Monday, May 28, 2012

First Film Screening!

On May 22nd, we screened an extended trailer for "Miles & Trials" at Chicago's Indie Incubator Film Festival in Chicago. It was an opportunity to test-drive our editing of the film so far and gauge audience reaction. Our Olympic Trials qualifier, Christina Overbeck, attended the screening with some of her grad school classmates and when the host of the film festival introduced her and her accomplishment, a great cheer went up from the audience. Whenever there was a scene with her on the screen, cheers and shouts of, "Yeah, Christina!" erupted, as well.

Christina watching herself on the big screen
Since I am editing this film myself (pending acquisition of the financial resources necessary to hire an associate producer/editor), I learned from watching the trailer on the big screen that there is much tweaking and massaging of the footage to do to make it visually appealing, as well as to fix some of the audio. As a mentor of mine (who is a well-respected film producer) said to me, "If you don't have great sound, you don't have sh*t." This is definitely a learning experience! If you'd asked me two years ago if I'd ever have the dream of producing, shooting and editing a feature-length documentary, I would have told you, "You're nuts!" I'm sure that if you asked any of the women featured in "Miles & Trials" the same question about going for an Olympic Marathon Trials qualifier, they'd all say the same thing. But just like these athletes, I'm dreaming big!

[Note: If you'd like to support this film and help us finish the post-production necessary to get it released by August, please donate to our Film Fund by clicking on the yellow Donate button on the right-hand side of this page.]

Opening credits of "Miles & Trials" at the Indie Incubator Film Festival