We were watching the Sound of Music tonight and looked up the history of the Von Trapp Family on Wikipedia. Below are their related categories. Can you imagine a more unusual list of related items?

Well, it’s been a long time coming, but I’ve finally arrived.

Next week my classes in the NYU Editing Program begin.

Also, today I’ll be undertaking a second documentary in post-production:  Iraq World

The premise of this documentary is to capture the Army’s training exercises in California that incorporate Iraqi actors in mock Iraqi towns for realistic scenarios before being (re)deployed to the Middle East. The actors are Middle Eastern-Americans, and the training is very serious and employment is long-term.

This project, which embedded itself in both teams, will endeavor to encapsulate the cultural growth of each side during these war games.

As many of you know from my background (Download Resume.pdf), this project is right up my alley – and I’m especially pleased to have the opportunity to work with this production team.

Meanwhile, the Jewel In The Jungle production is going smoothly. Dace’s fine editing skills has brought us up to 28 mins total, with very solid material that needs little to no tweaking. We’re at halfway-ish and are now on the "downhill"; six more weeks to go. Maybe 90% of the major footage is layed out and *only* the fine tuning remains. But with anything, the final yards are often the most tedious and tiring.

Go to this website and click on Jewel In The Jungle link for a preview.

Here’s some of Dace’s images from the trip to India.

Excellent film. Al Gore reached an effective chord with equal parts of humanity and scientifically based research. Although the subject of global warming is hard to breach without a mountain of graphs that overlap and eventually cause an acute sense of nausea, the generous amount of charts did not have so much of an eye-glazing effect on the audience. Rather, it had a steady, rational flow that seemed to saunter through the data at a browsable clip. So, kudos to the producers for making such scientific work manageable for the average theater-goer, which is to say: the every(wo)man.

On a human level, we found it to be informative, understandable, and yet frightening. At a certain point, the affects of the melting in Antarctica and Greenland is hammered home when showing the 20 feet of flooding in NYC caused by rising ocean waters. The affects were palpable in the theater as a group sucking sound was made by everyone frantically finding their home on the ‘new’ map. The area right off the end of our street, which is a major thoroughfare, is shown as beachfront property! (Finally, a reason to love global warming – Is that wrong?!)

Through this all, one can gleam some hope. For it’s only when we have our backs against our walls do we really show our true colors and the ability to overcome all obstacles when we pool our resources in a combined effort against a commen goal. But is it too late?

Perhaps it is these very catastrophic warnings that we need to WAKE UP and get to work. We can all do our part, and each of these small parts can add up to make a real difference. But we need to start, and we need to keep at it. For the older generation that means to teach and guide the young for as long as you can; and for the younger ones, it means we have to start now and never stop.

Politically, this film is an excellent vehicle for laying the groundwork for a 2008 presidential campaign. I mean, c’mon Al:  "In America, politics is a reneweable resource"?!

See their website:  ClimateCrisis.net