teleki and Héctor Salgado. This little film that could was nominated for an Imagen Award (Spanish for "image") in the Best Documentary Category. The awards recognize positive portrayals of latinos and latin culture in entertainment. Other documentaries nominated include News Special – The New America (mun2); Which Way Home (HBO); & Latin Music USA (Latino Public Broadcasting). An awards luncheon is scheduled in Century City, August 15th. Go Marianne and Héctor and the Special Circumstances team!

Aloha From Shirley Thompson Editorial's new home in Honolulu!

2010-07-15T18:12:00.000-07:00

Aloha Friends! It's only my first day in Hawaii, but already I'm at work. No rest for the weary, thanks to my partner in crime (and all matters of the heart) Stanford Chang at Gravity, who had a meeting with a director lined up for me as soon as I landed. A pleasure to meet with Dennis Mahaffay of Laird Christianson Advertising. I'm looking forward to collaborating with him and Stan on a short edit for Hawaiian Airlines. Additionally, I'm also looking forward to working with wonderful Leanne Ferrer at Pacific Islanders in Communication on a trailer for One Voice, a documentary film with a lot of great buzz that I've really been looking forward to seeing. And I have a lead on a couple of good documentary projects, which I'm always on the lookout for... Nice to land and have some work right away! I hope it's a sign of all good things to come.

For now, Stan is kind enough to let me camp out in the Final Cut Pro edit bay at Gravity, pictured here, until my edit studio furniture arrives via air and sea and I can set up the home studio. However, because I continue to work with a portable edit system that fits in a carryon bag, my computer and drives are already here. I landed ready to hit the ground editing!

So my Dallas studio is closed and my Dallas phone disconnected. You can reach me, as always via cell, 415-377-0198, and email: me@shirleythompson.net. Don't forget that Honolulu in the Hawaiian Time Zone: 3 hours EARLIER than California, 5 hours earlier than Texas, 6 hours earlier than New York.

You can't tell in this picture, but there are actual palm trees outside the edit room window...and the beach is just three blocks away. A-lo-HA!

Nice review of EATING ALASKA from the Good Folks at Slow Food USA

2010-06-03T17:06:00.000-07:00

When Ellen and I were working on the film, we always hoped to link up with the folks at Slow Food...here is their latest blog:

http://www.slowfoodusa.org/index.php/slow_food/blog_post/eating_alaska/

The Slow Food USA Blog

Eating Alaska

Posted on Wed, June 02, 2010 by Intern
1 Comments | Categories: Biodiversity, Farms and Farming, Film/TV/Radio, Uncategorized,

by intern Maia Piccagli

“Eating Alaska” is a quirky documentary that follows the journey that Ellen Frankenstein, a former vegetarian, takes in search of a local, sustainable diet in Alaska.

After 15 omnivorous years married to a commercial fisherman and deer hunter, she sets out from her town of Sitka to explore the ways that sustainable eating in Alaska necessarily looks different from eating sustainably in the lower 48.

In her journey, she raises a number of questions and finds answers to a few:

Can non-natives live off the land respectfully? According to whom? What does that mean?
What happens when the environment where the food comes from is not healthy?
What is the impact of eating foods shipped thousands of miles?
How does the energy/fuel used to harvest some of these sustainable products affect the debate?

Her cross-Alaska adventures include:

Accompanying a female friend who hunts and kills deer for meat. During this trip, she confronts the contradiction of how being a responsible carnivore in this setting means squeezing the trigger, something that makes her squirm, as well as the discomfort of the possible unclean kill.
Accompanying her partner while he dives for sea cucumbers for export. They are local, but sent to far reaches, and require much fuel to harvest.
Trekking in pursuit of caribou, and learning that sighting the caribou did not mean being able to take one home. There were rules to the hunt.
Attending culture camps, where native culture is reinforced to native youth. They pick berries and make traditional dishes, smoke fish for days, and jar fish eggs. (I was impressed at how culture camp seemed to focus mostly on food. Of course, so much of culture is tied up in food and food production.)
The story is charming, told in the first person by Ellen. The movie is accessible and thought-provoking. For those of us in urban and suburban area where living sustainably means shopping conscientiously and buying from local producers, this movie provides a new lens through which to view sustainable eating.

You can obtain a copy of the film for educational screenings by visiting their site, here. You can also stream Eating Alaska from New Day Digital.

Trailer by Shirley: Check out a new season of Independent Lens films

2010-05-24T18:24:00.000-07:00

Aloha everybody...working in Honolulu this week as I get ready to relocate Shirley Thompson Editorial world headquarters to the Aloha State!

Just wanted to share this trailer I edited for the good folks at Independent Lens...this is my eighth season creating promos and trailers for Independent Lens (!) and in particular, this trailer which they screened at the PBS Annual Meeting in Austin, TX last week. Here is a sneak preview of a few films from the 2010-2011 season.

