Screenings & Updates

Updates:  I have now heard back from two film festivals.  They were very nice.  I am assuming they DID watch the film.  I'm even flattered they would have considered my little project.

But they said no.

Screenings:  That said, the next screening will be at Squashed Grapes, a jazz room in Ventura, CA, where I've been gigging lately.  While it's a Saturday night, perhaps one or two musicians will not have a holiday party gig or club gig on their agenda and they might be able to drop by to hear the music and honor their fellows who played so sensitively in this film.

And on that note, I continue to hold my breath.

Ventura Chapter of the ACLU

I was just asked to show my jazz / homeless documentary "Voices of the Homeless" at the Ventura Chapter of the ACLU this coming February.  I am very honored.  Maybe this is how I will get the film "out there" if my film festival idea goes bust.  :-) 

And tomorrow night 11/17, the film is screening at the Unitarian Universalist Church as a benefit for the Ventura Homeless Prevention Fund.

Another Screening to benefit the homeless

This Saturday 11/17 at 7PM the Unitarian Universalist Church in Ventura, CA, will screen my documentary, "Voices of the Homeless" as a fundraiser for the Ventura Homeless Prevention Fund.  I am honored to be asked to screen my film at the UU Church in this way.

Check out the posting on Facebook:
http://www.facebook.com/events/437051903021184/

Check out the screening on my website:
http://www.tonijannotta.com/perf.html

Check out the electronic press kit of the documentary:
http://www.tonijannotta.com/voth.html

Thank you.

The Ventura Breeze

I'm very grateful to the Ventura Breeze newspaper for running this wonderful article on my documentary.  "Local filmmaker receives award," by Sheli Ellsworth.  Funny, "local filmmaker."  Not too long ago I was just a jazz singer with a day job.  I don't even think of myself as a filmmaker yet.  I just think of myself as someone who needs to get a message out.

Please check out the Ventura Breeze on page 8.  It can be accessed online:
http://venturabreeze.com/

Thanks as always for reading.

Seattle International Film Festival

It's weird.  It's like I was jonesing.  I hadn't submitted to a film festival in a couple of weeks and it felt, well, wrong.  So tonight I took out the credit card and submitted away, this time to the Seattle Int'l Film Festival in the hopes I can finally go visit Seattle.

Here's hoping.

Two More Screenings

There are two more screenings coming up for "Voices of the Homeless."  One is in November and another in December.  I'm posting them on the Performance Page of my website along with my gigs.  The next two screenings are in Ventura, CA, and one of them is a fundraiser.  A very good use of the film.

Check out this link if you want:
http://www.tonijannotta.com/perf.html

The Ventura Breeze

So cool.  Another article has been written on the documentary.  Sheli Ellsworth of the Ventura Breeze writes:

"The storytelling is more than just an honest portrayal, it is a mesmerizing reality in an area that is home to millionaires, movie stars and mall."

The article comes out in two weeks on October 31st, Halloween.  How cool is THAT?  I happen to love Halloween.

But it also brings up some confidence issues.  What if this continues?  Can I accept all this Good Stuff?

Well, try me.  :-)

More Screenings & One Award

As I submit to more film festivals, I'm also getting invitations to screen the film locally.  Next screening will be at the Universalist Unitarian Church in Ventura on Saturday, November 17th.  Then on December 8th, we'll screen it at Squashed Grapes, Ventura's newest local jazz club and wine bar.  That will be cool.

This Saturday I'm receiving an Earth Charter and the Arts Award from the Citizens for Peaceful Resolutions.  Wow.  Their event will be held at Ventura College in Guthrie Hall at 3pm, October 13th.  Again, wow.

Hopefully, the film will continue to be well received and it will help more people.
Fingers crossed.

Film Festivals

Continuing to submit to film festivals in the hopes of getting the word out about this documentary.  This week the DVD screeners went to the Atlanta Film Festival and the Ann Arbor Film Festival.  The Ann Arbor festival also happens to be an Academy Award qualifying event for short subject films.  Wouldn't THAT be nice?

Gigging again

Finally, I gig again.  October 3rd locally in Ventura, CA.  Squashed Grapes is a very cool little place, dedicated to Jazz.  It's all about wine and gourmet food and Jazz so I love it there. 

They are also screening my documentary!

But first I gig again:
http://www.tonijannotta.com/perf.html

My interview

Just about to watch my interview on local Channel 6, where George Alger interviews me about the documentary.  It's local Ventura so here's the internet link:

http://ourventura.com/homeless-voices/1644/#more-1644

Earth Charter for the Arts Award

Surprise, surprise.  I just got a call from an organization called Citizens for Peaceful Resolutions.  Here's their website:  www.c-p-r.net  They are a group of non-violent political activists.  One of their board members came to my screening of "Voices of the Homeless" at the library in downtown Ventura back in August.  She went back to the board and recommended me for an award.  What a surprise that phone call was.

So this October I'll be accepting an Earth Charter for the Arts Award at their annual ceremony.

I sure hope things like awards and film festivals and the like will bring attention not so much to me or even to the film but to what the film is about.  That's when we'll really start to help people.

Our Ventura TV

Our Ventura TV posted this interview hosted by George Alger this weekend.  It is live online now.  I talk about my documentary and the value of jazz music to help heal.  "Voices of the Homeless," where jazz improvisers helped the homeless tell their stories.

http://ourventura.com/homeless-voices/1644/#more-1644

Please check it out.

Thanks!

5:12 Minute Documentary Trailer

Here is the first "trailer" of my documentary "Voices of the Homeless."  I edited it on iMovie 11.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qZWsaWrN44Q

Check it out on YouTube.

Thanks!

The first tralier

Wednesday night I was BACK at the station creating a trailer for "Voices of the Homeless."  It's probably too long.  It's 5:12.  I'm sure I'll need to create one that's between 2-4 minutes at some point.  But this one is for insertion into an interview, where I was the interviewee on a local TV cable access show here in Ventura.

And I rewarded myself Last Night for having spent yet another evening in an editing room instead of at the piano practicing or just plain singing (which I'm starting to miss terribly now that the documentary is finished).  I did this by driving down to Malibu (CA) to sit in with a jazz trio.  OMG, I felt like a human being again.  A human being again,  not some techno-wanna-be wizard.  LOL  Singing again felt like such a joy!

More Submissions

So far I've seen my documentary on a projector, an old standard definition television and a high definition television.  It's been very interesting.  I keep learning and learning just seeing it on different screens.

And tonight I submitted the documentary to yet another film festival, this one in London.  I submitted it because I have old and dear jazz festival friends in the North of England and the thought of my documentary screening in the U.K. puts a big smile on my face.

Feeling proud.

So embarrassed

I felt pretty good while watching my documentary on our local station.  But when I geared up to watch it a second time, as the schedule lists it as showing back-to-back, something else came on.  OMG, so embarrassing.  I tweeted, I facebooked, I blogged, I even emailed friends to tell them the schedule!  I did all those things that a good cyber person should do only to find out it will NOT air 10 times like I thought -- but 5.  I THINK it will air at the top of the hour.  It did today.

So embarrassed.

Look, I'm still pretty damn lucky.  I have a good show (at least I think it is) that is airing all week.  It's just not airing as many times or is it following the schedule I have . . . so I'm confused . . . and I'm embarrassed . . . and now I'd better tweet and facebook and here I am blogging that the show will air 5 times this coming week, not 10.

Yeah, I know.  Everybody should have my problems.

Channel 6

This was my come-down-from-screenings-week.  A week where I just do the day job, stop feeling bad that I'm not gigging, and get caught up on much needed rest.  Submitting to more festivals and researching which cable stations I want to submit this documentary to, well all that can start next week.  But this last week, the one that just ended, was supposed to be a week to rid myself of that exhausted feeling so I could feel human again.

And then I went by CAPS-TV, where they practically shamed me into submitting the documentary to the station.  "No," I said.  "I may want to fix some more stuff."  "Time to let it go, Toni," was their reply.

So I submitted it.

And now I'm ALL excited again because CAPS has scheduled it on their Channel 6 public access station TEN TIMES. 

Sure it's a local cable public access station -- but WOW now I'm all excited again.

I wonder where this is going.  I hope it is some place good.  Some place where it will actually help people.

If you live local in the City of Ventura, California, check out:
http://capstv.org/
and click Program Schedules
then click on the schedule for Sept. 2 - Sept. 8

First Public Screening

I know it's called a "world premier" but the first public screening of "Voices of the Homeless" was held at a library in downtown Ventura, CA, to 70 people and to me it felt like a humble screening I was simply grateful to have.

