Sunday, April 29, 2007

Interview with Dr. Weeden

We had an interview on Thursday with Dr. Weeden, the Doctor that let us film all of the procedures. He was such a great interviewee. He knows all about our project and directed his answers towards helping us deliver what we are aiming for. I think that we will probably use his voice as a voice over for most of the film. He IS our professional and is good at projecting that on camera. He is also the one that got us in contact with Doug. He is exactly what we were looking for!

GREAT NEWS!!!

So yesterday we got some GREAT NEWS!!!! The executive producer of the Richard Gear movie that is about to start filming here~Nights of Rodanthe is extremely interested in our project and wants to meet with us soon to "discuss it." His name Doug Claybourne and has produced many features AND DOCUMENTARIES. In fact, his first film was a documentary called HEARTS OF DARKNESS: A FILMMAKER'S APOCALYPSE~based on Apocolypse Now. He seems like a very nice guy and we are sooooo excited to meet him! I think that this is going to be HUGE for us!

Sunday, April 22, 2007

Spay-A-Thon

So this sunday we went to the SPAY-A-Thon at College Road Animal Hospital. Basically what they do is trap a bunch of feral cats around Wilmington and spay/neuter them, then release them back into the wild. Dr. Weeden heads it and lets his students practice the surgeries. There were probably 50 cats that they s/n. MANY of those were female cats and of the female cats, MOST of them were pregnant. The doctors don't know 100% that their pregnant until they open them up. At that point they abort the kitten fetuses and spay the cat. We got it all on camera, even the fetuses. I actually got to get on some gloves and use a scalpel to open the placenta to get out the fetuses and hold them. It was sad, but amazing, and relieving that those kittens won't grow up homeless and starving like most of their parents. We got B-roll of the facility and the tons of cages, traps, and cats/kittens. We focused on one cat, Tigger, in particular because he had a story to him. The trapper had been trying to trap him for months and finally got him. He had a large cut on his arm that the doctors were able to fix up. We followed him through the process and will be back for his post-Op and to see if he is any different when Jane releases him back into the wild. Tigger is the beginning of our "Story" animals. So overall this week was a HUGE success for us!

Rockin and Rollin

So after a tough semester, we finally have the ball REALLY rolling. Dom and I filmed Dr. Weeden on Friday morning doing spays and neuters on several dogs at New Hanover Animal control. We got the surgeries on tape, along with Dr. Weeden talking us through them. He is GREAT on camera and really believes in our project, so works hard to give us what we want to hear. It was so cool watching the surgeries and being that close to them. I was able to help do a couple of things in the surgical room as well to aid the process. We also got B-roll of the dogs before, during, and after the procedures. We also got B-roll of the facility and the dogs in the cages. We filmed the entire preparation process before the surgery as well.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

Intro to our film

Here is what I thought would be a good intro to the film...Take in mind every line is a different person speaking:

What happens when we turn away?
When we don't want to watch?
When we don't want to know?
Its not that we don't care.
We just don't know how to help.
A problem isn't a problem if we aren't the ones who have to fix it.
Its time to unite.
Its our social and moral responsibility to fix the problem together.
Spay and Neuter.
Spay and Neuter.
Spay and Neuter.
Be the voice that they don't have.

PUZZLE

Dr. Weedman gave me some homework...help me if you can becasue I am terrible at math!!!!

Here it is:

What is the reproductive potential of 1 female cat over the course of eight years(including her offspring)
1. She has two litters a year
2. In each litter she has 4 kittens, two of which are female

HELP ME FIGURE IT OUT!!! ITS CRAZY WHAT NUMBER IT WILL BE!!!

So this week..

So this week...we were both productive and not productive. I know it sounds weird but its true. We were productive because we met GREAT contacts and made even more contacts through them. Also we got a great couple of shoots for the weekend. we are filming a spay and neuter and interviewing Dr. Robert Weedam from UNCW and is a vet at College Rd. Animal Hospital. as well as Nancy Ryan, the head of Animal Control. She also agreed to let us film surgery and a euthanization at some point soon. We unfortunately did not get much ON camera this week though.

Sunday, April 1, 2007

broken nose....again

so i had another freak accident and broke my nose AGAIN! so needless to say i wasnt able to meet with my group today. also melanie is still out of town. we will just have to meet wednesday after class and then hopefully get some interviews done shortly after. I am getting surgery this week on my nose and will be out for all of easter break and probably a few days more. so today was a setback...

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

new prospects

I was able to locate a woman who feeds a bunch of feral cats in her back yard. Her neighbor got them all spayed and neutered and released them back into the wild. I think it sounds like an interesting story, and if anything some good B-Roll footage. I will try and set something up this week. Also I am working on following an animal(s) from the shelter to a reascue, etc....