Pidgin a winner at Honolulu Film Festival

2010-04-27T14:56:00.000-07:00

Pidgin: The Voice of Hawai‘i screened as an official selection of the Honolulu Film Festival (soon to be known as the Waikiki Film Festival), held April 24 & 25 in Waikiki, and came away with two awards: a Grand Jury Prize and Best Human Rights Film. Mahalo to this great venue for Hawai‘i film! And set your TiVo's, San Francisco Bay Area folks... Pidgin airs next Sunday, May 2 at Noon on KQED. Spread the word!

http://www.kqed.org/tv/programs/index.jsp?pgmid=18508

This just in...Special Circumstances nominated for a Rockie!

2010-04-12T17:12:00.000-07:00

This made my day...Special Circumstances, the documentary I wrote and edited which chronicles Hector Salgado's search for justice in Chile, was nominated for a Rockie. Here is the tweet from the LPB series VOCES:

VOCES SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES and THE GOLDEN AGE have been nominated for a Banff World Television Festival (BANFF) Rockie Award. Congratulations to the producers! Chosen from 900 entries from more than 43 countries, the 'Rockies' is one of the world’s most prestigious events celebrating outstanding work by international TV creators responsible for the continuing evolution and originality in the industry.

Making the film was a 6 year labor of love for first time filmmaker Marianne Teleki and the culmination of a lifelong quest for her husband Hector, who was imprisoned, tortured and exiled during Chile's 1973 coup. These are the type of films that can only be made by independent filmmakers...no news operation would ever hang with a story that long in order to see it through. Since we finished Special Circumstances in 2006, it has played in over 30 film festivals and has garnered many best documentary awards, and it aired across the country on PBS as part of the VOCES series. More importantly, it has played in many communities, both here and abroad, hard hit by the events of 1973 and has given a voice to many who have never spoken about the terrible things that occurred during those dark times.

Felicidades to Marianne and Hector for this recognition of their terrific work, and for their ongoing efforts to get the film out to all the people who can be helped by it. I am so proud of them and so proud of the film we made together.

You can see the SPECIAL CIRCUMSTANCES trailer on my website and the music video, NEVER FORGET, too!

http://shirleythompson.net/video_specialcircumstances.php

http://www.youtube.com/user/SThompsonEditorial

SXSW Film 2010 - A quick list of faves

2010-03-19T06:09:00.000-07:00

Getting ready to pack the car and head back to Dallas after my annual indulgence of documentaries on the Big Screen at the South by Southwest Film Festival in Austin. I'm the only person I know who comes to Austin every year, doesn't see a single band or a single movie star (well, maybe one) and power-watches documentaries only for days on end. This year's festival felt a bit uneven...maybe it was what I chose to see versus the programming, but I missed seeing more docs from foreign directors that I found so inspiring in past years. Nonetheless there were some strong docs that hopefully will be finding their way to wider distribution soon. Here were a few favorites.

American: The Bill Hicks Story...a portrait of a great mind so far ahead of his time and so "make you cry" funny. Also, a great recreation of an era using animated stills, a la "The Kid Stays in the Picture." Never say you don't have good b-roll...MAKE good b-roll. This filmmaker did.

http://www.americanthemovie.com/

His and Hers...charming, beautifully shot stories of Irish women talking about their relationships with the significant men in their lives from the cradle to the grave. A simple idea, brilliantly executed.

http://www.hisandhers.ie/hisandhers/About_the_film.html

The Oath...a chilling look at Al Qaeda from the inside. Tough, virtuoso filmmaking by a persistant Laura Poitras. Brava. Gorgeously shot by Kirsten Johnson.

http://www.pbs.org/pov/oath/

Beijing Taxi...the stories of working class Chinese in the months leading up to the 2008 Olympics, as seen through three portraits of taxi drivers. For someone like me who often demonizes the Chinese government, it is fascinating to see the real lives of workaday people in China, who are just slogging along trying to make a little better life for themselves and their families, just like the rest of us.

http://www.beijingtaxithefilm.com/thefilmmakers.html

Canal Street Madam...I had every possible human emotion during this film...from questioning the filmmaker's integrity to feeling depressed and repulsed by the life choices of the subjects, to being unable to stop watching, and ultimately to cheering for the main character to triumph. It's a mixed bag for certain, and I'm still conflicted about it, but ultimately this film about three generations of women who operated and worked a New Orleans brothel that served a high powered clientele of politicians and community leaders, shines a light on the way all women are seen and treated in twisted culture that both worships and demonizes sex. Everyone should watch this film and then call me...I can't stop thinking about it and talking about it.