We started at 10 minutes after because we heard people were having trouble parking, but then people continued to arrive 10-15 minutes after the film began.  Donald McConnel from CAPS-TV and I decided it was better to have people see the film, late or not, so we decided to continue to let people in after the house went dark.  It was disruptive when the latecomers walked in but so were those three attempts I made to get the DVD to play (how hard is it to hit the "on" button?). Thank God I knew today wouldn't be perfect.

But people came.  A lot of people.  The house was over full.  And I was honored to have 3-Dogs Mike, Donna Rogers, and Dan Flowers there; three people who have or still are homeless who wanted to represent the people we are trying to help with this film and to educate the public to the fact that not all the homeless are alike. 

It is early evening now and I have a massive headache from the chocolate cake and wine I ate on an empty stomach directly after the screening.  But I am happy.  I did it.  And I hope it will help.

For ANYBODY who is reading this blog who is interested in seeing this film, I can be reached at tonij@tonijannotta.com  Contact me.  I will show this film anywhere . . . any time.

Thank you again to all who took the time to drive to Ventura from L.A. to Santa Barbara, to see this little 35-minute film that took me two years to make.

Thank you.

And now . . . to the next one.
:-)

Ventura County Reporter Article

Incredible article came out today in the Ventura County Reporter, our hip weekly.

I am so grateful for this.  In print it is a full page article written with warmth and heart by Michel Miller.  Check it out:

http://www.vcreporter.com/cms/story/detail/outside_voices/10114/

Screening SUNDAY 8/26 in downtown Ventura

How I wish I was a couch potato.  How I wish.  But there is so much to do to prepare for the first public screening this Sunday of "Voices of the Homeless."

"Voices of the Homeless," a documentary about a performance where jazz improvisers helped the homeless tell their stories in concert will be held:

SUNDAY
August 26, 2012
2:00 p.m.
at
The EP Foster Library
651 E. Main Street
downtown Ventura, CA
in The Topping Room

Admission is FREE

We will have a Q&A after the screening with a couple of people who participated in the film.


Hope to see you there!

Festival Submissions

I did it!  I was afraid I wouldn't be able to navigate my way around these damn sites but it turned out to be like cake and I did it!

I submitted "Voices of the Homeless" to the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and to Sundance!  So thrilled.  I do NOT expect interest from Sundance but it is exciting to try.

Next screening is for the public at the downtown EP Foster Library in Ventura, California.  That is one week from today.

I think I'm starting to relax.
:-)

First Screening

Finally, at the end of this long week I am sitting in front of my computer, jar of almond butter mit spoon in one hand, glass of 2-buck-chuck in the other (Cabernet).  Finally, I have time to write about my first screening!

I don't know why this feels like just had a baby.  I've never had one.  I don't really know what that feels like.  But I lost sleep with worry before the screening and now that it is over, I carry a DVD of the documentary around with me in my purse!  It makes my already heavy purse even heavier.  There's no reason to carry it around with me.  But I'm afraid to put it down, like I don't want to be too far away from it, as if it will disappear, as if it's really not real.  I'm its protector.  I'm its guardian.  I'm a weirdo.

So today is Friday and it was last Wednesday at 7pm at CAPS-TV Ventura (our local public access station) that I held my first screening to a group of about 20 friends in the studio.  I was horribly nervous, particularly because of all the 11th hour problems we've had.  Then as I sat there with the DVD player, projector, little sound board, etc., etc., I watched it all the way through on a large screen for the first time.  I did this so I wouldn't have any surprises.  And I'm so glad I did because that's when I found out that there were two clips where the sound dropped to one channel and then jumped back to two.  I then remembered a sound problem I had had the day I taped this particular interview.  So this was something we should have heard and dealt with when we were dealing with sound issues during the final fluff and tickle.  And yet there it was -- silence for two clips. 

I was lucky.  I found out about this an hour before people started arriving.  I had a mixing board in front of me.  So during the screening I pumped up the sound for those two clips and then turned it back down again. 

But I was fuming.  This was something that we should have, or my "pro" editor should have, caught and had the knowledge to trouble shoot and fix.  Yes, I had become far too close to it.

After the screening we had a 3-person panel for a Q&A period.  That was very, very interesting.  The film seemed to touch people.  I was thrilled, though I still find it hard to believe.

After the screening I had wine with friends and the next day at my day job I felt like a super sensitive 5-year-old who'd had no sleep.  I think it's called a hang over.

Tomorrow I am being photographed for an article in the Ventura County Reporter.  On August 26th, I will hold a public screening at the downtown library.  THAT will be very telling because it won't be a safe audience filled with my friends.  And I am submitting it to the Santa Barbara Film Festival, Sundance, and our local Ventura Film Society -- so far.  Submitting to festivals will be another way to really tell what I've got. 

Right now I can't tell a thing.  I am way, way, way too close to it.

I'm a new mom whose carrying her baby around in her purse.

P.S.  Tonight we fixed the sound problem on those two clips -- I hope.

11th Hour Stuff

There's a process in album making (which, yes, becomes a CD), called "mastering."  It's where the EQ is taken care of and the spaces are placed between the songs, etc., etc.  Sound engineers do this work.  I'm used to the "final" process in making albums but I'm new to video editing.  Once I finished editing "Voices of the Homeless," I asked myself what more it needed to look good and sound its best and decided to hire a video engineer to fluff and tickle the entire project in Final Cut Pro (I edited in iMovie 11) before I started screenings . . . before I considered it done.

The first problem was he took several days to even start when I thought it would have been completed last week.  Then instead of it taking him "a couple of hours" to do the work it took six.  Then when we watched it together, I saw he had made some "improvements," which I had to ask him to un-improve.

Trust me, the project looks much richer in color and much more balanced in sound -- but this was a hassle!!  Then he got sick over the weekend when I expected we'd be done already.  It goes without saying that I started losing sleep.  Last night, Monday, we finally finished.  The first private screening is Wednesday and we weren't finished until last night!  An 11th hour person I am not.

And finally on the list of issues was that his computer would not burn copies of the discs.  It kept crashing.  Three copies were successfully made and he's still trying to burn three more.  So he still has my hard drive!  I miss my hard drive!

But I've got a copy for the first screening and other copies to start sending out to festivals.

First screening - CAPS-TV Ventura, CA where I edited the project, Wednesday the 15th.

Ventura County Star Article

Here is the link to the article in the Ventura County Star:

http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/aug/07/documentary-helps-woman-tell-stories-of-venturas/

Thank you again, Mark Storer, contributing writer to the Star.

33-minute film depicts stories of local homeless

"Jazz leads singer to make documentary"

Those were the two lines at the top of the article that appeared in yesterday's (Sunday's) Ventura County Star.  The story came out in the B Section and was written by contributing writer, Mark Storer.

I was blown away.  I just gave the interview.  It hit the paper mighty fast.  Wowie.

As soon as the story posts to the internet I will find the link and post it here.

Again, wowie.

Ventura County Star

Last night I gave my first interview to promote the documentary to a news writer named Mark Storer of the Ventura County Star, our largest newspaper in Ventura County.  We talked for about 1/2 an hour.  He is writing a preview story on the upcoming screenings for "Voices of the Homeless." 

It still amazes me how lucky I am to have this kind of publicity for this project.  Again, I am not a filmmaker.  I am a jazz singer with a day job who took classes at the local public access station and figured out how to use a video camera and video editing systems.  Then thanks to some very patient mentors at the station, eventually, it all came together. 

And whether or not this project had a huge budget (it didn't even have A budget), and whether or not it took me two years to make it, it's done!  And I believe it is good. 

Now I will see how audiences respond to it.

So as long as I'm promoting, let me say:

"Voices of the Homeless," a documentary about a performance where Jazz improvisers helped the Homeless tell their stories in concert."

More to come . . .

Press!

Two of Ventura's newspapers are interested in giving me and the documentary some press. I'm so thrilled. One woman is writing an article. Thank you Michel Cicero of the Venura County Reporter. Another contributing writer to the Ventura County Star is going to do a little preview mention for the upcoming screenings. Thank you, Mark Storer. I am really, really excited. Will post more info on the screenings and the articles as they appear. :-)

Screening!

"Voices of the Homeless" screenings are being set!  I'm very excited and very scared.  The first screening is private at the public access TV station where I edited the project.  But the 2nd screening is public at the end of this month on a Sunday afternoon at a public library down Ventura.  I am going to try and get the word out so homeless people can come and see the public one.  I wonder if they will like it.  I sure hope so.  Life is so hard for them in the first place.

A question and answer period will follow both screenings.  I've asked musicians to participate but I'm going to ask a woman who was once homeless if she would be willing to participate too.

