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

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Yeah, yeah, I know... I know how long it's been.

But ya see, the Sundance due date is October 10th and we’ve been frantically trying to get a halfway decent rough cut together. I know it's no excuse.

Jane was in from Paris the other week for the IFFM and wanted to see what we’ve been slaving over since her last visit.

It was the excuse we needed to make an extremely rough assembly on the Media 100 timeline, putting the scenes in some semblance of order, with lots of black slugs where stuff isn’t yet edited. I was anxious to see what we’ve got, too. For too many months I’ve been away from the footage while Debbie’s been holed up cutting the scenes. Time to reacquaint myself and, for the first time, get an inkling of how it all hangs together.

Or doesn’t.

As I watched well over two hours of material flash by, I began to get a panicky feeling. It’s not working. We’re not even close to being finished!

Already knew the beginning’s not there yet ‘cause we haven’t let go of the 15-minute sample and transposed the footage into scenes. But it hadn't been so apparent that the first scenes of HotWired and Electric Minds are such a mess. And the epilogue hasn’t even been edited yet.

So, what’s wrong? Well, only the beginning, middle and end!

For one night my stomach was in freefall while I tried to adjust to a new fact of life: there’s just no way we’re gonna be done in time for Sundance.

I should be relieved. For so long now I've been resentful that so much importance is given to any one festival and telling myself that I'd enjoy this process so much more if we just didn't have that dreaded deadline hanging over our heads. But it's hard letting go of such a long-held goal. Having been there a few times, I could readily visualize the kind of mini-sensation an undiscovered star like Justin might cause.

It took every bit of experience and perspective to release the parachute cord and right myself. The next morning I called Susan Kaplan first thing to postpone the DocuClub rough cut screening we’d set up for October 22nd. Time to relieve all immediate external stress and get to the matter at hand: making the best possible film at all costs.

The problem isn’t with the individual scenes. They’re mostly quite good and some are really great. The problem is with the storytelling construction. The parts won’t fit into a cohesive whole until I’ve fully resolved my role in the film.

“You’re a central character,” Debbie reminds me, “and you have to consider how the character is established and why he’s there. If the film is a Web “road movie,” it’s got to establish who the audience is going on the trip with. Otherwise, it’s just a film about these kids and the Internet. A good film but a different one than you’ve been after.”

I don’t disagree, just hoped it would all emmerge organically as the scenes were pieced together. In other words, painlessly. Without my having to dig deep to get at it. Ha!

Lemme tell ya, boys and girls, you make a personal film and guess what? At some point actually have to reveal yourself!

Shouldn’t have been such a surprise. Always knew integrating my story with Justin’s would be the toughest, most angst-ridden part of the whole process. It triggers my deepest insecurity that compared with the truly charismatic Justin I'll come off a truly wretched bore.

Debbie also thinks I should be unconcerned about the youth audience for the film. For all the proclamations to the contrary, she argues it’s less a Gen-X film than a boomer film. They’re the ones getting freaked by the Internet and they’ll relate most to my midlife restlessness meeting this newfangled thing called the Web. Jobs are being lost to technology, people are getting increasingly disconnected from each other, a scary new future looms before us and we’re light years behind our own children.

I see her point, but I frankly don’t think I'm overly concerned about any particular segment of the audience. If it’s told engagingly, I don’t see why younger folks can’t identify with someone of their parents generation.

I’m more concerned about telling a clearcut story with humor and heart. I think the humor and heart are there (though I'm not feeling so durned humorous lately). The clearcut just don’t seem so clearcut no more.

Part of the problem is that narration usually makes me gag, but, this being my own story, it has to have it. We’ve been cutting all the scenes around it 'til now, but I can't put it off any longer. It's time to write.

So I go back to the footage and immerse myself. I look to establish that I'm a private person to create some contrast and dramatic tension between Justin and me. I play the scenes over and over: my old home movies; Virtual Chanukah; Josh’s radio show at college where he introduces me and Lucy; 4-year old Lucy telling the camera that “I like to see myself on tv.” So many choices to make. Time to pare them down, give them shape. See if a character emmerges. Okay, okay, he doesn't have to be charismatic, but he does have to be someone you want to go on a journey with for a few hours.

All this pressurized ruminating caused me to miss practically all of the IFFM. I was more of a virtual presence than anything, having agreed to write a brief update of the films' progress over the past year for the Sundance Channel’s IFFM webcast (I had done a daily diary for them last year when Home Page screened as a work-in-progress).

The only thing I saw all week was Michel Negroponte’s work-in-progress, Underground Robot, and only to give moral support (I’d already seen the sample twice). Felt a little badly for him in that the he doesn’t have the footage yet to make a really enticing sample -- the robot hasn’t been built. It’s also an experimental work at a market where everyone’s looking for the Next Big Thing. Michel already was the Next Big Thing there three years ago (with Jupiter’s Wife), and while he’s still highly respected, and drew a healthy crowd of important buyers, they didn’t exactly leave vibrating.

If I were a buyer I might not have been vibrating either, but wouldn't it be nice if someone funded a filmmaker just on the basis that he's an extraordinary talent and on the faith that the sample is just a sketchpad and he'll pull it off in the end? Alright, silly question.

Afterwards, Jane and I ducked out for some lunch and to catch up, and happened to run into Michel, his wife Joni and Ross McElwee eating at the same restaurant, so business had to wait. Ross is my inspiration (Sherman’s March is the film that made me want to make documentaries) and I always feel a little tongue-tied in his presence. Didn’t have the time to check out his new work-in-progress, Tobacco Road, either.

Jane finally got her ass up to the edit room and saw about half the scenes before we had to cut out for the Sundance party, the big social event of the week. She seemed relieved that things were much further along than she’d expected. My doom and gloomness must've put the fear of God in her.

At the party, Peter Broderick, head of Next Wave, a new funding source for indie features, made a point of telling me that he's real interested in Home Page. I think he means it 'cause Peter's a solid guy and right out in front on new media (he assembled the Internet panels at Sundance, for one thing). I know he saw the sample at the IFFM last year and liked it. They'd not only put in the last piece of finishing funds but help rep the film, too. It would be a good fit. Hmmmm.

Otherwise, moderated a panel called “Featuring Docs,” about the special considerations of making a documentary with theatrical aspirations. Panelists were Karen Cooper of the Film Forum, who’s rejected every film I’ve been a producer on, Sande Zeig, head of Artistic License Films and producers Susan Kaplan and Roger Weisberg. Moderating is much more fun than being a panelist-- you get to steer the conversation, keep it nuts-and-boltsy and cut off questions from the floor when they get too self-serving.

Oh, my advice? If you're gonna make a feature doc, don't ever do it on a subject that's continually changing.

A week later and I'm still withdrawing and immursing myself in the footage. Bye bye Sundance. Bye bye Berlin (probably). See ya whenever. Time to let go of results and get back into the murk of process.

But I know better than to withdraw from you. It won't happen again, I swear.

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