http://www.thecanalstreetmadamfilm.com/

When I Rise...beautiful, lyrical, haunting portrayal of opera star Barbara Smith Conrad, a remarkable diva who was one of the first African American undergraduates at the University of Texas. Banned from starring in the school opera because of her race, she nonetheless stayed and graduated from UT after a firestorm of controversy and national press. A little civil rights story with big implications, this film shows the power of history the power of the spirit and how one woman's grace and talent triumphed over small minds. Inspiring, inspiring, inspiring. A simple tale well told. Probably my favorite film of the festival.

http://www.alpheusmedia.com/work/whenirise.html

There was ONE narrative film that managed to sneak into the mix that I loved:

All My Friends are Funeral Singers...a quirky story of a psychic medium living in a house full of spirits with a musical score and songs performed live by indy band Califone. I had never heard Califone before...but I was interested in seeing a film with a live score that wasn't an old silent film from the 1920's. Turns out that Califone had done a lot of new scores for old films, but this time, decided to write and create a new film along with all the music. Really exciting...this seamless integration of music and film was fun to watch. I will download the whole album for certain.

http://deadoceans.com/onesheet.php?cat=DOC028

Shirley's Top Ten Docs of 2009

2010-01-07T12:59:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm jumping on the bandwagon...it's irresistible to make a quick list of my personal favorite 10 documentaries of 2009 (instead of writing the grant I'm supposed to be working on!). Here they are in no particular order. What do you think? What did I miss?

Adjust Your Color: The Truth of Petey Greene

Garbage Dreams

Unmistaken Child

Journals of a Wiley School

The Way We Get By

Joan Baez: How Sweet the Sound

P-Star Rising

D-Tour

Sunshine

The English Surgeon

That's ten, and I'll make Hold Me Tight Let Me Go a special honorable mention, along with Food, Inc., and Leo Chiang's A Village Called Versailles. And I would love to add The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, but I haven't had the pleasure of seeing it yet. Can't wait! Finally my last honorable mention is to Michael Moore for Capitalism a Love Story...love him or hate him, I give him credit for speaking truth to power and attempting a citizens' arrest of America's top corporate brass.

I just read Roger Ebert's Ten Best Documentaries List and I have not yet seen a single one of them...so many films, so little time! But they're all in my Netflix cue now...

Filmmaker Magazine likes PIDGIN!

2009-12-14T19:44:00.000-08:00

How cool! The December Filmmaker Magazine Festival Coverage Blog covers the Hawaii International Film Festival and includes a nice mention of our documentary PIDGIN: The Voice of Hawai‘i. Here's what they have to say: Nice, huh?

Marleen Booth’s Pidgin: The Voice of Hawaii also aims its lens straight at the spirit of Hawaii, more specifically at its specific dialect/language/accent, “pidgin.” A blend of Native Hawaiian, English, Chinese, Portuguese, Japanese, and Tagalog that started among plantation workers a century ago, pidgin has been historically frowned upon by those wishing to “assimilate properly.” For many, though, it’s a source of pride and island identity, and Booth’s joyful film is a testament to both it and its just-as-colorful speakers. As a film on the history of language and semantics, Pidgin is a thoughtful, well-researched work; as a film on identity politics, everyday life, and speaking one’s mind (in one’s own tongue), it’s a real pleasure. Neither Pidgin or State of Aloha redefine the documentary form, of course, but both are wonderful examples of how cinema can represent its community.

Nice, huh?

Here's the entire blog:
http://filmmakermagazine.com/festivalcoverage/2009/12/hawaii-international-film-festival-by.php

YA/YA, Inc. in NYC at the Gugenheim...YA/YA documentary on DVD

2009-12-09T08:09:00.000-08:00

Super excited for the young artists of YA/YA, Inc., the amazing teenage design studio from New Orleans documented in my film Young Aspirations Young Artists! They are in New York City this week installing the set pieces they were commissioned to create for the Guggenheim's annual production of "Peter and the Wolf. " The performances will take place in the Guggenheim theater December 10-14.

To celebrate I'm going to donate 10% of each sale this month of the newly rereleased YOUNG ASPIRATIONS/YOUNG ARTISTS on DVD to YA/YA Inc. This inspiring documentary chronicles the origins of the group, and teaches how to create a successful youth arts program in any school or community. It's available for educational use on DVD or Digital On Demand at http://newday.com. For a $25 home video copy, contact me directly.

More information about YA/YA, Inc.

See clips from the video.

Shirley & Ellen & Eating Alaska in Austin December 6

2009-12-03T07:37:00.000-08:00

Come join us in Austin, Texas this weekend! Ellen Frankenstein and I, co-producers of Eating Alaska, will screen our documentary EATING ALASKA and will present the workshop, "Chicks, Start Your Docs: Turn Your Idea Into a Film" on Sunday, December 6 in Austin, TX. The programs, sponsored by Reel Women, will be held at THE INDEPENDENT, 501 East Brushy at East 5th St.

