Tampa Bound – More Shooting for Our Side of Joy

Mon, Jul 13, 2009

Well, I had to make a very difficult decision to shoot more footage for my documentary “Our Side of Joy”. After having returned from an excellent workshop on documentary story structure given by Fernanda Rossi, I knew I was going to have to do more shooting.

The best thing is that the workshop was so excellent I was able to get my 2 hours and 30 minutes documentary down to one hour and 22 minutes easy. Having this new understanding of story structure, I could clearly see where my story was going or not going and easily remove elements that did not enhance or move the story.

I’m very appreciative that Marlene and Michelle, who have been so patient waiting for me to finish the film, were more than willing to have me return to Tampa to do more shooting. In the end, I think it’s also for the best because I definitely feel closer to them now than I did before the film and I feel this will make the new footage come across as more personal.

documentary, film, story, understanding

This post was written by:

Tressa Sanders - who has written 107 posts on Three West.

Tressa Sanders, founder of Three West Creative Development, Asabi Publishing, and Ijaba Films, provides active learning, workshops for business Image, publishing, creative writing, graphics design, and filmmaking. In addition, she has authored the curriculum for the Big Bad Business Image, Concise Publishing, and Creative Writing workshops as well as several literary titles. Tressa also holds a Bachelor’s of Science degree in Psychology and authored the introduction for a book titled “A Peek Inside the Goo: Depression & The Borderline Personality”. Prior to becoming a filmmaker, Tressa was a well established Information Technology professional working with the largest IT, communication, utilities and financial companies in the country. Some of the companies Tressa has worked for include, the New York Independent System Operator, GE Capital Business Asset Funding, IBM Global Services, AT & T Wireless, Hewlett Packard, MCI/Worldcom, GTE, and Sprint. Her areas of expertise include: Publishing Startup & Planning, Business Image Planning, Creative Writing Development, Effective Graphics Design, Cost Conservative Filmmaking.

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