Category Archives: Updates

Post Production Update: Seasons of Goat

Posted by Helena Bowen in Updates and tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

157 hours
9,420 minutes
565,200 seconds
13,564,800 frames

How do you measure, measure a documentary?  In goat kids? In saanens? In Larsons? In cups of coffee? In ribbons, in milk, in vet checks, in chevre?

Over the last eight months, Trevor, Julian, Peter and I have been working tirelessly to sift through all the video and audio footage we have, syncing it, transcribing it and logging it.  On Monday we reached an amazing milestone: We have now have logged all of the footage in FileMaker, which amounts to 7,546 unique entries.  The next step is assembling everything into a rough cut, so we can screen it for our friends, get feedback, and make a fine cut.  Then there’s sound mixing, color correction, post effects, and if we can raise money for it, some animations.

The moral of the story is that editing a documentary is no simple task.  We have already spent countless hours in post-production and there are thousands to come, but we are all confident that it will be an AWESOME documentary in the end.  The footage looks great!

157 hours of video footage doesn’t seem like a lot, but to give you an idea of the scope, here are some things you could do in the same amount of time:

- If you drove At 60 mph, you could travel from Paris  to Beijing AND BACK.

- You could watch every NFL Superbowl for the last 35 years.

- You could bake 10,276 Original Nestle Toll House Chocolate Chip Cookies (assuming you already have 101 pounds of flour, 85 pounds of butter, 120 pounds of sugar, 342 eggs, 170 bags of Chocolate Chips and 1 quart of vanilla extract at hand).

- You could watch 11.5 seasons of Saturday Night Live.

- You could walk from San Diego to San Francisco on foot.

- You could listen to all 7 Harry Potter Books, 3 Hunger Games Books and 1/2 of the first Twilight book.

- You could watch all 202 episodes of The X Files, plus the two X Files movies AND still have an hour leftover.

- You could watch every episode of Seinfeld and every episode of Friends back-to-back

- You could listen to the entire Beatles discography 16 times.

- You could watch the Extended Edition of The Lord of the Rings: Return of the King 36 times.

And, you could listen to the song Seasons of Love 3,305 times

A Quick Update…

Posted by Helena Bowen in Post-Production, Updates and tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Hello Everyone!

I’m sure you’re wondering what I’ve been up to the last few months!  The day after I returned from Colorado, I was hired on a production called Silent Life (IMDB), a silent movie that’s been in production for SIX YEARS!  I started out as a 2nd Assistant Director and eventually moved up to the position of Production Coordinator.  I was on set 16-20 hours a day for almost three weeks!!  It was incredibly exhausting and stressful, but I repaid most of my GSD debts with the money I earned.  I also learned a ton from the line producer and gained access to software and tools that will help me finish the documentary.

Here’s a story from Silent Life that you all will appreciate: Throughout our July documentary shoot, my crew members were constantly making fun of the typical Nubian goat call, a loud, obnoxious bellow that sounds like the goat itself is screaming “GOOOOOOAAAAAATTTTTTTT.”  I walked onto set the first day of Silent Life in Altadena, CA (literally two days after coming back from Colorado) and immediately started hearing Nubian cries.  Am I going crazy?  Maybe I’m just hearing things after a month around Nubians, I thought.  Lo-and-behold, the homeowners of this gorgeous Altadena home have a fully functional creamery in their backyard, with a couple dozen Nubians!  The crew members were all very amused by the goats (and several took part in bottle feedings).  Nubian breeders can agree – we were sure lucky that Silent Life is a silent film, or the whole movie would be filled with Nubian noises!  We staged our production office in a bedroom in the house and my heart was warmed by all the “United Caprine News” issues and cheesemaking books.  No matter where I go, dairy goats will always be in my life!  Another Silent Life coincidence: the director’s last name, Kozlov, means goat in Russian!

A few days after Silent Life ended, I started working on a holiday made-for-TV movie called Naughty or Nice (IMDB) as Key Production Assistant.  Naughty or Nice shot for 3 weeks and is supposed to air this holiday season.  I’ll keep you updated and let you know when to look for it!

As soon as Naughty or Nice ended, I started working on the next round of Silent Life reshoots – this time at Warner Bros!  I had a great time learning about working within the Hollywood studio system, gaining more and more and more producing knowledge and skills along the way.

When Silent Life ended, I quickly got back to work transcoding Goat Show Doc.  This long and tedious process basically involves changing the files from the camera into files that the computer’s editing system can use.  I went through hundreds and hundreds of hours of footage and it is just now complete!  This is the first major step in post-production.

Another exciting development is that I hired an assistant editor!  While I spend the rest of October and November transcribing all the footage and working on the story, Peter Brunet will be syncing all of our video files with our audio files, a process that is relatively straightforward with most narrative films, but that can be extremely complicated on a 3-camera documentary shoot (like ours).