Long week

Long weeeeeeeek......My group was unable to meet this week. Melanie took off to New Orleans with Bolden, and Dom and I were both busy. I've had other school work as well to do, so this week so far has been hard to work on the project. I'm getting surgery next thursday and will be out of commission for about a week. So this week will be really important for getting some interviews done.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

What I need to work on

When we started interviewing the guy in the dog park with the un-neutered dog, I kinda forgot that i was interviewing him for a purpose and not to teach him something. I treated him more like someone I needed to preach to than someone who would be good on camera for our project. BUT I quickly learned my lesson and know better now. I need to make then feel comfortable and say what they want to say....so it definitely won't happen again!

Finally....

So we Finally started filming this week. It think it went really well...it was good to finally just get something on to camera. We've done so much planning and preparing that we almost forgot we actually had to start shooting :) So we met for breakfast at Golden Eggs and then drove down the road to the dog park. There weren't as many people and dogs out there on a saturday morning as we had hoped, but it still worked out fine. We got some shots of a rescued boxer and her owner who was very nice. We also got some shots of this guy who comes out there all the time with an UN-neutered dog. We then went to a dog event that they were having at Wrightsville Beach, but it wasn't what we were looking for, so we moved on to Petsmart, where we interviewed a woman from Cat Adoption Team (C.A.T). She was a great speaker and has offered to do a more personal interview in a more private locatin than Petsmart. So the shoot was successful.

Friday, March 16, 2007

meeting in the morning

so we finally getting down to business. Our group is meeting first thing in the morning to start shooting. We are going to go to several places to do interviews. We will go downtown and shoot at the place that we visited before to get some B-roll and hopefully some interviews. Also we will go to the dog park and shoot some interviews of people with fixed pets and people without fixed pets.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Hard Times

So my group is going through a bit of a rough patch right now. We are all getting along really well and still very passionate about the project, but we are having an extremely hard time trying to work around each others schedules. We all are either working or on school pretty much ALL the time, even on the weekends. Its even hard for two of us to find the time to meet. We're just gonna have to figure something out because we're starting to get pretty behind. I wish that there was a simple solution to the problem so it won't affect our project.

Sunday, March 4, 2007

meeting tonight

my group is meeting tonight. I hope to be able to check out Dom's new camera!...i hope to accomplish some B-roll footage and setting up the date for our first official interview. I will be here for most of break...but I don't think that the rest of my group will so we will have to take advantage of our time together.

Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Busy Week

this was a tough week for everyone in my group. we didn't get to meet because of schedule conflicts and sickness. we are now a week behind and have a lot of catch up work to do this coming week. Dom got a camera though! so we are really excited....we just need to start using it! hopefully we can get a lot accomplished this week. i'll have some free time over break to get more work done. feel better melanie!!!

Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Treatment

The opening scenes starts with one voice sympathetically, almost imploring the viewer to be drawn into a problem that affects every community all over the United States, even the world, one that could easily be fixed but would require all people to come together for this cause. The message is soon taken on by another person, but still communicating the same monologue: “The pet overpopulation problem is one that can be fixed. Providing spay and neuter services is the humane and compassionate answer that would help stem the overwhelming number of pets who could be amazing companions if there were only enough homes.” The message is taken on by more and more people, all carrying on the startling statistics on euthanazations, pet abuse and the inaccessibility of treatment for animals whose owners are classified as low-income. People’s faces are intercut with images of the animals whose only hope is to be saved from a shelter or the streets by a loving family. Our scenes will be a montage of quick cuts including graphics, quotes, interviewees and photos, but our message will be the same: that every companion pet should be spayed and neutered to ensure that the number of pets available will one day be lower than the number of people wanting to give them good homes. Although reliable euthanasia numbers are hard to come by, it is widely accepted that almost 9.6 million animals are humanely released from their suffering every year. That’s almost 19 companions every minute. We want to communicate this hard fact by reminding people that while watching this 10 minute documentary, about 190 animals will be put to sleep. Another statistic that needs to be communicated is the massive amount of animals that are born to families who can not afford to spay and neuter their pet. Almost 70% of the pet overpopulation problem is caused because the pet owner does not have access to the services that could prevent millions of animals from being born. Because the subject of spay and neuter is so all-encompassing, our subject will focus on the low-income families that could be of the most benefit to the pet community that usually ends up in our shelters or roaming transiently; at the mercy of cars, the elements, and people that would do them harm. There are many successful programs that provide sterilization services for free or at an extremely low cost to the community-- programs like Spay Jax which has seen a dramatic drop in admissions to shelters, and an even larger effect on euthanasiation numbers. These programs are funded by government grants, usually at a lower cost than to provide for the overpopulated shelters and animal control services that are needed in areas that do not cater to humane prevention measures.The film will be far from a preachy, over bearing shock and awe message to scare, repulse or astonish people into reacting to our mission. We want to celebrate the people who are doing their part to control the problem, as well as the people who are devoting their lives to preventing the problem. We want to encourage people to shift the public mind-set towards the animals; that pet overpopulation comes as a result of yesterday’s community overlooking the spay and neuter problem. Having a more compassionate, progressive and responsible attitude towards our companion population is the only way to see the shelters empty, with more families and pets “fixed” in the belief that sterilization leads to happier, healthier animals as well as a balanced community.

