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

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"I'm sick of the film and we're practically finished with the fine cut so just don't come back with any major criticisms or re-structuring suggestions," I warn Michel, only half-jokingly.

We've shown so many versions of this baby to so many people, and gotten so much feedback along the way, there's only two people left in the world I want to show this to: Michel and Mona.

Mona is our always-in-demand consulting editor. Michel is a friend, one of the best docu filmmakers currently breathing, and a sweetheart who knows how to cushion constructive criticism with lavish praise (an ability honed by years of teaching introductory documentary production at NYU).

Though his brother is Mr. Digital Himself, Michel is as analogue as it gets.

We need some feedback. For months now, my editor Debbie and I have been killing ourselves trying to get the opening to work. We've stripped the film of all narration -- I just seem to have a mental block against it -- we're using titles and supers instead. And I've just come up with a title to open the film. White letters on black:

I never intended this to be about me.

The movie starts with my daughter and her love of being videotaped (yes, it's back in again - it was just too good). It introduces my discovery of the Web (over a shot of a geometric pattern of roads from an airplane window). It establishes my wife and sets up a certain tension in our marriage ("I'm not looking for melodrama on camera," I tell her. "You're not looking for melodrama in real life," she counters). And finally, it establishes the Web itself, via my reflection in the Flying Through Space screensaver as I log onto the internet. "What are you looking for?" asks the Excite search engine. Home pages, I type. I hit the search button. Up pops a screen: "Favorite web pages," it reads. And then in big letters: PERSONAL STUFF.

Eureka! I think. We've solved the story arc. If my journey is towards a final moment of self-revelation, I need to establish my reluctance to reveal myself from the get-go.

It works… I think. I hope. I pray.

I'm exhausted. Process be damned, I want the film to be finished. It's been almost two years now to the date. Everything is working but the opening and a few transitions. Once Justin enters the picture, the story takes off. But the opening sets everything up and, as far as I'm concerned, if the opening doesn't work the film doesn't work. I give Michel the latest cut to screen over the weekend.

He's gonna see it with his wife Joni, and I'm as interested in her reaction as in his. She's an artist (an abstract painter), very perceptive, a big film fan and not particularly net savvy. The ideal demographic.

The weekend crawls by. Marjorie and I meet my parents for a Saturday matinee of Ah, Wilderness! at Lincoln Center.

Ah, Matinees! We seem to be the only two people under 65 in the building. Ah, O'Neill! I like - well, admire-- his doom and gloom plays, but this attempt at nostalgic comedy just makes me gloomy. Hearing the lines leak out on time delay from my father's infrared hearing device doesn't help. I obsess about the opening of the film, mentally rejuggling the order of shots. Can I make it work even better?

I don't hear from Michel until late Monday morning, a bad sign.

"Just understand that we watched the film in the midst of the all-time weekend from hell," he qualifies from the start, and my stomach sinks. He's not telling me to lock picture.

"My wallet was stolen. There was a crisis involving Maggie that I won't go into. And the kids were just impossible. So my perception may be entirely thrown off."

"That said," he continues, "I just have one overall note, and I know you're not going to like it. But I feel so strongly about it that all I can say is I urge you to consider it before moving on."

Ah, Michel! I know what he's gonna say.

Narration.

"It needs your narration back. I remember from the first cut feeling your presence very strongly and now it just seems somehow flatter. At one point half-way through Joni turned to me and said, 'What did Doug mean about: "I didn't intend this to be about me?" It's not about him at all.'"

"Hmmm," I mutter.

"There's another point I want to make," Michel continues. "Text is part of the medium of the Web. Text is Justin's medium. So when you use supers and titles as your voice in the film, it's as if you're already part of this medium that, in fact, you feel outside of. Your medium is that of the first-person documentary, and part of that tradition is voice-over narration. If you're looking to emphasize the contrast between your generation and Justin's generation, I think you shouldn't overlook that."

"Hmmm." I think about the work involved in putting in narration and feel drained.

Michel is worried for me. "The film is really magnificent and it has a chance to be very important," he reassures me. "Take a long walk around the city. Take a week or two, take a month if you need to, but think about it." In other words, don't blow it, he's too polite to add.

He urges me to fed ex the tape to Ross McElwee, the master of the personal documentary, and see if he agrees. Or maybe call up some Boston-based pals who know this terrain, like Steve Ascher and Jeanne Jordan.

I tell him I'll think about it. Really. And I won't leap off any tall buildings, not to worry.

I call Ross's home but get his babysitter. I ultimately decide not to follow up. There's really no need to bother him. I know Michel's right. What I really want is for Ross to write my narration. And, hell, read it, too, while he's at it. Pretend he's me.

But no, that wouldn't be in the proper documentary tradition.

So I've been writing narration this week. I think about it in my dreams. I think about it while I shit, shower and shave. My mind drifts off to it as I walk Lucy to school.

It hasn't been so bad, actually. It's come relatively quickly. It's almost there -- I'm just a sentence or two away. And Michel was right -- it's an enormous improvement. I actually feel like I'm back in my own film again. How strange.

It's just so tricky -- every word counts. And the placement of word to image is critical. A few frames off and it doesn't work. Thank God for non-linear editing.

I plan to record the scratch narration tomorrow in my office on my Hi-8 camera, then transfer it to beta and digitize the selects. I'll be more relaxed recording it alone than with Debbie. I get too self-conscious with her around. I can sense her displeasure with my line readings.

I suppose I'll be a little distracted, though. Pam's article about this here spiffy web site is finally supposed to appear tomorrow in the local rag of record. Yes, folks, The D-Word is shedding his Web anonymity and moving on to a higher level of hits and hysteria.

No longer will I be able to keep up the existential pretense that I'm pissing in the wind with these journal entries. Come sunrise, real live upscale, mainstream, martini-drinking readers are gonna be scootin' in and out of my home. Lordy.

They might even expect halfway decent writing.

The house needs tidying up, I'll be the first to admit. The Latest News is a year old (I'm certainly not gonna encourage you by linking to it). The Cast of Characters needs revising. I've got a bunch of new Documentary Resources to post.

When the picture is finally locked I'll have time to pay attention to these details. With a film you work and work to get every little thing right before you invite the public in. With a website, it's what the heck…

But I do want to say welcome. If you've read this far I appreciate your attention span. I welcome your interest. I look forward to wonderfully thoughtful and supportive e-mail.

Just keep in mind that my feelings are very delicate right now. Don't be pissy.

The journal entries are written mainly with other indie filmmakers in mind. Documentarians, especially. There are a bunch of filmmaker diaries that get published, but by definition they're after-the-fact accounts of success stories (in other words, they wouldn't be published if the films weren't getting wide distribution). So when the filmmaker writes about that painful period when he can't see the forest for the trees, we know it's all gonna come out well in the end.

Here ya don't. Silly boy that I am, I thought it would be interesting to do this in real time. Will there be a happy ending to this story? Hey, it's a low-budget indie documentary, so get a grip. But I'm willing to share in the joy and angst, and to trust the process, so let's see where it takes us.

It's what's fun about the Web. And it's taken us pretty far already.

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The presence of some actual readers makes this a fitting occasion to gratefully acknowledge the web design folks who've volunteered their time and talent to help make The D-Word's various incarnations possible: Brian Clark, Tammy Grimes and Andy Cowan of GlobalMedia Design, Tarikh Korula, Carlos Cashman, Kyra Czar and Melissa Tonelli. Thanks one and all!

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