When Peter is done with the dirty work and I have a better outline for the film, I’ll be able to start assembling the rough cut at the beginning of December.  For the next several months, I’ll be spending the majority of my time crafting hundreds of hours of rough footage into a refined 1.5 hour story.  Editing a documentary is quite a bit more complicated than editing a narrative movie because you’re essentially writing the script in post-production.  It’s going to be a HUGE challenge, but I’m excited about the process.

This past weekend I spent three days at the Film Independent Forum, an annual conference for indie filmmakers in LA, like me!  I spent all day in classes about documentary filmmaking and learned SO much from award-winning filmmakers, festival programmers and film financiers.  There is so much for me to learn about the process and the industry, and in addition to spreading the dairy goat love, that is one great reason to be working on GSD.

Finally, big news regarding “GSD”: my crew and I have finally decided on a title for the film: Goat People.  You can find our new IMDB page here: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2411848/  Though it never occurred to me before my non-goat-oriented crew brought it to my attention, dairy goat breeders across the U.S. affectionately refer to themselves as “Goat People.”  I guess I just took this name for granted all my life and never noticed how special it is.  The goat-owning community is unique, fascinating, diverse, and close-knit.  I am glad to consider myself a “Goat Person” and am excited to declare and share my love in Goat People, my feature documentary debut.

Thank you for your continued support!  More posts coming soon.

Helena

Goat Show Doc has a Flickr!

Posted by Helena Bowen in Updates and tagged with , , , ,

I’m afraid that we don’t have the space to post all of the hundreds of photos GSD takes… but the good news is that we just opened a Flickr account where you can view ALL of the pictures we take from our shoots.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/goatshowdoc

Check it out!  I recently uploaded all of Julian’s photos from Day 1, 2 and 3 of shooting.  You can view all the photos in our “Photostream” or you can view them by “Set” which are organized by the day of the shoot.  If you want to see a Slideshow of the photos, simply click “Slideshow”:

I hope you guys enjoy all of these photos!  Great work Julian!

Speaking of Julian, check out his awesome new website: http://julianbroudy.com/  He even has some photos from Goat Show Doc.

Anyway, I’ll let you know when a new set of photos goes up, and I can promise that there will be a ton come July :)

Day 1: Jack and Pinky Hawes of Ripon, CA

Posted by Helena Bowen in The Shoot!, Updates and tagged with , , , , , ,

Hello Friends, Family and Followers!

Great news!  Yesterday was our FIRST day of shooting and it went FANTASTICALLY!  Our first stop was Jack and Pinky Hawes of Ripon, CA.  Jack and Pinky raised dairy goats on one of the largest and most successful commercial dairies of all time: Laurelwood Acres.  We talked with Jack and Pinky about the dairy, their experiences as ADGA judges and their love of dairy goats.  Even though it has been 30 years since Laurelwood disbanded, Jack and Pinky’s home is still filled with goat memorabilia.  Here are some great pictures from the day, taken by the talented Mr. Julian Broudy.

Jack and Pinky

The Hawes home is covered in family photos ranging over 60 years.  Pinky’s style is of course expressed all over the house in her color of choice… pink!

Trevor and I getting some footage of Jack and Pinky.  I am obviously pleased!

Pinky in front of a display case of goat figurines and old photos

Jack and Pinky showed us tons of old slides, photos and newspaper clippings from the days of Laurelwood Acres

Jack and Pinky camera-ready!

Trevor and I getting a shot of what used to be Laurelwood Acres, which is now a large suburban housing development

Thank you so much Jack and Pinky for all your hospitality and help on this project!

And finally, here are some beautiful photos of our journey from Los Angeles to Ripon, CA:

Less than an hour outside LA on the 5.  Doesn’t this look like a foreign country??

Beautiful California!  No wonder so many people want to live here..

More greenery…

Thank you Julian for sharing your pictures with us!  More to come tomorrow on Redwood Hill!

Destination: SAN FRANCISCO!

Posted by Helena Bowen in The Shoot!, Updates and tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Hello Friends, Family and Followers!

Great news!  Tomorrow is officially our FIRST DAY OF SHOOTING!  Trevor, Julian and I will be traveling to Ripon, CA to visit Jack and Pinky Hawes of Laurelwood, Sebastopol, CA to visit Jennifer and Scott Bice of Redwood Hill.  San Fran is the major mid-point between Redwood and Ripon, but it is also host of the 2012 CUESA Goat Festival at the Ferry Plaza Farmer’s Market.  We are SO excited to be visiting these wonderful people and this exciting festival!  Stay tuned for updates!

That being said- we will have an extra day of free time in the city, so if you have any suggestions of fun things to do, let us know in the comments!

We Are So Close!