And I'm submitting the doc to the Santa Barbara Film Festival and the Ventura Film Society.

That's it so far. 

I am over the moon.  This has been two years in the making.

It's FINISHED!

OhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGodOhmyGod
The documentary is FINISHED!  I'm done.  Finito.  Finished!

This Saturday I will give the doc to my Final Cut Pro guy and he will smooth out the things I can't smooth out technically on iMovie 11, like sound and color temperature from clip to clip.

FIRST SCREENING ~ August 15th at CAPS-TV Ventura, CA

If I wasn't so exhausted, I'd be hanging from the rafters.

"Voices of the Homeless" live performance was held August 21, 2010.  Shooting and editing this documentary took me almost two years to the day.

Wow.

I'm finished.

Broken Record?

I know I sound like a broken record but I'm ALMOST DONE!  It is exciting to be this close.  I'm almost there.  Got some more editing time at the station tonight.  I'm fixing this, fluffing and tickling that.  I'm almost there!

"Voices of the Homeless" documentary goes behind the scenes of the live concert where jazz improvisers helped the homeless tell their stories at the WAV amphitheater on August 21, 2010, in downtown Ventura, California.

Regarding your comments

I want to thank all those who have commented on my project, with one exception.  Today somebody used my most recent blog as a forum to promote their religious views.  They even included their own website and blog link.  PLEASE DO NOT DO THAT HERE. 

Please know that whenever I see "comments" such as these, they will be immediately deleted.

As we all know, it is inappropriate to use someone else to promote yourself.  I have a particular disgust for those who use others to promote their religious beliefs. 

Know it will not be tolerated here.

And it is just not cool.

Thank you.

Editing Continues

I have now moved into my new home, re-shot my interview with guitarist Dan Flowers, and spent another afternoon at CAPS-TV Ventura to edit in Dan's interview.  I have more work to do but I am very, very nearly finished.

In the meantime, I volunteer at Family to Family in Ventura, CA, where I have connected with the driving force behind this organization, Pat McLean.  Pat has been serving the  homeless and hungry for 29 years by creating a lunch program on Ventura's "Avenue."

I wanted to volunteer at Family to Family because, after making the documentary, I didn't want to lose my connection to this branch of society.  Really, they have taught me so much.  After serving for a little while, I decided I wanted to let Pat know about the project and get her input.  If anybody understands the plight of the homeless, it's Pat.

She came to CAPS-TV this Saturday and sat through the entire 1/2 hour rough cut of "Voices of the Homeless."  And, I am happy to say, she liked it.  She liked it a lot.  Being who Pat is she said to me, "I'm very proud of you, Toni."

But most of all, now I will have my first written endorsement for the documentary.

I am thrilled.

The Re-Shoot

My re-shoot of Dan Flowers' interview went well.  It's funny when you ruin the first interview.  In this case, it had been over exposed.  The first interview was heartfelt and emotional.  Now with the re-shoot, my subject spoke well but the emotion was not there.  What can you do -- hit him so he cries?  I'm hoping when I edit the interview into the documentary that it will be just right.  He is so well spoken.  He had such revealing stuff to share.  He really shows you how each person who has experienced homelessness is different.  They aren't all drug addicts and alcoholics.  This guy is one of the few performance artists in the documentary.  He is a guitarist and a writer.  He also was once an art director.  And yet, thanks to his divorce and some bad financial times, he ended up living in his car.

Well anyway, I don't want to give it all away.  It will be in the finished product -- with good sound and correct exposure.  :-)

This Saturday I will be editing this interview into the piece.  But this Saturday will also be very special because a new friend is coming to the station to see the rough cut, the whole 1/2 hour.  Her name is Pat McLean and the group, Family to Family, is her brain child.  Family to Family is the organization where I serve the homeless lunch the 2nd Wednesday of every month.  If she likes my little film, I'm hoping for an endorsement.  And get this one . . . her grandson works for AFI.  How cool is that?  She's already talking the project up to him.  She likes the idea of the documentary.  I hope she likes the final product.

Finally, I Blog

It's been a while since I've written.  Really a while.  May 12th, in fact.  Today is June 25th.

So why haven't I written?  I want to tell you since it is so earth shattering for me.  Along the way of making a documentary about the homeless, I find myself purchasing My First Home!  My first.  I have wanted my own home all my life.  Well, since my divorce.  But I never, ever thought I could afford it.  Hell, I'm a jazz singer with a day job.  How could I afford to buy a home?

Without boring you with the details I'll just say that back in April I took a look around again, this time at manufactured home, and kaboom I found one I could afford.  And this is only because of the housing market.  I went into escrow April 14th and I closed May 25th.  I was so surprised how everything came together, and so stressed at the same time, that I couldn't write about it.  Not until now.

SO, all this to say that it is not lost on me that I've wanted a home, my own home, all my life and only now that I am working with the homeless am I able to buy one.

I can't say it is BECAUSE I am working with the homeless that this all came together for me.  I won't go there.  But it is certainly thought provoking.

To say I'm grateful is an understatement.  While fine tuning the documentary I am still working with the homeless.  I serve lunch once a month at Family to Family, a Ventura organization who feeds the hungry and homeless the second Wednesday of every month.  I still see them.  I still am connected.  It is still heartbreaking, particularly the homeless who are mentally ill. 

But now every night I do not go home to a rented apartment.  I go home to a home that is mine.

Unbelievable.

The process was so overwhelming that I stopped work on the documentary for 3 weeks.  But finally this Saturday I am re-shooting my last interview.  It is of Dan Flowers, a prior "couch surfer" who is also a guitarist and songwriter.  The fist interview I shot was over exposed.  My next time in the editing bay is July 7th, where I'll be showing the rough cut 35 minute documentary to the lady who runs Family to Family in the hopes she likes it enough to give me an endorsement.

And on and on I go, round and round wondering how Life really works.  I'll never figure it out.  But I'm so grateful to be here.

It's Done, The Rough Cut is Done!

OMG, I can't believe it.  I just today finished the rough cut of my documentary "Voices of the Homeless," scrolling credits and all.  First I was afraid to start and now it is already done.  How did that happen?  And as I suspected, it ended itself.  What an art form this is.  Even as editors, we are just instruments to be used, aren't we?

I'll admit I still have one interview to re-shoot and paste over the over-exposed interview that is currently there.  I have to fix this and adjust that.  I have a few more after-work-and-all-afternoon-Saturday sessions to fix and adjust, fluff and tickle until this puppy is absolutely done.

But for all intents and purposes -- IT'S DONE!  And it feels exactly right.

Wow.

Great Critique

A real filmmaker joined me in the editing room last night.  George Algers sat with me for a half hour and watched what I have so far.  His comments were so valuable.  His suggestions were so appreciated.  But most of all, his reaction was most impressive.  I think I have something here.  It is too bad that technically this will never be a super slick production.  But just from his reaction I can tell that it does indeed have the heart and soul necessary to cause people to think and open up concerning the plight of the homeless, what they can teach us, the magic of jazz improvisers, and how they can heal us.

Starting the Outro

I'm almost there.  I can't believe how much editing scared me before I started and now the bulk of it is done and I'm contemplating how to end it.  I think of the ending as an outro like we say in music.  Just today I cut together the interview with our percussionist Chris Wabich.  I was dreading doing it because there's this unsightly toothbrush sitting on a ledge behind his head.  But cut together, Chris' interview is so hilarious the way he sees the world and so sweet just because of who he is that somehow the toothbrush kind of fits.  And he's a drummer after all.  They're wonderfully crazy by nature.

And now to end it.

And then to fix the problems, since the ending will the beginning of it going from a rough cut to a finished product.

I can't believe I'm almost there.

"Voices" Promo

Last time I was in the editing room, I put together a 6-minute promo of my "Voices of the Homeless" documentary.  Here it is from my YouTube channel:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OefnqshWd7w&feature=youtu.be

Copy and paste into your browser.

Thanks for reading and for watching.
Toni

Last Interview for this Project

Actually, I HOPE it was my last interview.  I shot an interview of someone who had been in the audience the day we performed "Voices of the Homeless."  Her name is Dani Randazzo and she happens to be a social worker.  Her interview was a re-shoot because when I shot her interview the first time, I caught a really bad Interview Shooting 101 camera glare that ruined the beautiful and heartfelt interview she gave.  Tonight after my day job I went to her house and re-shot it.  I am embarrassed to admit I also asked her for a couple of style changes, as long as I was re-shooting.  She graciously responded and made the changes but she did NOT like it.  "They should care about what I say not how I look."  But she's a beautiful woman and I don't know about other photographers but I would feel awful if I made her look awful, or if I didn't ask for something that would make her look better.

