Welcome to Production Note #9 about our work on the Leo “Bud” Welch Documentary.
After last week’s bad luck when our Test Screener fell ill, we were finally able to officially enter the Test Screening Process this week. We showed the latest version of our movie (we call it v4) to one of our additional cameramen on our Austrian shoot and to a very established Documentary and Short Film Director from Austria. Lisa also showed the latest version to her family this week.
They all liked the movie in general and agreed with the way we’re telling Leo’s story. But they still saw many many ways to make things better. They especially wanted to get a better feeling for Leo earlier in the movie – something we also felt was necessary.
So we again changed the structure of the movie in order to get a better feeling and understanding of who Leo “Bud” Welch is. Lisa is currently sitting in the editing room, working on these changes. The new version (v5) should be ready at the beginning of next week – we all can’t wait to see it.
It also seems that we’ll change the title of the movie again – our camera man Viktor Schaider has come up with a title that fits even better than the one we’ve had up until now.
We’re also still working on clearing the archive footage we’d like to use, and this week we were able to clear another piece we really like. There are still at least two pieces left that we absolutely need in the movie, so let’s hope these will clear soon.
There will of course be another Test Screening next week with film professionals, we’ll also show the next version to friends and families again. This will probably be the core process of our movie for some weeks to come – Test Screening the movie to film pros and “normal” folks, getting and evaluating their feedback and then working out the changes we see necessary – and making the movie better and better as we move along.