Comics doc update

After pushing my production schedule for 24-Hour Comic Day and Stumptown, I was able to move back into research mode. More particularly, I've been sending out a survey to Portland-based comics creators, and their allies in publishing, libraries, and retail, to get an initial sense of why so many in this community have decided to make the city their home. Now, it's time to sit down with the results and plan the first part of the shoot, which will primarily involve scheduling interviews (another purpose of the survey was to net potential subjects).

I am torn between different ways of approaching the next stage of production. I am drawn both to taking an intensive approach, where we focus on three to four subjects and "their" city, and an extensive one, where we build the documentary around many voices. Unfortunately, I don't have the time or resources to effectively try both angles at once. What I think I might do is identify a few potentially interesting subjects from the surveys, schedule interviews with them, and see what I have. How well those interviews go may hint at whether we should to return to those subjects, or some combination of those I initially talk to and one or two new people, or if we should start building up a pool of interviews to draw on in editing. There are, of course, gradations between these two extreme alternatives, but I think the doc will substantially follow one or the other path.

I should also add that with production picking up, this blog will likely become more active again (I also have this to look to forward this summer).