By Roberta MacIntyre - October 9, 2018 (CS5711)
Some Bad News - we are behind schedule
Due to circumstances beyond our control, we have gotten a bit behind with the making of our documentary film, FIRESTORM – The First 12 Hours, but in spite of setbacks, we will be completing the film project. This has the impact of being late getting our off-line edits to the on-line editor…
Some Good News - the story is getting better
We are continuing to learn more about what happened that tragic night of October 8, 2017. This information will help us to endure our film is factual and accurate. So it’s probably a good thing it is taking longer. Moreover, we might receive our grant funding from ITVS before we have to pay out of pocket for our animator, on-line editor and film composer.
Some Bad News - we have to use narration
With the exception of our interview with Supervisor James Gore, we were barred from interviewing ANY currently employed public officials about the Wine Country Fires. Including the Sheriff, the dispatchers, anyone from the County Administration and anyone from County Fire and Emergency Services. This has forced us to use some narration in the film in order to fill in the blanks.
Some Good News - we have an awesome narrator
We have an anonymous source who was directly involved in the incident to help us fill in blanks in the story and we have found a former radio announcer with an amazing voice to do our narration for us.
Some Bad News - we didn't get feedback we wanted
Unfortunately, we did not get enough feedback from the last blog post to use input from our readers to help us with our decision as to what to include in the Sonoma County History Museum’s fire anniversary exhibit.
Some Good News - we have fantastic material
After discussing this with my co-producer we decided to use five of our interviews and make them each three minutes long. This will give us 15 minutes total running time for the exhibit.
We also discussed the proper theme and style of the content for this particular venue. We decided to go with a melancholy feel and use heartfelt interviews of people directly impacted by the event, and not to use any subject-matter experts.
Visually we will be showing the interviewee without any b-roll (images seen while the interviewee is talking) but instead will focus on the individual facial expressions and emotions of the interviewee. The sound design will consist of ambient sounds and little, if any, music score.
At this point, we are thinking of including the following:
The story of how the Safari West owners responded and saved the animal compound
The story of a woman who rescued several abandoned elderly people from a care home
The story of a young couple who volunteer as firefighters and how they cut their vacation short and return to fight the fire.
The story of a worker at the Pepperwood Preserve who took it upon himself to evacuate the neighbors around the campus on Franz Valley Road
The story of the County Emergency Manager who received bad press in spite of doing the right thing.
Closing
Remember, with your feedback, good or bad, we can make this film the best and most worthwhile documentary about the Wine Country fires. There are other films about the fires out there, and there will be more, but this one is destined to be the most accurate, and inspiring, with the hope that we will all learn from what happened and not be repeating mistakes when this happens again – as we all know it will.
Thanks for visiting and reading!