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Hey All!
My Name is Florian. I am an independent environmental filmmaker, the founder of Berlin based AugeFilms. My current project is "Saving Papua by not cycling there". Last year I started on my bicycle from Germany with the plan to cycle all the way to Papua, Indonesia, in order to bring awareness to the spread of deforestation in Indonesia to the Papuan archipelago.
Due to border crossing regulation between India and Burma I could only cycle up to India. I now had to abandon my bicycle in India and am on my way back home on surface again. The film is going to be a colorful, thrilling roadmovie full of conflict and resolution, obstacles, commitment, lessons to be learnt about life, not giving up, realizations such as "Papua is everywhere" and "There is always a Plan Z".
This project is a follow-up to a documentary about deforestation in Indonesia that I made in 2011 called "Cari Hutan – In Search of Forest" – according to several NGOs in Indonesia, it is the most thrilling, informative, yet amusing documentary/roadmovie ever made about the subject of deforestation in Indonesia. I would like to encourage all of you to have a look at it and spread the awareness about this defining issue of our times. -> www.augefilms.blog.com/cari-hutan/
All this and much more can be found on www.augefilms.blog.com
I could definitely need some support at the moment – spreading the word and considering a micro-donation would be awesome!
Best wishes from Hong Kong!
Love,
Florian

All this and more can be seen

In reply to Florian Aurel Augustin's post on Wed 9 May 2012 :

Hi Florian.

That sounds great. Nothing like having a life changing experience to go alongside making a film. A roadtrip always steers life into a better perspective.

Break a leg! Will do my best to help.

Welcome, Kathleen and Florian. Kathleen, I think you'd be better served by asking your questions in the Mentoring Room topic and by only asking one or two questions at a time. Posting such a long list of them is way too time consuming for anyone to want to answer.

Best of luck with your project, Florian.

Hello everyone

Just joined this community today and am part way though my first documentary (planned finished date this September). I am working on a documentary about the education system (with the help of about 12 others), its problems and how science is not being applied to it. I look forward to learning as much as I can from fellow enthusiasts and professionals.

In reply to Joey Savoie 's post on Thu 10 May 2012 :

Hey Joey.

That's interesting. I often feel that there is a need to challenge education, for it's methods and contents are what will shape the future of our children.

One note though: I hope that the group does not focus on all its problems. Sometimes as documentary filmmakers, we need to be more diplomatic. Truth is always the main characteristic of our works. So just show the picture of what is happening, focus on a singular topic that embodies the points you want to raise, and trust that the idea of change will grow from there.

Just my two cents. I know the documentary will be great.

A friend of mine, Monster Jimenez, made a brilliant doc about "sick" books that are used in public school around our country. If you want, you can get in touch with her here

Break a leg!

Thanks for the warm welcome,

We plan on making the movie much more solutions based them problems based. Our target audience already agrees that there is a problem in the system the trick is showing a innovative solution. We are also trying to keep it to around 30 mins so we will only have about 10mins for problems.

Thanks for the advice!

In reply to Joey Savoie 's post on Sun 13 May 2012 :

That's great Joey!

I just remember a very useful advice from my mentor. This was given to me when I was first pursuing documentaries. He told me: "For you to grab the audience's heart, you must simplify and be precise. LESS IS MORE. Chose a singular topic, squeeze it out, and the truth will come out."

Do great and change lives! I know you will.

Howdy Y'all! I just joined the community and have been feverishly reading posts for the last two days trying to gain a little insight into the business plan of the Doc I am currently working out and keep finding myself extremely distracted following threads that are completely unrelated but totally necessary for my brain to munch on!
With my recent move to Austin with my Partner Taylor and our newest devotion to the world of documentary I can not tell you how excited I was to stumble upon this community.
I just moved from Los Angeles and as much as I loved the smog rolling into to a morning hike in runyon canyon, Texas is a legitimate breath of fresh air. My Partner and I are are up on a ranch in the northern part of the state editing, writing, and preproducing the Documentary we have been working on for the last year before head back down to Austin. We shot in China, Japan, Fiji, Tahiti, and the Philippines and we still have about 4 more places to visit and a whole lot more underwater footage to get, so we are climbing the fundraising hill right now. Our documentary is the story behind Natures only living Gem, the Cultured Pearl, the Farmers and Divers who work to produce it and the environmental battles they must face, so funding has been a bit of a challenge. If any of you have the opportunity check out our trailer www.powerofpearlmovie.com I would love love love feedback, thoughts, or any ideas for collaboration.
Thanks Very much and really look Forward to meeting you all!!
Ahbra

Great that you discovered us Ahbra and a very warm welcome. Best of luck with your film. Not that we normally encourage double posting but you might want to post your trailer in the Works In Progress topic if you're looking for feedback. This is pretty much just for introductions.