But did I feel like a shallow loser?  Yes.  Oh well, it was another great interview and I'm hoping it is my LAST. 

This weekend I'll be editing the percussionist's interview, where a toothbrush stands sentry behind his head on a ledge.  I'm hoping the interview will stand on it's own so that I don't have to plead with him to re-shoot THAT interview as well.  I mean, this guy travels all over the globe.  How could I schedule another interview if it took 9 months to get the first one.

But never mind.  I'm hoping I've got everything I need now.  For the moment, as far as I'm concerned, I am DONE shooting.

And that's how I spent my Monday night, April 23, 2012.  I wonder what kind of life I'll have when this is over.  With no documentary to shoot, edit, and worry about -- will I even have a life?

BTW:  I need to go back to the hospital and find out how 3-Dog is.  I saw him over a week ago with the staples in  his head and the bandages on his sides from where the punks jumped him and beat him.  I'm hoping he is mending.  What an amazing man he is.  Such a good man. 

I just hope my documentary helps the homeless and jazz musicians in some way.

G'night all.

3-Dog

Here's something I didn't expect.  I got an email this morning from Project Understanding, my old partner in the "Voices of the Homeless" performance, for which I am making this documentary.  The email contained a copy of a police report stating that Mike (that is, 3-Dog's Mike), one of the storytellers in "Voices of the Homeless," had been jumped, beaten and stabbed by three punks last week.  I was already in tears before I got to the end of the report where it also stated that "Michael" was in stable condition.

Since I am a jazz singer with a day job, I had to wait until my lunch hour to get to the hospital.  As I walked down the hall I prepared for the worst.  Outside of 3-Dog's room, I had to put on gloves and a hospital gown.  Now I am really preparing myself.

And then I walked in.

But instead of seeing my friend all bandaged up with tubes coming out of his mouth, I saw 3-Dog sitting up in bed, so clean and coherent I could not believe my eyes.  I was amazed.  In fact, 3-Dog was amazed because, as he told me, he SHOULD be in a coma right now.  He showed me the staples on top of his head.  He showed me the bandages at his sides where his lungs were injured.  But he's not in a coma and he's still breathing and he looks so good I know there is a fair God out there somewhere.

And THIS is why I'm making "Voices of the Homeless."  3-Dog is an amazing man.  He is not amazing because he is homeless, or bighearted, or a pain in the butt, or funny.  It's not because he can play an instrument or sing, because he can't.  3-Dog represents everything that is courageous and pissy in the world.  After today, I realized you can NOT keep a guy like 3-Dog down.  He even put one of his attackers in the hospital!

We've got to get these guys off the streets.  Somehow we have to get them to safety.  3-Dog said it is worse out there than ever now.  A homeless woman is definitely not safe.  He was jumped by three stupid punks who were looking to beat up a homeless man.  Boy, did they ever pick the wrong one.

I am making this documentary because people like 3-Dog helped me.  The wisdom, determination, and courage that is out there, and the kindness, is something we can all learn from.  Well, I'm learning still.


Oh and here's the best part . . . those three punks?  THEY GOT CAUGHT!  Yes!!

Down to 13 minutes and Change

How did I do that?  How I did I get to 14 minutes and 45 seconds, add more material, and then end up down a minute?  How?  Because I got rid of the dull stuff, the repetitive stuff, and the loose edits.  But man, does that ever make this process like a see-saw.  I'm ahead, I'm behind, I'm ahead, I'm behind.  I've never done this before.  What a weird process it is.

14 Minutes 45 Seconds

Now they are literally kicking me out of CAPS-TV in Ventura.  I push the envelope every time I'm there thinking to myself, "Just one more edit, just one more edit."  Sure I have to visit the bathroom and I'm hungry but it's "Just one more edit."

I'm 14 minutes and 45 seconds in.  I think it's OK.  OMG, do I ever know some fabulous jazz improvisers.  They give this documentary the backdrop, the painting.  And the homeless up close and personal, they have my heart.

In 20 minutes a real editor is coming over to my house with his Final Cut Pro to edit my WAV concert from last year.  This so I can tell myself I'm still a singer.  Yikes, what happened to my life?

Happy Easter / Passover Everyone.
Thanks for stopping by and reading my blog.
Toni

8 Minutes & 13 Seconds

It's really late.  I worked the day gig and edited till 10.

I'm 8 minutes and 13 seconds in.  Wow.  I might even finish this documentary sometime this year.  LOL

Night, night.

Almost 6 Minutes Now

Had another great day editing.  It felt like it was editing itself as one beat flowed into another.  And then it didn't.  My knowledge of iMovie11 is OK.  Maybe if it was great I wouldn't be worrying again but it's only "OK." 

But I still love what I got: my opening sequence and the first storyteller.  There's lots of music, there's lots of heart.  Well, I think so anyway.  And soon there will be more storytellers and musicians talking about their experience improvising to stories with complete freedom, and talking about jazz and spirit and everything I find important in order for us to heal each other.

Now how to get to the next transition.  I have my ideas but the documentary has it's own ideas too.  I wonder whose ideas are going to end up in the finished product.

4 Minutes and 34 Seconds

I'm pretty amazed at how the editing is going.  It is Wednesday night again.  I'm finally home after my day gig and then the editing room.  It's pushing 11pm.  I'm wrecked.  But tonight they had to pull me away from the Mac.  I would have edited all night if I could.  And you know why?  Because this thing is starting to edit itself.  Maybe it's because there is so much music in it.  Maybe it's because the interviews are so powerful to me.  But whatever it is, one thought leads to another which in turn tells me what the next edit should be.  And this is happening so beautifully that my Wednesday Night Mentor over at CAPS-TV told me not to jinx it by saying so out loud. 

I'm 4 minutes and 34 seconds in.  I've got my opening sequence, the beginning of the concert, Todd Goehner's interview, the first storyteller, a lady named Donna, and then Donna's interview that goes in and out of her performance.  Donna slept in her car for 6 months and she now lives at River Haven, a tent city near the harbor in Ventura.  I think she's been living there about 2 years.  She's a brave soul that lady.  Donna wrote a poem for the "Voices of the Homeless" performance so she could get some emotions off her chest.  I think the poem rocks.  The whole quartet improvised behind her.

I can't believe how scared I was to start the editing process.  Now I can't wait for this Saturday when I get to edit again.

Wednesday Night Again

And again a night at CAPS-TV Ventura.  This time I crapped out by 9:30.  It was my final stab at the training CD of Final Cut Pro and seeing how much I could digest.  And I mean final.  Thankfully, my professional editor friend called me back and we're set to spend three hours editing music in Final Cut Pro with him at the helm so I don't have to learn it right now.  Now I can stay with iMovie and finish editing "Voices."

In fact, before I popped in the training CD tonight I transferred the two interviews I shot last weekend from the SDHC cards onto my hard drive.  Then I got lost in the opening sequence again.  Then I almost couldn't stop.  But I did stop.  I put the hard drive away and started watching the training video.  And then I crapped out.

I must say the interviews I shot last weekend with the rain outside looked just as soft and beautiful as I hoped they would.  HOWEVER, the rain stopped and the sun started going in and out of the clouds and my exposure went in and out along with it.  But worse than that I couldn't get sound at first because the sensitivity had been changed on the lavalier kit.  Whoever had used the lav kit before me had changed the settings.  I was losing my mind.  Finally we got it all to work and I was typically embarrassed at my inexperience showing.  Once again, I thought, "WHY am I trying to do this?"

Anyway, the last interviews are done and it is time overdue to edit, get into it, and get it done.  Maybe I have one more interview to shoot -- I mean re-shoot.  But other than that, it's Editing Time.

I wonder how much gray hair I'll have when this is over.

Last Wednesday, This Saturday

So last Wednesday night I finished my day job and went directly to CAPS-TV Ventura to start viewing the Lynda.com Final Cut Pro CD for instructions on how to use this program.  The teacher was very cool, a guy named Larry Jordan.  He’s a good teacher but I must not be a very good student because after four hours of Final Cut Pro instruction, I knew this was going to be an even steeper learning curve than iMovie was.  My mentors at CAPS are encouraging me to segue to Final Cut as soon as possible but for now I'm sticking with iMovie.  Enough with the learning curve.  I want to finish editing “Voices” before I die.

This is not to say that I’m not going to finish the initial Lynda.com CD.  Larry, I’ll be listening to your dry humor and mega instructions again next Wednesday night.  But after that, it’s back to iMovie and trying to trick iMovie into doing the things I want it to do.

