Doc Challenge

So last weekend my filmmaking partner John and I participated in the "Fairfax Documentary Challenge." A bunch of people were in it and we all met at 9:00 a.m. in Fairfax, CA to go over the rules. Well, they did. I was late. I get lost going to Fairfax every single time. It's actually quite funny. John and I went to a bar there last Friday to see if we could sniff out some good stories and then a scant 12 hours later I was driving to the exact same spot and got lost. Anyway...

At the meeting, competitors found out these three elements that every doc had to have in them: grass, trees and the word "Fairfax." Since Fairfax is a tiny town nestled into a hillside, those elements were pretty easy to include. So we met at the bar again and got started on a few different ideas.

Both John and I asked around a bunch and we kept hearing about this whacky local guy named "Snoopy." He apparently wears really short shorts and knee high socks and always has 2-3 18 year old girls with him. He also rides around in a big ole convertable car. We decided he was our guy and embarked on a quest for Snoopy. We found him and had him give us a tour of Fairfax in his big ole car. Some random girl came along and we all piled in and cruised around town. I was half hiding in case anyone saw me in the passenger side of his car-it had no seat- and I half wanted someone to take a picture of me, John, Snoopy and some random girl driving around Fairfax on a Saturday morning.

After a good 40 minute tour we hunkered down (in the bar...I still wasn't drinking at that point) and edited a four minute film we titled "Riding with Snoopy." Somehow John found a kid that ahd actually written a song about Snoopy and we included it in the doc. Pretty serendipitous! I think it came out really, really good! I also learned that "swiss chard stems are the toothbrushes of the colon" so that was helpful.

I'm heading out to the awards now so hopefully we'll win something!