Thanks very much will do Doug!

Hi, I'm Theodore James, I've made a few documentaries (Wordplay, IOUSA, Superheroes). I'm working on a few new projects and was referred to d-word by IDA. It's nice to meet everyone.

Hi All,
I'm a filmmaker in New York City, currently developing two docs. I've known about this site for awhile but for some reason never got around to diving in. Very glad to be a part of it.

Best of luck to all

Hello Folks!

I’ve been an “independent producer” for about 6 years now – after a couple decades being one of those rare “dependent producers” working as the in-house media producer for the Wildlife Conservation Society (headquartered at the Bronx Zoo). Naturally, most of my contacts have been in the very small world of wildlife and science docs and news stories.

You can see samples of some of my work at my website:

www.thereallyinterestingpicturecompany.com

Back in 1997 I was part of a small group that helped start an organization called Filmmakers For Conservation (http://filmmakersforconservation.org ) and I served on the board there for a few years. While FFC does a good job representing its community, I am impressed with D-WORD – it has a dedication to professional networking on a scale that FFC could never have dreamed of.

I am interested in expanding into new subject areas and new genres, and am looking forward to developing a network in the larger filmmaking community.

Theodore, Draper, Thomas, good to have you all here with us. Feel free to leap right into the discussions.

Welcome everyone.

In reply to Theodore James's post on Mon 14 May 2012 :

I am a fan of Wordplay. It's a great simple story well told.

Hi All,

I'm a filmmaker in Toronto, currently working on my first feature doc and developing two other docs. Very glad to be a part of this.

Nice meeting all of you!
Jane

Hello, my name is Kristine Kalnina, I am from Latvia. This is small country with outstanding traditions of documentary cinema (http://www.culture.lv/en/heritage/31/), and I'm happy thet I grew up at time and place, where newest films of Hertz Frank, Juris Podnieks were must-to-see for every child, so giving further understanding about documentary.
About me – I' m working at TV company for last 14 yrs as broadcasting planner and coordinator.
Work in area of photo&video editing and arranging exibitions is my hobby and second direction of work. There I’m focused to find, to understand & make working the essential value, the uniqueness of every event, personality or product which comes to be shown.
Some video editing samples are here: http://www.youtube.com/user/kkristine911/videos
I like this field of work, and I hope this is a very begining of quite interesting way
Thanks, nice day to everybody!

Hi,

My name is Tracey Quezada, I'm the producer of You and Me and the Fruit Trees. Below is my pitch that needs to be shorten. Any suggestions are very helpful!

You and Me and the Fruit Trees interweaves compelling stories of child sexual abuse. Through each story we see how society’s inability to effectively address child sexual abuse impacts not only individuals, but whole communities and society at large.

Hui, Kristine, Tracey, welcome to The D-Word. Great to have so many folks registering recently.

Hi my name is Linda Ann Eknoian, I am an independent producer, filmmaker and actress residing in Boston, MA. I have done some contracted work through Boston Neighborhood Network station in a variety of roles. I am currently working on two documentaries: In the Line of Duty – featuring focusing on Boston Fire Department – Division 1 and Occupy Boston, short focusing on the formation of the Boston Movement. My work can be seen on http://lindaeknoian.com/filmmakerspage.html and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4dqVSz0vUbs. Both clips are "rough cut trailers".

Welcome, Linda. Be sure to go the extra mile by registering for Professional status here. It'll give you access to all 50 discussion topics, for starters.

Ooops, just noticed you already had , Linda. That's what I get for posting here before checking the daily registrations

Hello,
I´m Camila Agustini, from Brazil, but actually living in Montreal, Canada. I´m an independent filmmaker, recently graduated from International School of Cinema and TV in Cuba (EICTV – www.eictv.org). Last year, I was in the organization of International Festival of Digital Culture (www.culturadigital.org.br)
Right now, I´m collaborating in the development of 2 documentaries and 1 multimedia project besides other projects in fiction.
I´m glad to be here!
Thank you, guys!

hi!my name is Dydine UMUNYANA I'm an independent filmmaker from Rwanda a small and beautiful country with thousand in central Africa... Currently I'm working on two documentary projects.... and I' m also working in UMBRELLA CINEMA PROMOTERS as Founder and CEO, Our aim is to protect the talented young African woman by Promoting African woman in bringing the light to Afirca through Cinema.

I'm glad to be in this professional community of documentary filmmakers.

In reply to Dydine UMUNYANA's post on Mon 21 May 2012 :

Hey Dydine.

That sounds like a great prospect. It's unbelievable what the internet can do. People around the world will get to see talented filmmakers from your small and beautiful country. Can't wait!