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

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So how do I feel about the idea that I'm tossing my innermost thoughts, my private journal notations, online for all to read?

Surprisingly okay.

Mostly because... they're only excerpts, folks! The really juicy stuff, that's for me and the Big Guy. You get the filtered version.

I'm basically dealing here with the making of my new film, Home Page. That's because when you're making a film it tends to occupy your every waking thought (not to mention your dreams). But because the subject of the film is personal home pages, that happens to cover a lot of territory-- non-fiction filmmaking, indie filmmaking, the Web, technology, ethics, sex, media, and the general weirdness of interpersonal communication, for starters

Which brings up the point: how much can this become a vehicle for bitchin' and moanin' about people who might end up reading about themself here? A particuarly thorny issue if they happen to be in the film, too.

It's a filtering issue. Just as I shoot and shoot (so far, 60 hours and counting), then worry about editing later, I write and write in my daily journal, then filter later. It's the only way to get past my internal censor. That and getting up at 6:30 am to write-- half asleep, my mind adrift, still half in dream state.

I pick up a pen and let it rip. As fast as I can. And filter it later.

A filter. If there's any useful function I can serve with a web site, it's as a filter. Or so I told Jonathan when we met last night about the web site design. His experience is in working with commercial sites whose focus is to get a lot of traffic and keep it.

So he went right to sucko ideas about a chat room, and a place for live feedback from readers, and all these bells & whistles with java scripting and shockwave and the like.

Like I could give a shit. I had to tell him three times-- I don't give one hoot about traffic. I'm a filmmaker, I don't have time to oversee chat or do heavy website administration.

I want to keep a journal-- to involve others in my process. And I want to link... to docu resources, and, most of all, to the subjects of the film, all of whom have great web pages.

A good web page has good, thoughtfully-selected links that take you to the specific part of a site you're referring to, not just the home page. It's about making choices.

I'm a filter.

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