Treatment

The opening scenes starts with one voice sympathetically, almost imploring the viewer to be drawn into a problem that affects every community all over the United States, even the world, one that could easily be fixed but would require all people to come together for this cause. The message is soon taken on by another person, but still communicating the same monologue: “The pet overpopulation problem is one that can be fixed. Providing spay and neuter services is the humane and compassionate answer that would help stem the overwhelming number of pets who could be amazing companions if there were only enough homes.” The message is taken on by more and more people, all carrying on the startling statistics on euthanazations, pet abuse and the inaccessibility of treatment for animals whose owners are classified as low-income. People’s faces are intercut with images of the animals whose only hope is to be saved from a shelter or the streets by a loving family. Our scenes will be a montage of quick cuts including graphics, quotes, interviewees and photos, but our message will be the same: that every companion pet should be spayed and neutered to ensure that the number of pets available will one day be lower than the number of people wanting to give them good homes. Although reliable euthanasia numbers are hard to come by, it is widely accepted that almost 9.6 million animals are humanely released from their suffering every year. That’s almost 19 companions every minute. We want to communicate this hard fact by reminding people that while watching this 10 minute documentary, about 190 animals will be put to sleep. Another statistic that needs to be communicated is the massive amount of animals that are born to families who can not afford to spay and neuter their pet. Almost 70% of the pet overpopulation problem is caused because the pet owner does not have access to the services that could prevent millions of animals from being born. Because the subject of spay and neuter is so all-encompassing, our subject will focus on the low-income families that could be of the most benefit to the pet community that usually ends up in our shelters or roaming transiently; at the mercy of cars, the elements, and people that would do them harm. There are many successful programs that provide sterilization services for free or at an extremely low cost to the community-- programs like Spay Jax which has seen a dramatic drop in admissions to shelters, and an even larger effect on euthanasiation numbers. These programs are funded by government grants, usually at a lower cost than to provide for the overpopulated shelters and animal control services that are needed in areas that do not cater to humane prevention measures.The film will be far from a preachy, over bearing shock and awe message to scare, repulse or astonish people into reacting to our mission. We want to celebrate the people who are doing their part to control the problem, as well as the people who are devoting their lives to preventing the problem. We want to encourage people to shift the public mind-set towards the animals; that pet overpopulation comes as a result of yesterday’s community overlooking the spay and neuter problem. Having a more compassionate, progressive and responsible attitude towards our companion population is the only way to see the shelters empty, with more families and pets “fixed” in the belief that sterilization leads to happier, healthier animals as well as a balanced community.

Where I fit into this project

I guess my biggest contribution so far is coming up with the idea of "Fixed" and my passion to make it happen. Fortunately I have just as dedicated partners who have added SO many incredible ideas to the project. It started out as this passionate idea of mine and has turned into this huge project that other people have completely devoted themselves to. I fit in because i've had the first hand experiences with rescue organizations, rescue animals, and sad, but most importantly with animals dying or being euthanized. Seeing these things first hand allows me to keep the passion of the film alive. I hope to keep the project on schedule and make sure that it is finished to its full capability. Thats my biggest goal...to make sure the project gets done no matter what

Friday, February 16, 2007

narrowing our ideas

We decided that our thoughts were too broad and disorganized so we met and came up with three objectived for the film to build around:

1. To tell/show audience the problem: overpopulation from lack of spay/neuter, especially in low-income families.

2. To tell/show the effects of the problem: millions of animals euthanized yearly, environmental issues, etc...

3. To tell/show how the problem can be fixed: show what other cities have done like voucher programs, governmental funding, etc...

