Is It Local?

... but really, is it?

So I spent a lot of time these past two days trying to find places to order incentives from. Since min documentary is about the local economy it would be extremely hypocritical of me to order fundraising incentives like water bottles and t-shirts from somewhere not-local.
 Here is my predicament: I have found print-shops locally, that's no problem. but when I look closer into where the shirts etc. are produced I find the company I order from is in Binghamton but they outsource the orders to be printed elsewhere and get them shipped back to Bing. then I go pick it all up. This Is Not OK.

right now I am looking deeper into TeamWorld, The Instant Face Place, and ... that's it.
I feel like I'm on Portlandia when I ask aobout where their stuff comes from which makes me feel... Loser.

I also contacted Tarik Abdelazim from the Planning, Housing, and Community Development department here in Binghamton, hopefully he contacts me back because his Message on the City of Binghamton website was basically Exactly what I'm looking for and if he's real and he is real about what he wrote (the website is a little outdated) then this will make things pick up quite a bit and I might have a good contact. :)
I got permission from Christine Spilka to use her music as a fundraising incentive. I've asked Christine and Jesse Tranvaag to help me out by putting together some original work for a soundtrack. The fundraising incentive will be the soundtrack plus other original songs of theirs because they are both amazing musicians and I probably really won't have much music in the Documentary itself. who wants a soundtrack with only like two songs on it? so this is helping me and helping them get their music out there. Win Win!
Other than that I have not made much Progress today.

I DID start my Mental-map though. it's going to hopefully help me organize my findings which will make post-production much more straight-forward.

This is a 6' piece of butcher paper on the wall of my room so I can't escape it and so I can crowd it with all sorts of note cards, sticky notes, and pictures.

That's all I have to report for today

 

-Kevin

June 15, 2012 To-Do-List

So Many Things To Do

So I have loads of stuff to do today. my To-Do list is pretty long and a lot of the things on it are research-related so about an hour each at least for those. I have to send a bunch of e-mails and I need to start crafting up press-releases/building up hype for the launch of my KickStarter campaign. If I work really hard I could maybe launch at the end of next week...

So I need some advice on some things. I was thinking about a title (I need a title before I can start my campaign... What do you think about "The Triple Cities: A Greater Binghamton Area" since my documentary has to do with the historical and present situations of the "Tripple Cities" area of Endicot, Johnson City, and Binghamton, but it also has to do with the potentially bright (great) future of this area which is sometimes reffered to as the Greater Binghamton Area because there's Vestal and Endwell and Johnson City isn't even a city, it's a village and I think Endicott is a town technically.
So is "The Triple Cities: A Greater Binghamton Area" a good and accurate title?

The second thing I need advice about: a sort of logo. Incentives on KickStarter will include stickers and reusable water bottles and T-shirts etc so I need a symbol... how is this:

I painted this with Roseanne Grigoli, the box is supposed to represent a sort of magnification. The whole painting is about how you can look at things and see something whole but if you look closer it explodes with connections and it's a really messy web of information which needs to be sifted through if you want to find answers or you could always just take a few steps back and be fine with seeing things as they appear at first glance. I think this is an appropriate representation of what I'm doing for my project and how many people feel about The Greater Binghamton Area (a rough but complete image) before they look closer.

Today on my to-do list is contacting a few local museums, the historical society, a local historian, and I need to find someone who has a good grasp on the reel-estate/housing situation in the area. I also need to contact Mark Newman, the man who built University Plaza and who is currently building 20 Hawley.

I need to find two or three non-profit organizations today I want to give my excess money to (if I get any) and ask KickStarter if that's an ok thing to do.

I need to look into the cost of getting Bottles, T-Shirts, Stickers, DVDs etc produced locally (KickStarter incentives)

I need to draft some promotional e-mails to be sent after I launch my campaign.

and I need to map out the story I want to tell from start to finish and why so my search/research can be more focused.

It is going to be a long day but I am loving it. I love my career and I have no regrets.

-Kevin

First Interview

What went wrong

Just got home from my first ever interview for my first ever Documentary. I interviewed Dr. Melvyn Dubofsky today as pre-research to get myself oriented to the story i want to tell. Right off the bat there were speed-bumps. he started by telling me this story has already been told and recently which threw me off as if I wasn't nervous already. I didn't get to ask really ANY of the questions i had crafted, because even though he is a historian he told me the history is dead and I shouldn't focus on it for this project (which I wasn't planning on) but I was referred to him as a local historian so all of my questions were about history.

Um... so yeah. I was nervous and the conversation didn't go how i expected, but I took notes and I recorded his audio and now I have a lot of things to think about as well as some new ideas on how to tell my story. so... Success!

His audio has been logged onto my external Harddrive.

Oh and I snapped a picture for you guys before I left. he was in a hurry though and I was too shy to ask for a second one so... this is what you get. I'll do better next time.

-Kevin

Tomorrow morning I have a meeting set up with Dr. Melvyn Dubofsky

Distinguished Professor Emeritus of History & Sociology
Ph.D., University of Rochester
U.S. labor and social history 

We will be talking about the industrial history of the Greater Binghamton Area. This is part of my "Pre-Research" I am collecting data so I can start to make a storyline of how I would like to map out my documentary. With this data and a bit more about the Environmental history I will be able to start making my KickStarter Fundraising Campaign.

-Kevin

Let's Get This Started

This is my first Blog

The Start of a Career

I am starting my career as a Documentary Filmmaker and this Blog will be a way for my supporters and ... other people to stay updated on what projects I am working on and my process. In theory, when things pick up this should be pretty exciting and if you keep up with me you'll get second-hand experience with the nitty-gritty of Independent documentary filmmaking. I will be honest but professional-ish. None of this "today I ate something weird and it made me feel sick then Terresa said bla bla blegh" stuff.

Oh! um I guess I should introduce myself. My name is Kevin Hallagan and I am 21 years old. I have one year left at SUNY Binghamton (Go Bearcats) and my life goal is to be a documentary filmmaker.
     I am also new to Blogging.

Are you ready for this?

LET'S GET THIS STARTED

-Kevin