And I’m going to HIRE an editor to edit together the three cameras of my WAV concert from last year.  I’ll have it edited little by little as I get the extra cash.

OK, so that was last Wednesday.  Now it is Friday and I’ve just taken out the camera again for two more interviews scheduled to shoot tomorrow.  These interviews are of another two audience members who were at the live performance that August afternoon in 2010.  And this should be interesting because I’ll be shooting while it is pouring outside.  Rain in Southern California happens maybe four times a year and this weekend will be one of those times.  I'll have no light kit with me so this will be a test to see if my instincts are right.  To see if I get enough soft light coming in from outside to create a pretty and flattering picture.

Learn as I go . . . Learn as I go.

Oh and by the way, today somebody asked me about the Performance Page on my website (http://tonijannotta.com/perf.html).  They wanted to attend one of my performances.  But all the performances listed there are from last year.  I don’t have a single thing coming up.  I’m going to have to change that page.  Man, did that ever feel bad.

Opening Sequence

I did it!  I started editing "Voices of the Homeless."  I have built the one-minute opening sequence with a portion of Scheila Gonzalez Santiago's beautiful soprano saxophone solo over titles and 30 seconds of 3-Dog Mike fishing on the pier in slow motion.  I also dumped the eight sections of the "Voices of the Homeless" performance into eight iMovie "Events" to cut in back and forth throughout the documentary.

I guess trying to edit my three-camera concert from last year, and realizing it couldn't be done in iMovie, that it would have to be cut in Final Cut Pro, was the final push I needed.  I said "the hell with it" and started on "Voices."  "Voices" can be done in iMovie because I shot the whole thing with ONE camera.  The performance footage (shot with three cameras) has already been edited together.  Every cut I make will be mountains easier.

But now I've decided I MIGHT be able to edit my concert myself IF I learn Final Cut Pro.  So, Wednesday night I'll be back at the editing bay with a Lynda.com CD seeing if I can understand anything about Final Cut Pro.

I've got the bug, that's for sure.

And it's easy to get that bug when you have no funding.
:-)

A Day Without Editing

CAPS-TV Ventura is closed every Thursday.  Now that I've gone into hyper mode and find myself at the editing bay nearly every lunch hour and absolutely every Saturday, I found myself experiencing a weird sense of R&R today.  I mean, I went outside.  I felt the sunshine.  I bought some groceries.  It almost felt wrong.  Perhaps I'll need a 12-step group soon for Edit Bay Withdrawal, but for today it felt good to take a step back.  It forced me to let things percolate.  :-)

I'm thrilled, I'm bummed, I'm thrilled, I'm bummed

Today I was thrilled AND bummed all in the same 15 minutes.  Talk about a steep learning curve.  Blessedly, the video guys that help me at CAPS-TV really are great.  So patient.  So very patient.  There's Evan and Donald and Gary, who talks so fast and so much that I can only follow maybe 1/2 of what he's saying.  But what I can follow is valuable.  Way.

So today I figured out how to do a cutaway with a fade in and fade out and if you could have seen my Happy Dance you would have been embarrassed for me.

Then I saw one other problem -- with each cut to a new camera I lose the sound associated with the original clip.  From what I can understand, the process of saving the audio, in iMovie11, is so complex you would be better off in Final Cut Pro.

But I don't have access to Final Cut Pro.  The station only offers iMovie11.  It's public access after all.  It's a gift!

I'm thinking it might be time to stop pussy footing around and just start editing the documentary.  Editing 3 cameras of a musical performance appears to be way, way harder than editing with one camera, which is the way I taped all of Voices of the Homeless.

This afternoon I used my lunch hour once again to get 1/2 hour in at the editing bay at CAPS.  Tonight I have a 4-hour slot.  Tonight I need to transfer the interviews of last weekend onto my hard drive.

I feel like such a no-nothing.  This learning curve is soooooo steep.

I was so thrilled and now I'm so bummed again.  I wonder where I'll be by 10 tonight . . .

Long Day's Journey

And now finally it is night.  What a day.  I felt hopeless and then I felt elated.  Man, am I pooped.

My time in the editing room was both frustrating and terrifying.  iMovie 11 is a great program but it sounds like it's just not up to the level of Final Cut Pro.  Unfortunately, iMovie11 is all I have to work with and today iMovie11 was just not cutting it.  Literally.  And I was just not cutting it either.

Today I could not get the program to do what I wanted.  At CAPS-TV Ventura we are lucky.  There are people there to help you.  But even they couldn't figure out why the program was not doing what we were asking of it.  I felt disheartened.  And then I realized again that if you are going to experience frustration while you're learning an editing program, have those frustrations on a project you don't care deeply about.  Right now I am trying to edit a jazz concert of mine.  It became so difficult at one point I wanted to give up completely.  But the good news is that I also realized today that editing the documentary will probably be easier than trying to edit together 3 cameras of music.

What a process.

After my four hours of disenchantment, I drove to my first interview of the afternoon with "Bill."  Bill had been in the audience the day we performed "Voices of the Homeless."  Notwithstanding the cat meowing and the wind blowing, it went pretty well.  Bill is very well spoken, pretty darn political (a Democrat), and he's a guy who really cares about our homeless population.  He's also a social worker and a guitar player.  He was a good subject.

But "Dani" was amazing.  Dani is also a social worker who had taken her lawyer husband to the performance that day.  She, too, has a lot of feelings for our homeless.  But the reason I got some great material with Dani was not because she is in social work.  It was because she is not a musician.  Dani didn't know the musicians improvised all the music for "Voices."  What a great expression she gave when I told her.  Today I can say I "caught it on tape."

And then at the end of the interview I asked her if there was anything else she wanted to say to wrap it all up.  She said, "I guess I just wish we could help families who are struggling BEFORE their children grow up and find themselves standing on a street corner holding a sign."  Then she asked me to stop taping because she started to cry.

What an interview.

I almost felt like Oprah.

A Long Saturday

Tomorrow should be interesting.  I'll have the camera AND I'll be in the editing booth.  First I'm going to try editing some music in an effort to learn more about the program.  I'm using iMovie 11.  So far I can fade the transitions from one shot to another,  I can overlay sound traks, I can copy and paste and delete and perform a number of cool functions that come in dialogue boxes that I'm starting to understand.  Then after my time allotment is up at station, I'll be a cameraman again.  I haven't picked up the camera now for 4 weeks while I've been editing.  I hope I remember how to work it.  I'm going to interview a social worker who was in the audience the day of the Voices of the Homeless performance.  I want to find at least one more audience person to interview.  I've interviewed the people on stage.  Now I want to interview the people who saw it.

And by the way, today was a pretty exciting day in the Department of Small Change.  CAPS-TV Ventura, our local public access station and my home-away-from-home, not only offers their training and their equipment to its members but it requires you to produce programming.  Today my first little production, "Judy Scott Tai Chi Chuan" aired for its entire 5 minutes and 28 seconds at 1pm.  I ran home at lunch and watched it on television feeling like I was watching a real television show.  Well, I WAS watching a real television show.  It was just on a little public access station. 

And WOW the feeling of accomplishment I had!  I mean really, I felt good. 

I hope I have that same feeling when I finish Voices of the Homeless and watch it air on Channel 6.  I hope I have that same feeling when I submit it to various film festivals, or whoever I can submit it to.  I hope I'm proud enough of it.

But first there is tomorrow and more shooting, and more sitting in the editing bay trying to learn what the hell I'm doing.

Storms' a Comin'

Once again I got to the editing bay and thought, "How do I begin?"  Then I thought, "What about all those other projects that are shorter that I could finish before I start editing "Voices?"  So once again I went to the WAV concert and grabbed another tune.  Then I uploaded it to my YouTube channel.  Then I wondered just how many years this is going to take.  The WAV concert was shot with 3 cameras so editing it will take forever too.

Anyway, here is a tune I wrote called, "Storms' a Comin."  It features Scheila Gonzalez Santiago, who played flute, soprano and tenor saxophone on the "Voices" project and plays flute and soprano sax on this tune.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KUD9PP6r1gY&feature=youtu.be

Thanks for watching.

"Ventura"

So, once again, instead of editing "Voices of the Homeless," I got sidetracked . . . again.  I started looking at music video I had shot of my gigs and got sucked into one of them.  I realized, once again, that I'm not ready to focus on editing "Voices" yet.  Hell, I'm still shooting footage for it.  But I'm editing every weekend so I'm getting the hang of this editing thing.

That said, here is my YouTube video of a tune I wrote for the City of Ventura.  It is called, (duh), "Ventura."

http://youtu.be/SIyiDOLZGEU

Thanks for reading and for watching.