Ellen and I will detail the film development process in ten steps, from concept through preproduction, using our film Eating Alaska as a case study. We will discuss fundraising, building alliances, developing story, budgeting and defining an audience.

The workshop is from 1 pm to 3 pm, and the screening begins at 3:30 pm, and will include a Q&A afterwards. Tickets are available at the door for either the workshop or the screening or both, and includes a discount for Reel Women members.

Eating Alaska is one woman's wry and funny exploration of finding the "right" thing to eat. It follows Ellen's journey as a former vegetarian who moves to Alaska and marries a commercial fisherman and deer hunter, calling into question all her assumptions about eating "ethically." From stalking caribou with women hunters in the tundra and learning to shoot a gun to communing with Tlingit elders in her hometown of Sitka, this is a unique, thoughtful, rural perspective on the "eat local/eat sustainable" movement.

More details at http://reelwomen.org.

YOUNG ASPIRATIONS/YOUNG ARTISTS 1992 Doc Now Re-Released on DVD!

2009-11-11T12:27:00.001-08:00

I'm super excited that my 1992 Emmy award winning documentary YOUNG ASPIRATIONS/YOUNG ARTISTS is now re-released on DVD through New Day Films and also as Video on Demand from New Day Digital! It was such a tremendous job getting an old format film into the digital realm! My hope is that this very useful film will have a new life now that it is in a digital format that will live on for the forseeable future.

This documentary tells the story of how the super-successful after school arts program YA/YA, Inc., was founded and built, and follows the first two classes of YAYA artists and the original staff through a year of projects and travel. It really teaches, in detail, how to found a non-profit working with young people, and talks about the early challenges and successes of YAYA, Inc.

The new DVD includes the original 56 minute PBS documentary, plus the 32 minute Classroom edition. It also includes a new 13 minute retrospective documentary, YA/YA @ Twenty that features many of the original YA/YA artists talking about their lives and work today.

Many thanks to the collaborators who helped make this DVD possible: Robert Arnold for his DVD authoring, Trayc Claybrook for the DVD cover design, Rebecca Snedeker who nudged me and offered to do production sound for the retrospective documentary and Dexter Stewart for shooting it. Also, a huge thank you to YAYA founder Jana Napoli who helped produce the retrospective documentary and who underwrote the production of the DVD.

Tell your friends to get their schools and community groups to buy the YAYA DVD from New Day Films for only $99, $89 for community groups: http://www.newday.com/films/Young_Aspirations.html

Contact me@shirleythompson.net if you'd like to purchase a home video copy (for personal use only) for $25, including shipping.

Eating Alaska comes to Austin! Shirley & Ellen will attend!

2009-11-10T07:43:00.000-08:00

Reel Women in Austin is sponsoring a screening of EATING ALASKA and a documentary workshop featuring EA director Ellen Frankenstein and me on December 6. Both events will be held at THE INDEPENDENT, a screening facility located at 501 Brushy. The workshop will be from 1 to 3 pm and the film will screen at 3:30 pm (set your TiVo's Cowboys fans!)

As many of you know, Eating Alaska is a funny and serious look at what's on your plate. It's the story of what happened when Ellen, a vegetarian, moved to Alaska, married a hunter and fisherman, and had to figure out what was the "right" thing to eat. The film is one woman's fascinating exploration of her local food choices, from her small town grocery store to the women who hunt deer for meat in the nearby forest. While set in Alaska, this story will resonate with Texans who will recognize the dilemmas we all face in the ongoing quest to make healthier food choices that taste good, feel right and fit in with our busy lifestyles.

Ellen and I will lead a workshop called, CHICKS, START YOUR DOC. Actually, Ellen mis-heard me when I said "Kickstart" Your Doc, but then "Chicks Start" sort of stuck. It works for a Reel Women event, I think. We will talk about the preproduction process and taking an idea and developing it into a film project. We will use Eating Alaska as a case-study and show fundraising clips and discuss fundraising strategies.

Details and registration can be found on the Reel Women website: http://reelwomen.org

Pidgin: The Voice of Hawaii to premiere at Sunset on the Beach in Waikiki!

2009-10-05T22:35:00.000-07:00

So excited that Pidgin: The Voice of Hawaii will have it's Hawaii International Film Festival Premiere at the famed Sunset on the Beach venue: a free screening for anyone and everyone on the beach. Isn't that a perfect premiere for Pidgin? This is the film which I edited last fall with director Marlene Booth. Amazing score by David Kauahikaua. Gorgeous graphics by Trayc Claybrook. Wonderful mix and sound design by Mark Menza. I'll be in Hawaii for the premiere. Life is good! The film will screen at HIFF Sunday, October 18 & again on Sunday October 25.

http://hawaii.bside.com/2009/films/pidginthevoiceofhawaii_hawaii2009

See the trailer!

http://shirleythompson.net/pidgin.php