Reflections after the final screening

The film screened, as part of Split Pillow's Chicago360 v.5 documentary series, for the last time this weekend. Although I wasn't able to be there for the final screen, I do sincerely believe that those who saw it at Lincoln Hall were both educated and entertained (I call it the "spoonful of sugar" approach to documentary filmmaking).

Now to be honest, no one ever thinks their film is done, or perfect. There's always something you would change or do differently. I worried that I was too gentle on my cast, took too soft of a position on the issue of how best to deal with the Asian carp "invasion" and essentially downplayed the inherent dramatic conflict of this story. Partly because I internalized some early feedback on the final rough cut, which may not have been the healthiest for my psyche (in hindsight of course). And partly because the short format didn't leave me with much room to delve a bit more into the characters and their positions. I was holding on to that as the lights dimmed, the crowd settled and the result of nearly 1 year of labor on my part flickered and danced across the big silver screen.

I probably didn't exhale until the first round of laughter. Good thing that was around 0:45 seconds in!

One thing I was able to do this weekend, was watch about an hour of Jon Stewart's Rally To Restore Sanity on cable. (Thanks neighbors for letting me dog sit and enjoy your bountiful TV.) The feedback I got on an early cut, was that my point of view for the film came across in the end (good) and that it was essentially "this carp issue really isn't that big of a deal" (rut-ro?) so I have been obsessing over that in my mind for weeks. Now watching Jon Stewart lambaste the media for being inflammatory fear-mongers, I realized that's exactly the thesis of my film. It's not "hey, this isn't a big deal so let's not worry," but rather "hey, these fish are here, it's our fault, that's very real. but let's not panic and hype and scare to the point that we're paralyzed. cause if we do, then the terrorists win."

Thank you Jon Stewart for helping me crystalize that.