Despite radio silence for the past several weeks, I’ve been making excellent progress on putting the film together. And the plan is to have a final version ready by early 2020 to show at film festivals in the fall.
Of course, this is the stage of film production where there really isn’t anything exciting to show or tell – unless the image of me sitting in front of my computer, headphones on, the Clash, the Cars or wonky podcasts playing in the background, and bottles of kombucha scattered about my desk seems interesting to you.
But the other day I did catch an interview with one of the masters of storytelling: Ken Burns. And one particular thing he said about conducting interviews really resonated with me at this particular moment in the project. To paraphrase: The key to a great interview is not to get through your list of pre-planned questions, but instead to listen to the answers you’re given and find the entry point to the real story being told – and then go after it!
As I sit here, revisiting my interviews with Olivia and Joe (and some other select individuals), it’s exciting to see the entry points we found and the true stories we pursued.
I’m getting excited to share them with all of you in the not-too-distant future!
The Bees of Grand Staircase-Escalante 