Sad News

You know, I've been waking up the last few mornings wondering who I'm becoming.  I used to be a jazz vocalist with a day job that gigged and taught voice and labored through the day at a law firm with people that make no sense to me all in an effort to pay the rent and, well, keep on keeping on.

But now I wake up and wonder where I'm headed.  I'm making a documentary with no money and no experience.  I'm not gigging because most of my attention goes into making the documentary, not hunting for gigs.  I have new goals but it feels like they have placed me in a new Universe and I don't know this place.

And then I get a call from a friend whose cancer may have returned.  Suddenly I am bolted back into place.

So tonight I must blog again how lucky I am.  No, I don't know where I'm headed, and I don't know if "Voices of the Homeless" is going to be as special as I believe it should be, and I'm plagued with doubt and confusion.  But I am HEALTHY.  I have a HOME.  I have a bed every night and because I show up for that odd job every day, there is no issue that I might lose that bed or that home. 

My friend might not be so lucky if her cancer takes her private practice away and she can't pay her rent.  Today on the phone she even used the word, "homeless."

Sometimes I guess the most we can do is just keep showing up, you know?

A Little Scat

So, I'm in the editing booth learning all these new things and I see some old scat material taped the day I was shooting Danny Young for the documentary.  When we were done with his interview he said, "Scat with me."  So I did, and we did, and we put his wife, artist Denise Green Young, on the camera and out came some stuff that doesn't seem quite as horrible as I thought it would be the day we shot it.  If nothing else, check this out for Danny.  He's a wonderful improviser, so you can imagine how great and sensitive he was during the Voices of the Homeless performance.  Here it is:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5tkeKws9UI&feature=youtu.be

And for any jazz buffs out there, Danny's dad is the famous jazz trumpeter, Snooky Young, who had just passed away about a month before we shot Danny's interview and this music.

Thanks again for watching.

First Video

I filmed and edited this video for practice so I wouldn't sit down to edit "Voices of the Homeless" and ruin it.  I guess I also needed to prove to myself that I could edit, period.  This video is far from perfect but it gives me hope.  I'm so thrilled that I did it.  I'm still scared to start editing "Voices" but now I believe that once I start, the project will be guided and I won't blow it.

For now, please allow me to introduce you to my Tai Chi instructor, Judy Scott.  The running time here is 5.27.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1wBrUfhqf8U&feature=youtu.be

Thanks for watching.

Saturday the 18th

Today is the day.  I finished my first video!  I mean, I've completed the editing.  OK, it's not on "Voices of the Homeless."  I am still too nervous to start "Voices."  This was the first editing assignment I gave myself to prepare for the Big Project.  It is of my Tai Chi instructor, Judy Scott.  It's running time is 5.27.  I even have titles.  :-)  I still can't believe I put it together.  Guess what I named it?  "Judy Scott Tai Chi Chuan."  Catchy, uh?

I am almost sure now that I won't ruin "Voices of the Homeless" in editing.  It deserves good and sensitive editing for the good and courageous people who participated in it.  I'm thinking that I won't let them down.

Now I've just got to figure out how to upload "Judy Scott Tai Chi Chuan" to my Facebook page and to my YouTube page so I can Share this momentous occasion.  As soon as I master that one, I will blog again.

But for now I am thrilled that I don't have to turn back the clock and become a 10-year-old in order to accomplish the task of editing video (though having a 10-year-old on hand wouldn't be a bad idea).  I will figure this out myself.  I'm a Big Girl.

Couldn't Wait

Seems I can't wait until the weekend to finish up on my first editing project.  I'll be using my lunch hour tomorrow to run to the station with my hard drive, edit for all of a half hour, and the run back to my day job desk.  I can't get the shots off my mind.  I can't get the flow off my mind.  I never thought it would be this rewarding.

Don't get me wrong, I'm still scared to start editing Voices of the Homeless.  But I'm getting closer and closer and closer to the reason I joined CAPS-TV in the first place and the reason I started learning how to use a camera and an editing program.  And that was to make a documentary about brave homeless people who shared their stores themselves and the sensitive jazz artists who improvised music behind them.  I love this project and I love these people.

Excited

Now I am REALLY excited.  I can't believe I am getting the hang of this editing thing.

Yesterday I spent another afternoon at CAPS-TV and came very close to finishing my practice video editing project of a 5-minute promo for my Tai Chi instructor, Judy.  I am loving the way it is turning out.  Needless to say, it is FAR from perfect, but it looks pretty nice just the same.

I also noticed that the more mistakes I made, and the more help I needed from Evan at the station, the more I was learning about the editing program.  AND I noticed how completely anal I was about getting everything Just Right.  I was literally shocked at how easy things were going but OMG I am so picky . . . at everything I do!  LOL

And then I forced myself to hit two potential jazz venues to look for gigs.  I guess you might say the gig search was my reward for working hard because both venues are wineries, both were in the beautiful Malibu mountains, and both required wine tasting.  Not a bad deal if you have to look for work.

I believe my first editing (practice) project will be finished by next Saturday when I have the editing bay booked next.

I'm starting to believe I'm confident enough to begin editing Voices of the Homeless.  I'm even starting to believe it might not suck.

Sick or Not

I suppose guilt is good for something.  Even feelings of failure have their place from time to time.  I suppose anything that gets us off our duff to do something good . . . is good.  So with that in mind, runny nose or not, I'll be putting press kits together after work tonight.  Tomorrow I'll be editing and, hopefully, finishing my first practice video project before I begin editing Voices of the Homeless in earnest.  And then afterward, I'll be driving down to Malibu to a winery with jazz-singer-press-kit in hand promoting myself for a gig.  If they aren't interested, at least there will be wine to taste.

Sometimes you just have to keep going, you know?

Sick of Being Sick

First came the termites, then came the paint fumes from my office at my day job.  And then came The Flu.  Got that under control and now it's a head cold.  Grrrr.  I'm sick of being sick.  I'm guilty as hell for not gigging.  I'm suffering through those feelings of failure for not having the energy to shoot myself out of a canon and get everything done at once.  I feel like I have no accomplishments.  Whine, whine, whine.  I'll be back at the editing bay this weekend.  Free editing time with free equipment and free help.  You can't get much luckier than me.  And yet today, I'm convinced I'm a failure.

I'll be so glad when I get my mojo back.

Editing

I can NOT believe it.  I did some editing today.  I really did.  I sucked it up, sat my fanny down, and plugged my hard drive into the editing bay at CAPS-TV Ventura.  And then I started.  I only had to cry out for help 4-5 times but luckily "Evan" did not get sick of me and my questions.  By the time the place was closing I had found my swing.

I'm really excited now.  Yesterday I was wondering what I could sell so I could find a Real Editor.  Today I think this might just come together.  Sure, it will take months.  But it could happen.  Now I really believe it could happen.

Procrastination

I found a way to procrastinate.  I have asked three more people for interviews.  They are audience members who were all there for the performance, August 21, 2010.  Two of them are in social services and one of the social service people is also a guitar player!

I've got editing time this Saturday, too.  Focus, focus. focus.

Of course, what I really wish I had was MONEY so I could hire a Real Editor and not spend the next several months fumbling around with a mouse and a keyboard and software I'm not familiar with.

Guess it's time to shut up and just keep learning.

A Guilt Filled Weekend

Ahhhh, it was great.  I rode my bike, I practiced Tai Chi, I spent so many hours in the garden I hurt my back.  It was wonderful.  The guilt was worth it for the rest I got.

But now it's already Tuesday and I'm looking towards snagging some editing time this weekend so I can begin thinking about what footage I've got and what footage I still need.

I'm almost there.  I'm almost ready to sew this thing together.

If I could think of any way to procrastinate, I would procrastinate.

I don't want to ruin this puppy in editing.

A Free Weekend

The footage of Todd Goehner looks great.  The footage of my Tai Chi instructor, Judy, that I'll use for my practice editing project also looks great.  I'm stepping into my weekend without the camera or time at the editing bay.  I'm giving myself a weekend off.

I already feel guilty.

The Edit Bay

Back to CAPS-TV tonight to "transfer the data."  I sit there and try to remember which keys to push, which tab my mouse should click, so I can get all my raw footage in one place.  I should be pounding the pavement looking for gigs.  People keep asking me if I'm still singing.  I've got nothing on the books.  But this project, where we used music as a healing tool, has my heart more than anything else right now.  So, it's back to CAPS-TV while I do almost nothing else.

Monday

I am sitting at my desk at my day job today cranky because I don't feel like I had a weekend.  I am thrilled that I got such a great interview on Saturday with Todd my community partner for the live performance of "Voices of the Homeless." 

