Hello from Northern Minnesota.

[Leo Anderson]

Hello there,

I'm new to Digital Video, but i am loving it. I'm a computer guy by day and trying my hand as a filmmaker at night.

I am currently working on a documentary about the area I grew up in.

The area used to be home to a factory that treated utility poles with chemicals, right in the middle of a residential area. There is an extrordinary amount of people in that area that are dealing with cancer and other ailments caused by these chemicals.

The EPA finally designated the area as a superfund site, but most of the damage had already been done over the previous fifty years.

I finally decided that someone should tell this story, so I strained my poor credit cards buying equipment and have started to put together this movie. I don't know if anyone will want to watch it, but I really want to let people what is going on.

Tonight, I did my first interview on tape with one of people who lived in the area. I went straight from taping this interview to taping a fact finding meeting held by some of the elected officials from the area.

I have to admit that I am totally loving making this film so far. My heart was pounding hard when I walked into my first interview, but after a few minutes everything was great. After a few minutes of rolling cameras the subject was relaxed and we had a great conversation.

I am already thinking about subjects for my next two movies.

Well, that's about it for me.

I'm shooting on an XL1s with an Audio Technica boundry mic.

I'm using some JTL everlight softboxes for lighting and am editing everything in Vegas 4.0

I must also say that this message board has some fantastic people on it. I've been very impressed.

[Frank Granovski]

Welcome, Leo. But I see you have already been posting. Where in Northern Mn? I used to spend a lot of time there, nice country.

[Leo Anderson]

I live near Bemidji. I see that you are living in Vancouver, I love Vancouver. My wife has never been to the west coast; someday I hope to take her on a trip to either Montery California or Seatle-Vancouver.

[Frank Granovski]

Bemidji? Beautiful little city with the famous Paul B. statue! I was raised mainly in Winnipeg and 22 miles east of Dryden, Ontario. We also owned a number of farms, one just 2 miles north of the Minnesota border. I also spent many summers on Lake of The Woods.

I only moved to Vancouver because of health reasons and that half of my family lived in Vancouver and Kelona. The cold winters make my red cell count drop. Strange.

[Kent Fraser]

Greetings Leo. Sounds like we're neighbors. If I see a guy running around town with an XL1s, I'll shout. Can't be too many of them up here.

Kent

[Leo Anderson]

Hi Kent,

I'm often seen running from Home Depot to Radio Shack to Ace Hardware.

It's great to see other DV people in this neck of the woods!

[Leo Anderson]

Hello there,

I've been working my proverbial buttocks off doing interviews for my movie, but I'm really, really loving it.

I've posted a quick trailer-like thing for my movie to http://www.weirdkids.com/movie/killingcasslake.wmv

It's 15 megs in size and runs about 4 minutes long.

If you are interested, please give me feedback. I love honest feedback. I don't bruise easily. :)

I know that one clip is hard to hear, it was my first "real" interview and in my nervousness I didn't notice that the subject was sitting right in front of a fish tank. ARG! Oh, well I'm learning.

I've turned into a background noise cop, since then so my recent interviews are a lot cleaner noise-wise.

Thanks,

Leo

[Rob Lohman]

Please direct your responses to this thread for the trailer,
as I did. Thanks.