High Resolution Revolution

So I'm back from the Brazilian Amazon. It took 24 hours of flying and 4 flights to get back but somehow we all made it. I'm feeling extremely jet-lagged, but we have to have a theatrical trailer cut for the doc by Tuesday evening so there is no time to rest. I ended up shooting 11 hours of footage. The other people on the trip were neither encouraging nor cooperative, so instead of it being a team effort to make a film together, I became the annoying guy who was always filming everything. This has taught me the following very important lessons in documentary filmmaking: Have a crew (even if it's only one other person), make sure your subjects understand the project, the process, and the sacrifices that have to be made to capture the footage, and make sure that these details are completely taken care of before filming begins.

One light at the end of the tunnel, is that my friend Steven, who is an incredibly talented editor is cutting the trailer so that I can get back to work today (I already missed 6 straight days to shoot the film). We had a problem importing the HDV footage so he is having to down convert to SD DV which also made the footage 4:3, even though it was filmed in 1080i (16:9). At this point I could care less. I just can't wait for the members of the trip to see the footage, so that FINALLY, HOPEFULLY, they can understand why I was there.