But in order to do a decent editing job on this documentary, knowing full well that I have never edited a video before, I've also started a side project.  A practice video, if you will.  I am making a 3-5 minute video of my Tai Chi teacher, Judy Scott.  I've taped her teaching class, doing the form by herself, and I've got two interviews of her.  (Two because one of them has her sitting in a beautiful garden where all the shrubs behind her are in focus while Her Face is slightly OUT of focus.  Grrrrrr.)  And all this so I can have a video to practice on so I don't sit down to edit "Voices of the Homeless" and ruin the whole thing.

So yesterday, Sunday, once again I dragged out the heavy equipment this time to my Tai Chi class to get more footage of Judy. 

All this to say what a capital "C" Crab I feel like today.  Taping ate up my whole weekend and I'm feeling like a brat who didn't get her play time.

No, I don't forget how lucky I am.  But no, that doesn't stop me from feeling tired today and pretty bratty.

Todd Goehner

This afternoon I shot an interview with Todd Goehner.  He was my community partner when he worked at Project Understanding.  He was an integral part of the entire project because his background and his passion is social services, particularly helping with the homeless.  His interview pulled together so much of the message I'm trying to put out there.  It is so gratifying to communicate with someone whose on the same page as I am.  And he is so well spoken.  I admire this guy, and because of this project, I can now call him my friend.

Maybe this documentary is going to make sense after all.

Scared

So the other night I was at CAPS-TV in their editing bay "transferring data" (I'm getting the buzz words down).  God Bless CAPS-TV for existing.  I couldn't attempt this without a public access station.  And they are so great over there.  So patient with us all.  I was transferring the interview I just shot with saxophonist Scheila Gonzalez Santiago to my external hard drive where all the documentary footage is.  It took, like, 1/2 hour to transfer her stuff.  But once I was in the editing bay I started looking at all the other interviews I've already shot.  I started thinking about how I was going to build an opening sequence and how I was going to pull out sentences here and there from all the different interviews and piece this thing all together.

And I looked and I wondered and I looked and I wondered.

And then I said to myself, "Who am I trying to kid?"

The Rehearsal, The Performance

We had one rehearsal for the live performance of "Voices of the Homeless."  It happened one week before the event.  This is when I saw that the storytellers were going to have trouble on a microphone.  Most of them did not know how to speak on one.  And how would they know?  Their focus was on finding shelter, not presenting themselves to an audience.  I have no idea how that piece of reality escaped me but it did.  I wondered where I had put my brain and if the audience was going to be able to understand any of the words they said.

But we had made it through other setbacks.  One of the biggest set backs since believing I had lost my venue was that my partner Todd lost his job.  About two months before the event Project Understanding had a changing of the guard.  The old executive director went out and a new guy came in.  With the new guy came a new agenda and out went Todd's position and Todd's job.  It is not that Project Understanding did not appreciate this event, but in the real sense of partnership, I did not get it from the organization.  I got it from Todd.  Yet with incredible grace and style, while he was worried sick about his own income, he continued to help me put the event together.  I will never forget him for that.

And then came the big day.  August 21, 2010 at 2:00 p.m. in the outside performance space in front of the Theater Gallery.  I think everybody was very excited.  I know I was.  We had some hits and we had some misses but I was incredibly proud of every single storyteller.  And I was so grateful for the musicians and how they played.

But I won't talk about the performance.  Here is the link to my website where, at the bottom of the page, are all the YouTube videos of that day.  You can decide how we did for yourself.

http://tonijannotta.com/grant2010.html

Now to put it all together into a meaningful documentary . . .

The Venue, The Stories

There were some very memorable moments in the preparation for the performance of "Voices of the Homeless."  First I lost my venue.  A man whose name I will not mention, who positioned himself as the head huncho at the venue, told me I'd have to make certain "donations" in order to have my performance there.  The venue had been promised to me for free because of the content so this was news to me.  Suffice it to say, I panicked.  For the next four months I looked for alternate venues, while trying to mount the performance at the same time.

Luckily it all got resolved with a few well placed phone calls and, as suddenly as I lost my venue, I had it back again.  "Voices of the Homeless" was performanced on August 21, 2010, at the WAV (Working Artists Ventura) in downtown Ventura.

The most important element of this performance, though, more than where it would be presented, were the homeless themselves.  I was asking each one of them to expose themselves in front of up to 100 people about the most painful times of their lives.  If someone had asked me to do the same thing, I'd have told them to go to hell.

But five people stepped up to the plate because, in their words, they felt they had something to say.  (And I say, Bravo.)  There was also a sixth woman, but she would not expose herself.  Her situation concerned me so much, though, that I asked her for her permission to tell her story for her.  This is why the sixth story is from The Woman Who Will Remain Nameless.

I asked each person to tell the audience what they believed the audience did not know about the experience of being homeless.  They didn't have to specifically tell their story.  I said to them:  "Nobody knows who you are.  Nobody knows how it feels or what it's like.  What do you want them to know?"  So they shared what they thought was important.  This is how I felt I could get to the meat of the matter.  It's not about a sob story.  It's about Information, and all we do Not know about being homeless.

One man told his story in order to get over his fears.  You see, he has no teeth.  One woman wrote a poem.  One man played his guitar.  One man talked off the cuff no matter how much I pleaded with him to Write It Down!  And for each "story" there was a quartet of musicians improvising behind them, sometimes soloing, sometimes playing all together.

The storytellers rocked.  They had such courage.  The musicians held them in their arms.  You could feel it.  I want this kind of performance to happen again and again all over the country, teaching us about each other and putting more jazz musicians to work.

This is why I'm making a a documentary.

Thanks for reading.

I Got The Grant

So now it's April of 2010 and the time has come to announce the grant recipients of the 2010 grant cycle for the Artist in the Community Partnership Grants given by the Ventura County Arts Council, funded largely by the James Irvine Foundation.  And if I haven't mentioned it already, the City of Ventura that I'm writing about is in Southern California.

The letter arrives.  I got the grant.  Four thousand dollars to create and produce a performance piece with 6 storytellers who either were previously homeless or were presently homeless, and a quartet of four musicians to make music in the moment behind them.

Now the real work starts.  It is April.  The performance is scheduled for August.

And, by the way, I am supposed to take home 1/2 of the grant money as my stipend.  I find that laughable.  As I previously mentioned, I have no retirement.  Am I really going to start taking home large chunks of change NOW while I try to create something?  Probably not.  When it was all said and done, I walked away with $400.  And I was happy about it!  I paid the musicians, the homeless, the sound guy, and the video company because I was not going to create a performance without getting it on tape.  I suppose I had the idea of making a documentary in the back of my mind all along.

But it is April and I've got to first create relationships with the homeless.  Without their sad expertise, there is no story to tell.  It is their story, not mine, and hopefully not yours either.

I hit the ground running.  Three mornings a week, I served coffee at the homeless shelter before my day job began.  I poured coffee, talked to the people who would talk to me, and kept my mouth shut about the project.  I just tried to build relationships.  I wanted to present a snapshot of homelessness to an audience who believes that all the homeless out there are the same guy.  I wanted to present the husbands and wives, the mothers, the ones who had found shelter and the ones who were chronically homeless.  I was blessed with 6 amazingly courageous people:  They were Donna, Donnie, Dan, Donald, 3-Dog, and a woman who would remain nameless.  And yes, the fact that everybody's names started with a D did not go unnoticed.  I have no idea why that was.

Then came the musicians, but they were easy part.  I've had the good fortune to work with some incredible musicians over the 20 odd years I've been singing jazz.  I knew all I had to do was nail the right people for the money and I would have no musical worries.  As always, the musicians were an absolute and beautiful breeze.

I will continue with this saga tomorrow but before I go, as they say, "Let me introduce you to the band."  On keyboards was Kevin Fukagawa; on electric and acoustic bass was Danny Young, (and for all you jazz buffs out there, the legendary trumpeter Snooky Young was Danny's dad); on drums for the rehearsal (we actually had one) was Derek Syverud; on percussion and drums for the performance was Chris Wabich; and on flute, soprano sax, and tenor sax was Scheila Gonzalez.

Good night, sleep tight, and I'll blog you tomorrow.

Back to the Blog

Now that my own home is finally free of termites and I have moved back in, I would like to get back to telling you how "Voices of the Homeless" came to be -- because first it was a performance.

As a quick recap, I had decided to apply for a grant called an Artist in the Community Partnership Grant and partner with Project Understanding, who serves the homeless.  Should I get the grant, I would put together a performance piece where the homeless told their stories, in their own words, while jazz improvisers played music behind them.

