The D-Word's life is one of glamour and riches, as only a documentary filmmaker can live it

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Last night is the long-awaited DocuClub screening. Debbie and I look at the two-hour-and-twenty-minute version of the first rough cut all the way through for the first time. Along with 40 other people, including Marjorie.

Gulp.

It’s great to have the deadline. It’s why I’ve had so few journal entries recently, as I’ve squirreled myself away in the editing room.

We work mad hours and up to the last minute, finally dubbing off twice onto vhs-- one set for Cinemax, one for Jane to show to my new-best-friends at ZDF/Arte.

But now it’s time to gauge audience reactions, see what’s working and what isn’t, see what we have on our hands.

First my own reactions as I see the last year-and-a-half of my life flash by on the large video projection screen.

I’m surprised at how strongly my presence comes across, even though I’m not actually on camera much. My narration, which I’ve always hated (and which I entirely redid only two nights before) seems perfectly okay and natural. The story of me and my family is lively enough that it doesn’t pale in comparison to Justin, as I’d feared. There’s lots of laughter in the right places.

The main thing is I disappear in the second half of the film. I always knew this would be a problem and it is. My personal connection to the film is interwoven well for 2/3 of the film and then gets dropped until the epilogue. Worse yet, the film becomes much more cinema verite in style in the later sections as I delve deeper and deeper into the launch of Electric Minds, and the style only reinforces my growing invisibility. This is not good.

The reaction from the audience is mostly quite positive. There’s near unanimity that the characters and scenes are really compelling, but also confirmation of my own perception. Among the comments:

• “It was like two separate movies. The first half was great, but I ended up feeling lost in the second half.”

• “Doug needs to take more risks in the film. He should commit to the same sort of intimacy he expects from his characters.”

• “The film portrays the internet in a negative light -- a place for people who don’t have intimacy in their real lives. It seems to caution that the Internet is not a place to find love. But is this really Doug’s message? What is Doug’s message? Can’t one find good things on the Web?"

• ”Doug’s comment about finding perspective at the end of the film wasn’t convincing. There needs to be more set-up as to what this journey has meant to him, and how it is affecting him as well as the people close to him.”

• ”There’s too much stuff about HotWired and Electric Minds. While I found the characters interesting, I found it hard to keep track of what was going on. And I felt like Doug’s story was really interesting but then didn’t develop while he went off with these kids in San Francisco.”

• “This is a story of a 40-Something man who visits with the hippies of the 90’s. Doug must reveal his mid-life crisis through his desire to travel with Justin, explore the Internet, link with people and ultimately to be drawn back home again.”

• ”Doug has yet to fully reveal himself, including an understanding of how this experience has affected his life.”

It’s interesting to analyze this all afterwards over beers with Debbie and Esther, my co-producer, who of course was seeing it for the first time too. The thing I’m struck most by is the reminder of how much audiences want stories told for them. They’re easily confused and they don’t want to be confused. And once you set up a strong narrative structure, you better have a real good reason to depart from it or you risk their wrath.

The concensus is that we’re really not all that far off. The good news, the really good news (and, Lordy, do we want to focus on the really good news), is that everyone is so vastly entertained and hooked by the first half that they’re almost all the more disappointed in the second half.

Part of this is we get bogged down in the minutia of the E-Minds launch and the SF multimedia scene. Part is I don’t keep my story going. But part is that we’re dealing with a bunch of characters who’ve gotten to a difficult place in their lives and on the Web. It’s bound to be a bit downbeat.

Justin, Julie, Carl and, to a lesser extent Howard, are Web pioneers who are butting up against a changing, ever-less-even playing field. Their time is passing and they know it. How long can you keep a great home page going until the need to make a sustainable income takes over? Or your body gives out? Or you lose the motivation? It seems almost inevitable. Admittedly, I got caught up in their quests. At the expense of my own.

It’s good to discover that the audience wants more of me in the film rather than less. I take that as a compliment. There are plenty of scenes I can add, narration to clarify my state of mind.

I’m really disturbed, though, by the perception that I’m somehow putting out an anti-Web film. That’s not what I have in mind at all. Au contraire, mon frere. It will help to re-insert some narration I eliminated from the epilogue that will prevent any associating Justin’s newfound “perspective” with his being off the web. And somehow I’ve got to better communicate my own love and enthusiasm for the Web. Thought I had.

My journey. Time to rethink my journey. Separate myself from my character and think about story arc. Think about risk. Think about revealing myself without, ahem, revealing myself.

Someone suggested I give the camera to Marjorie and let her interview me. Not a bad idea. Tape is cheap, let’s see what happens.

She’s game. She thought it was incredibly ballsy of me to show a first cut to a room full of strangers, particularly when I hadn’t already seen it myself. That said, she doesn’t like that no mention is made of her career as a law professor. “I come off as a housewife and mother,” she protests. She also thinks I resolve our relationship too patly at the end. “What we have is an ongoing work-in-process." She can't resist tweaking: "Kind of like your movie.”

All I can say is thank God we got this feedback now when we can do something about it. It’s a slight blow to the ego, but it’s completely invaluable.

Our work is cut out for us. My work is cut out for me.

Still, as one person said on leaving, “Your like a basketball coach who’s got 15 great players for a 10-person roster. You have some painful choices to make. But what a great position to be in.”

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