Posted by Helena Bowen in Fundraising, Sponsors, Updates and tagged with ,

Hey Friends, Family and Followers!

As of today, we are only $2,660 away from reaching our $12,000 Kickstarter goal!  Donate now and receive a number of AMAZING backer rewards!  We need your help.  $12,000 is JUST the beginning!  We need to raise at least $35,000 by the end of the summer in order to make the movie we want to make.  We have 22 days left on this Kickstarter campaign- let’s blow the goal out of the water!  Every dollar you donate goes DIRECTLY into the making of this movie.

Thank you so, so much to all of you who have donated already.  Your generosity speaks louder than words.

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/792010307/the-goat-show-documentary

ADGA: “D” is for “Dairy”

Posted by Helena Bowen in About, Fundraising, Updates and tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

Hello Friends, Family, Fans and Followers!

I just wanted to post an update in response to several ADGA members’ concerns about not focusing on the DAIRY aspect of DAIRY goats. I now know that I did not emphasize this part of the documentary enough in my letter to ADGA members. I was hoping that interested members would go to my Kickstarter, Blog, Facebook or Twitter for more detailed information on my plans. Let me clarify all of your concerns!

If you know my mother, you know that my heart is true to the Saanen breed. Growing up, my mother always emphasized high milk production over winning in the show ring. I showed goats for 16 years and learned that breed characteristics exist for a reason: judges look for physical traits that yield high productivity NOT just pretty goats. I understand that “dairy character” is one of the most important categories in which goats are judged.

The reason I am dedicating a year and a half of my life to this project is that I wish to reach a larger audience than ADGA. If I produced a documentary championing the values of goats, I’m sure many ADGA members would be interested, but I know from experience that the average non-goat-owner couldn’t care less. I have pitched this project to countless people and every time I describe it as a documentary about goats their eyes glazed over, but when I say: “imagine hundreds of goat owners driving cross-country with their goats to meet in one place for one week,” their interest is suddenly piqued. This is one of the biggest reasons for the documentary’s main location. The National Show represents America’s pride and passion for dairy goats. When viewers see all the love, care and enthusiasm at the show, I hope they will ask, “wait– why goats?” at which point I will say “good question, this is why.” The National Show is a platform I can build on. Non-goat-owning audiences will be more responsive to learning about goats if they are having fun and being entertained at the same time.

This brings me to educating viewers about dairy goats– emphasis on dairy. In my Kickstarter video I listed my three biggest goals. This is what I said about goal number one:

“Number one: promote the goat. The goat is by far the most misunderstood animal in American pop culture. Books, movies, TV shows, cartoons all portray them as dirty, grumpy lazy animals, but those of us in the goat industry know otherwise. In fact, they are a thriving, healthy productive animal that is integral to the world’s food and fiber industries.”

I plan on extensively focusing on the dairy aspect of goats- at the National Show and beyond. In fact, my crew and I will be traveling North to visit Jennifer & Scott Bice of Redwood Hill and Jack & Pinky Hawes of Laurelwood. We will also be traveling around Colorado visiting commercial dairies and focusing on other milk products, such as soap.

One more clarification: I’m sure that the title “The Goat Show Documentary” is also deceiving. This is simply a “working title”– it is purely for identification and fundraising. Once in post-production, we plan on coming up with a real title for the film. You may be interested to know that when my crew and I were brainstorming titles in the early days, “Dairy Queens” and “Dairy Characters” were two of our favorites. However, we don’t want to decide on a title until the film is finished.

Please contact me directly if you have any questions about the film. As producer / director / camera operator / editor, I am by far the best source of information on the film and will be happy to tell you about it. Unfortunately I do not belong to many of the goat email lists and online groups, so I have to rely on friends and family members to forward me what other people are asking about the film. Again, please, please, please contact me if you have any questions, concerns or clarifications.

Or for any other reason. I enjoy getting emails and snail mail.  Comments are welcomed on this blog!

Thank you for listening!

Helena

A Quick Update

Posted by Helena Bowen in Updates and tagged with , , , , , , , , , ,

Hello Everyone!

A few quick updates on Goat Show Doc’s progress:

1) Trevor and I shot our Kickstarter Video on Friday and I just finished editing it this morning.  I will submit our Kickstarter project tonight and hopefully it will launch by the end of the week!  Stay tuned for more information.  Here’s a iPhone picture of Trevor and I right after we finished shooting it:

2) Goat Show Doc has arranged its first interviews!  We are making a trip in April to visit Jennifer and Scott Bice of Redwood Hill and Jack and Pinky Hawes of Laurelwood.  Expect lots of pictures and some fun video clips.

3) I booked my flight to Colorado for March 20th – 22nd.  My family’s goats have recently kidded and I want to get some great footage for promos and the feature.  Few things are cuter than baby goats!

Hopefully next time I post our Kickstarter will have launched!