In January of 2010, I had had my orientation meeting, I'd spoken to the Homeless Angel Bob (see 2nd blog below), and I had found my partner, Todd Goehner of Project Understanding.  Now I needed to put together a grant submission.

People ask me if I do much grant writing.  I don't even know what that means.  The grants I've applied for have all had boilerplate questions you must answer and narratives you must write.  It's almost like painting by the numbers.  So if anybody out there reading this blog wants to apply for a grant, please know that "grant writing" is not as scary as it sounds.

But it is time consuming.  It literally took me six weeks to compile all the required documents and writings.  It was like submitting to the Appellate Court.  I had work samples and letters of recommendation and news clippings from my own gigs and concerts and a narrative (you know, what makes me so special that I deserve this grant).

And I had to have a budget.  ARG.  I'm a jazz singer.  I don't even think "budget."  I think things like, "I should have focused on retirement."  But with the help of a friend, I figured out how to put a budget together.

Then I compiled the entire mess, submitted it, and went away for a few days to clear my head.

Tomorrow I'd like to tell you how my life completely changed once I got that grant.  And by the way it hasn't been the same since.

But that's for another blog.

Thank you once again for reading.
Till next time,
Toni

Home

I am home.  And though I have no hot water at the moment, I Have A Home.  I don't forget how lucky I am that I have one.

And on top of the termites and the move out and the move back in, I interviewed Scheila Gonzalez Santiago today down in Los Angeles for the documentary.  What a beautiful woman.  What an amazing player.  Her words were heartfelt.

But she also played for me.  Kindly, she improvised both on her soprano sax and her tenor so that I can have some music at the beginning of the documentary.  The documentary will open with a walk down the Ventura Pier where 3-Dog fishes, and Scheila's solo sax will be playing over it.  I can't WAIT to put that opening together.

But now I must unpack, heat up water on the stove for a bath, and get some rest.

Till soon.
Thank you for reading.

3-Ring-Circus

Checked out of my hotel this morning.  Taking out high def camera from our local public access TV station during my lunch hour today.  Moving back into my home tonight.  Shooting my next interview for the documentary tomorrow.  What a Tailspin Day.

I want to tell you more about how the whole documentary project began, but Fate (and Termites) took me away from MY home for the last 3 days.

As always, more to come . . .

Thank you so much for reading!
Toni
P.S.  Tomorrow's interview is with the beautiful and talented saxophonist Scheila Gonzalez Santiago, who improvised in the live performance of Voices of the Homeless.  It has taken one year to snag her for this interview as "Zappa Plays Zappa" her steady gig with Dweezil Zappa has first dibs on her.  :-)

The Hotel

I'm living in a hotel today, thanks to the termite tenting.  The 3-Ring-Circus will begin again tomorrow when I move out of the hotel and back in to my home.

But last night, the first night of tenting, I drove past my little place.  It's a rented 1928 duplex, one-bedroom.  I'm very happy there.  I've loved it since the day I moved in four years ago.  So when I saw the tent, I was kind of releived that it didn't look so bad . . . until I drove around the back.

Up was the huge sign of the pest control company, up were the signs saying how dangerous it would be to enter.  But most of all, up were the hoses coming out of my house the way hoses come out of humans during surgery.

I can't describe how weird this feels, or how stupid I felt when I cried at the sight of it.

Home is such a sacred place.  Being without one is one of the most stressful things in life.

Irony

I want you to know that I don't miss the irony here.  I am making a documentary about the homeless, and here I am displaced myself.  I drove by my place this afternoon to see how the termite tenting was going and realized I needed to use the bathroom.  But I couldn't go inside my home.  The truck was already there.  The gas tanks were there.  The house was all locked up.
And I thought to myself -- when my homeless friends need to use the bathroom, and they need to several times each and every day, they also have no place to go. 

By Friday I'll have my home back.  By Friday, my homeless friends will still be looking for a bathroom.

Frazzled

Termites Part II.  My house is packed.  My brain is fried.  But most importantly, my hard drive with all the footage of my documentary . . . is safe.

Termites

Here's a little bit of Odd Fate.  MY home (I live in a rented duplex) is being tented for termites in two days and I'm packing up to move out while the place gets gased and then move back in again.  Yikes.  Sure, I must take out the food, the medicines, the opened boxes of oatmeal, but what about my hard drive that contains all the footage of this project?

Of course, I realize I am being ridiculous.  I leave my place every day to go to The Day Job and I never worry about leaving the hard drive.  I never worry about a fire or an earthquake.  And as a reward for my sanity the hard drive is always there when I get back, ready to have me download more footage from each interview I shoot.  I even go away for weekends on occasion.  I never worry that the hard drive will get up and walk away.

But termite tenting?  I can't explain my paranoia.  For such little guys, they carry a lot of power.  Plus, moving out and moving back in again feels major. 

Of course, I will take the hard drive with me.  I will sleep with it under my pillow.  I will carry it like a purse.  I cannot take a chance that something could happen to Two Years of Work.

So today I feel like a nutcase. 

But if I am a nutcase, I do not forget what a LUCKY nutcase I am.  At least I have a home to move back in to.

Thanks again for reading.

Where do I begin?

I've never written a blog before, but I assume that in order to share the journey it's best to start at the beginning.  This blog is about the making of a documentary of how an event came to be.  The event was called "Voices of the Homeless."

I wasn't looking to help anybody when I went to my orientation meeting at the Ventura County Arts Council.  All I was looking for was money.  I sat in my seat and was told, along with many other people, that in order to be awarded a grant of up to $5,000, I must find a way to use my art to help solve a community problem.  The grant was called an "Artist in the Community Partnership Grant."

I thought, "I'm a jazz singer with a day job.  What community problem could I possibly help?  I don't paint.  I can't paint a mural depicting some outreach program.  I sing.  How can MY voice help, well, ANYBODY?"

Enter Bob.

I went home from that orientation meeting with a defeatist attitude.  And the very next day, I finally started talking to Bob.  Bob is homeless . . . or was.  Bob is gone now.  But when Bob was around my neighborhood, he used to scare the hell out of me.  He had helter-skelter eyes, he was tall, his eyes were a shocking blue, and he had no teeth.  I was afraid of him.  But everywhere Bob went, his guitar followed.

And that made me wonder -- how could a voice or some voices (since that's all I had to offer) connect the homeless with the rest of us.  The homeless who, maybe like Bob, were touched by music, were helped along their way by music.

Since I am a performer, I thought that the only thing I could do was produce an event, an event that might bring together the homeless with my form of music, jazz.  I wasn't at all sure how the two would come together, but an idea was forming.

My next step was to find a community partner.  In order to get the grant I was not allowed to work alone, as I always had.  I had to partner with an organization.  At this point, thanks to Bob, I figured that the only people I might be able to help were the homeless.  So I looked up homeless shelters on the internet and found one organization that had a cartoon on their website.  The cartoon sold me.  The place was called, "Project Understanding."

Then, on this one particular lunch hour in January of 2010, I went to Project Understanding on the Avenue in Ventura, California, and tried to find someone who would talk to me.  There I found Todd Goehner (pronounced Gaynor), who became my community partner.  I was literally walking down the alley wondering where people were (they were at lunch too) when Todd saw me wandering.  He asked me to come in.  I sat in his little, humble, old office and preceded to cry.  I felt like an idiot.  I blubbered how I wanted to have the homeless tell a large audience what the experience of homelessness was really like, who the homeless really were, that the homeless were not all the same, and on top of all of that, I wanted jazz improvisers to create music in the moment behind them in order to support them and to show the audience a level of jazz music most people do not understand.  I wanted the event to be about listening.  I wanted to promote the listening of all of us to each other.  I wanted to become a better listener myself.  I wanted to show the community at large that there was a LOT more to know about the homeless as individuals and a LOT more to learn about American's Classical Music: Jazz.

And I guess this is where I'll stop my blog for tonight.  I want you to know that first I had to need money, then I had to need a partner, and then I had to create an event that could actually do the community some good.  This eventually led to the performance of "Voices of the Homeless," which the documentary is about and for.

If you care to see any short videos of the performance held on August 21, 2010, go to my YouTube Channel here:
http://www.youtube.com/user/TJazzka
There are about 8 videos of the event.

I'll say goodnight for now.

Thanks for reading!
Toni

A new blog starts today!

Welcome to my new blog about the making of my documentary, VOICES OF THE HOMELESS, a jazz improv - storytelling event where the homeless shared their stories while backed by improvisational musicians.  I produced this live event on August 21, 2010, and I am now shooting a documentary about how this event came to be.

More to come.  Welcome, and thank you!