If you happen to be in the Queen City, tune in to The CW, at 11:30PM, this Saturday, and check out the broadcast premier of my new documentary, “Queen City Craft, Hometown Brewing”. If you happen to miss the premier run, well, it’s a show so nice, they’re going to run it twice, and that means you can catch it again, at midnight. Cheers!
Though the premier party for ‘Queen City Craft, Hometown Brewing’ was a success, there’s still some cleanup yet to be done, before I can send the documentary off for closed captioning. There’s some minor color adjustments to some of the shots… a couple of added pieces of b-roll… some additional nat sound… credits… the usual bits and tweaks, all culminating in a show that is merely 28 minutes and 30 seconds in length. Editing isn’t brewing, but it is a distillation of sorts.
This is one of those projects that is hard to let go, and say, “Finis!”, but I know I’m in the home stretch, and that eventually, it has to be ‘released into the wild’, so to speak. I’d be lying, however, if I didn’t say that I will miss working on it, and with everyone associated with the project.
So, of course, after the ‘little cleanup phase’, I will have to let it go, as it will, at last, be ready for public consumption. At the risk of sounding immodest, I highly recommend setting aside a half-hour on one of the air dates, to check it out. We’re pretty proud of what we’ve done, and I think you’ll enjoy it. Your first chance at catching the broadcast of ‘Queen City Craft, Hometown Brewing’ will be on EKRC, Saturday, September 19th, at 11:30 PM EST. It will repeat 5 more times over the next month, on the following stations (all times EST):
EKRC
Sunday, September 20th, at 12:00 AM
WSTR
Saturday, October 3rd, at 11:30 AM
WKRC
Sunday, October 11th, at 2:30 PM
Saturday October 17th, at 1:30 PM
Cheers!
Last Thursday night, a premier party was held for the preview screening of my documentary, ‘Queen City Craft, Hometown Brewing’, at the Moerlein Lager House, hosted by Greg Hardman, the owner of Christian Moerlein Brewing Company.
Many of the brewers and owners that were in the documentary, were in attendance with family, friends and the general public. It was great to see the faces of the brewers in real life, again, after having spent 2 solid weeks with them behind a screen, as I edited. While talking to each one of them, though, I had to keep reminding myself that I knew more about them all, than they did about me.
After some drinks and conversation, we screened the documentary. I was fully prepared to take notes of any dull or bad spots, based on the audience reaction, but fortunately, it was very well received. It was a great trial run, and I was pleased to see everyone glued to the big screen, engaged, and laughing in all the right places. Best of all, each one of the brewers felt they were well represented, and that the piece felt like a documentary, instead of a 30 minute commercial for craft beer. They all wanted to see more. I’ll mark that down as a success.
24 Interviews
18 Locations
10 Breweries
15 Hours of Footage
And over 65,000 words… all transcribed, sub clipped, organized, and ready for edit.
We wrapped up principal shooting for the documentary, on Friday, with a stop at Nine Giant Brewing. They are the newest of the ten breweries we’ve filmed, and as you can see here, they’re literally at the beginning stages of what will become their brewery. They are as excited and as passionate about local craft brewing, as any of the more seasoned brewers we’ve interviewed. They know there’s still much to do, before they can unleash their dream on a thirsty world.
We’ve got much to do, as well. With principal shooting done, I’m excited to be moving forward to the next phase… post production. First, I’m transcribing all 19 interviews, before I offline. There’s a lot of great material to go through, and I am in the fortunate position of having the problem of deciding what to leave out, instead of not having enough to put in. It’s a good problem to have, but like I said, there’s much to do.