Week 10

This past week we focused on planning our next shoot in order to meet this week’s goal.  Hannah edited together our rough cut and made sure it will be ready to play in our next class. I’ve continued researching songs and whether or not they’re available for public use.  Our rough cut doesn’t include any of the song choices I have been considering just yet.  This past week we didn’t shoot anything else because our next shoot date is tomorrow (Friday) morning.  We’re having about six to seven friends that we’ve selected to come to Hannah’s house and take two different shots of moonshine (legal and illegal).  We want to film their facial expressions after they take the two shots and then ask them questions to see if any of them have had any past experience of moonshine, their general impressions, and any knowledge about moonshine. In order to take our film to the next level we also searched for an animator to create animations for us.  We actually had a few applicants but Hannah and Michaela went with the person they knew because they’ve seen his work in the past and think he’ll be able to give us the look we want.

Week 9

This past week we focused on figuring out what direction we want the film to take.  Hannah decided that she would like it to be focused on moonshiners and people who live/lived in a moonshining environment and what kind of effect it has had on their lives.  We will still be focusing on the friendly and warm culture that goes along with moonshining.  She also made a decision for what our title will be; Shiners.  For the past week we also discussed who we would like our next interview subjects to be.  We have a few friends in mind that Hannah and Michaela were supposed to get in touch with to plan interviews with.  Michaela reached out to her two friends who grew up in a moonshining household, Hannah contacted her friend who makes moonshine, and Hannah will also be asking my friend Alex if he would discuss growing up making moonshine.  We have also been planning for our film festival research and marketing assignment.  The local film festivals are on the top of our list since our topic has regional importance but there are a few in other states that could work that definitely have moonshining in their southern culture.  Our rough cut is due tomorrow and we have edited together clips to make sense on a timeline to get more of a narrative sense.

Week 8

It has been a while since we have had any new footage since this past week was spring break and we were all out of town and working so we were unable to plan any shooting.  Instead we split up work among ourselves to do at home.  Hannah and Michaela both worked on finding more potential experts and reached out to a few of them.  Michaela emailed the man who failed at opening a distillery in Wilmington and has yet to hear back from him.  Hopefully he responds so we can discuss with him why his distillery didn't open.  I researched a little more about the process of moonshine to learn more about how it’s made and compared it to what our expert showed us in person.  I also looked into the rights of some songs I’d like to use in our film. This past week I saw my friend Alex and he said his dad spoke with a friend at a distillery nearby Dunn, NC that agreed to speak with us.  It's a little further of a drive for us but if Hannah wants to we could interview him.  Alex's dad has been trying to help us find more people to speak to and has been super awesome! 

Week 7

Last Sunday our group took a trip to Dunn, North Carolina to interview one of our experts (who I will leave nameless) since he wished to be left anonymous. It could not have gone better! We were greeted with a home cooked meal to enjoy before we started shooting.  Which we did not expect because Alex forgot to tell us that his mom was cooking for us! The food was amazing. Afterwards we got started on making the moonshine and learning the process of distillation. Our expert walked us through his process and explained in detail what all of his equipment was. Some of the equipment was handmade along with items you can buy at a store. We were there all afternoon and the process took the entire time we were there and continued after we left. During the distilling we interviewed our expert and got great information on his history with making moonshine as well as the general history of the activity. And a few of his talking points brought up some of the things I found in my research so it was cool to have my research validated by him. He was an extremely easy expert to interview. He was very open, willing to talk, and knowledgeable on the subject of moonshine.