This will not only help us narrow our thoughts, but narrow our interviewees as well. It will help us decide what factors in this project are the most important and valuable.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Good News

We will have our very first interview on Sunday with Anna Platz, a board member of PAWS of NC, a volunteer/foster parent with Boxer Rescue, and the proud owner of a boxer that she saved from a puppy mill. She and many others were fighting for most of 2006 in court for their rescues animals (from the puppy mill) to be allowed to be spayed/neutered. The owners of the puppy mill were trying to get their dogs back, so in the meantime the dogs were not allowed to be spayed or neutered. Well, Anna and the other owners WON recently, so now her dog is allowed to be neutered. Not only is she giving us an interview, but she is letting us record the before, during, and after of her dog's surgery. We will be filming the neuter at College Road Animal Hospital hopefully very soon. So great news!!!...Also Melanie got a response back from a person that works for Ceaser and they said that they were going to pass on our letter up the latter...!!!

Monday, February 5, 2007

Unfortunate accident

so i couldn't meet with my group this weekend...i had an unfortunate accident...i was playing with my dogs and my roommate on the quiet street in front of my house. I was running with one of my dogs to catch up to my roommie and my other dog, when my dog pulled me really quickly and I fell flat on my face. I went to the hospital and broke my nose, busted open my lip, and I have a hematoma on my forehead. I was just a freak accident, but I've been pretty out of it from the pain medicine, because they couldn't fix it then. I have to go see a specialist and possibly have surgery. Just wanted to let you know all know what was going on so when you see me you'll know why I look like I do...

Thursday, February 1, 2007

WECT6 story

WOW...I just finished watching WECT's story on animal overpopulation in Wilmington and they actually showed a dog euthanized. I thought that I would be ok watching it since i've been around this stuff for so long and I thought I could handle it, but the three minute euthanization really hurt me. It was good that I saw it, but it made me realize how incredibly hard this project is going to be. My biggest goal for myself is not getting emotionally attached to these animals. It is already killing me just thinking of actually seeing a euthanization in person...let alone on the news. I have got to emotionally be stronger and just keep realizing that this is for the better good...that their unlawful deaths will mean something. Did anyone else watch it??

Progress

so we've decided that Dom would be our production manager and keep us on track with time, etc...Dom and I elected Melanie (without her knowledge haha) as our spokesperson/interviewer because we feel that she is perfect for the job. None of us have a set position because we will all contribute to those positions, but they're skills will be used to our advantage! I am working on getting us a number of important interviews at the moment. I called Dr. LaCroix at LaCroix Vet (where i take my dogs) because he had agreed a while ago to an interview. I left a message and got his email address. I also found a huge article on spay and neuter in the brand new Paw Prints today. I called Paw Prints to talk to the writer/journalist and left a message. I also called another writer (Joe Needham from Friends of Felines) who has a sub-article to the spay neuter one and left a message with him. I also called Dr. Mizrahi from Cape Fear Spay/Neuter Clinic and left a message and got her email address.

Saturday, January 27, 2007

Interviewees

The people that we will be interviewing will range from veternarians to animal rescue presidents, to the president of the PAWS of NC committee, to Breeders, and hopefully random people that we will walk up to and ask if they spay/neuter...we would like for the people to be as qualified as possible. But we also want to get good interviews with the "bad people," the people who disagree with spay and neuter. We will follow the same ideals of "Blue Vinyl" in that we will pusue both sides of the story and hopefully prove our side, but I feel that is the most effective way to reach people, by giving them both sides to the story, the evidence that supports it, and leaving them with their own opinion on the matter...if we are good it will be the same as ours.

Getting together Sunday

Our group is getting together Sunday evening to discuss our project and come up with our plan to execute our film. We would like to come up with some kind of shooting schedule where we will start filming the shelter animals. The interviews will fall during and/or shortly after. But in order to get all the coverage that we want on these animals we need to start pretty much now

Change of plans

Melanie pointed out something REALLY important this week. She realized that the film was not a documentary, but an educational video. She was right. We needed to figure out how to make it BOTH. So...we decided that we will follow a couple, if not more, dogs and cats from the moment they are taken to the animal shelters, through the time they sit in the animal shelters, to the time a rescue group saves them and tries to adopt them out, or until the time that they are euthanized. Before we were being a little too preachy...and taking this approach allows us to tell our story through pictures more than words. Melanie...you're awesome dude

"Fixed"

so "Fixed" is the name of our documentary...(Melanie, Dominick, and I). This is a project that I have wanted to do for some time and finally have the help and resources to do so. The title means "fixing people by fixing animals." Animal overpopulation is a HUGE problem that most people are unaware of. Basically the idea of "Fixed" is to give animals the voice that they lack and give people the pertinent knowledge to prevent wronthful life and death of animals. We aim to convince people to spay and neuter. Melanie has taken on the project full force since last semester when we attempted to plan out the film and do pre-production. Dominick is new to the project but is an animal lover and a very talented film student. I couldn't be happier with the people that I am working with.

switched blogs

for some reason i was having trouble with my old blog so i started a new one...soo this is it