• This post is updated regularly | Generally, the newer posts on the blog are on the bottom of the page •

NEWS:

• Unexpectedly, 2010 seems to be so far even more packed with festival screenings than 2009, “the year of glory”. Watch the screening list above and the page on Facebook to catch screenings in your area or tell friends who are there.
• In other news, after discovering that a few of my clips are on YouTube anyway (uploaded without my permission), I decided to make a YouTube channel. With the occasion, I invented a new trailer:

OLDER NEWS:

• The film had its’ World Premiere on the 25th of November 2008 in the prestigious International Documentary Festival Amsterdam (IDFA), in the “First Appearance” competition. The film won the “First Appearance” Award. All the screenings were sold-out.
• Back home in Romania, Constantin and Elena was nominated as Best Documentary at the Gopo Awards, a sort of… “Romanian Oscars”.
• After non-competition screenings in Bucharest, London and Paris, the film was awarded BEST DEBUT in the 8th edition of Transilvania International Film Festival(TIFF), one of the most important festivals in South-Eastern Europe.
• Constantin and Elena was awarded the Special Jury Mention in Sarajevo Film Festival, in the ceremony that took place on 20th of August. The film was screened on 15th of August, and was ranked 5th place in the audience votes.
• The film was showed in the EBS Documentary Festival in Seoul, Korea. I was also invited to do a “director’s class” on documentary filmmaking. The trip, the festival and my first Asian experience were really interesting. You can see some photos on my Facebook account.
• Because I have had the great chance of winning First Appearance last year in IDFA, this year I have the honor to be in the First Appearance Jury. I will be in Amsterdam from 19th to 28th November, and I really want to make a good job in the jury, but also party like the end of the world is coming… because, hey! It’s Amsterdam!
Constantin and Elena

There’s a lot more going on on the Facebook page of the film! Click here, join and enjoy!

I start with this title to state, from the beginning, that I am not a documentary expert, and this is not a how-to website. I am in the middle of making my first film, which became, overnight (one of the beautiful nights in Lisbon, last autumn) an international co-production with interest from major players in the documentary world.

In other words, I suddenly started to exist in a world that I wasn’t quite prepared for. An overwhelming experience, from which I have learned a lot.

This website is about what I’m going through making my film, from idea to financing, shooting, editing and up to the… premiere of the film. I will share with you what I have learned in workshops, from the great people that support me, or… from my own mistakes. I will describe all the choices, the techniques and the equipment that I’m using.

It will be a video-photo-text blog dealing with all the issues that I encounter. With ups and downs, just like it is.

Because I’m starting this “journal” in the middle of making the film, it will not be chronological, but you can ask questions at any time by writing comments or e-mailing me.

I really hope you’ll enjoy reading and watching this, and please leave a comment or submit your e-mail address so that I let you know when I make important updates.

I will make little “making-of” clips for this blog, showing how I make my film. One of my ambitious aims is to keep myself and my camera “invisible” in the film, meaning that the characters act naturally, with no interaction to me or the camera. No interview, no questions, no “directing”. Just observing (that is where the term “observational” comes from - observational documentary).

I will show the “strategies” I use for being invisible , and how they work (or not). I will also deal with the technical challenges, with the ups and downs of doing the shooting alone, with no crew… I will show funny, behind-the-scenes moments. But I guess things will become really interesting when I will start editing the film: I plan to do that in the home of Constantin and Elena, and I expect very interesting things to happen when my characters will interact with footage of themselves, some being more than one year old. I will be in the room that you’ll see in this first episode, transformed into an editing room, and I’ll keep documenting the documentary.

Meanwhile, I made this first episode more or less as an introduction, but especially as thanking for the people that helped me come so far:

Roberto Blatt (Multicanal, Spain) who frankly, is the one who made this project possible;

Walter Murch, who through a great chance, became a friend and supporter besides being my idol;

Leena Pasanen, who played a great role in making my little project international;

Donata von Perfall and Peter Symes (Discovery Campus) for their advise, trust and recommendations;

Ritva Leino (YLE Finland) and Claudia Schreiner (MDR Germany) for their interest;

Olaf Grunert and Suzanne Biermann (Arte) for their great feedback;

Renate Roginas, Gitte Hansen and Hanne Skjodt for their support;

Alexandru Solomon, Corneliu Porumboiu, Dan Burlac, Adina Brateanu, Steven Seidenberg

and others.

I’ll probably explain in future posts how and who can help a documentary idea become a film. For now, I’ll let you watch Episode 1 of the making-of and hope we’ll stay in touch.

My project (not yet sure if I, myself) will be in one of the greatest documentary film markets in the world, in La Rochelle, France. A film market is just what the name tells you: a market where the vendors rent a space and sell their products, while buyers (broadcasters, distributors) visit the stands and buy what they need or like. These markets “sell” finished products (completed films) as well as projects in different stages of development (and financing), from synopsis/idea/script to in-production/rough-cut/finishing, so from not financed to partially financed (that is called “commissioned”).

My project is part of the Romanian stand (choose Romania at the right and click on “view all” at the left) and it is listed as a project in development.

I will describe more how financing a documentary works throughout this blog, so please come again!

A great new thing made up by the IDFA team: a summer school which, unlike the IDFA Academy, is a 

hands-on workshop, where you actually work on your project - in my case, already a rough cut.

Learn more on IDFA’s website.

To see the pics open this post separately, otherwise when you click “next” you’ll have to scroll down to this post.

Everyone welcomed!

Have you watched the clip above, “Episode 1: Thanking List”? Back then, in May 2008, I was still shooting for the film. I had my gear and myself installed in one of the rooms in C&E’s home, and I was dreaming of a proper editing room and its’ effect to the actual edit. Well, later last year, I actually did set up my editing suite in their room. It was the crucial editing period: getting the first rough-cut. Or, getting from the 8 hour assembly to a 3h40m first rough cut. I could only stay there for one month, but this month was MAGIC and it did wonders to my perception towards the film and to the film itself.

The first days of editing I had to do a different type of “cutting and pasting”:

But in the end I set up my “editing suite” and I began serious work.

My editing set-up is a MacPro with a 24” DELL and a 20” Apple Display, LaCie external drives and internal Raid drives, an Alesis external sound card and, very important, an UPS. I also have a MacBookPro which I actually used for logging and capturing all the 67 hours of HDV footage.

This period of editing in my characters’ home was really interesting, and I documented it on video, also. This will be really interesting for my making-of episodes, for which I hope I’ll soon have the time to create.

Editing this film out of over 60 hours of footage, was a big challenge. The first “assembly” was 7 hours 17 minutes. The one I’m working now, in Madrid is now just over 2 hours. The final version for IDFA will be 100 minutes. And trust me, cutting out 20 minutes is not easy!

Here are pictures of the Final Cut timelines:

Which one is your favorite?

To view the pics, please open this post separately. Otherwise, you might need to scroll down to it each time you press “next”.

Though I failed in updating this blog as regularly as I first intended, there’re a lot of things happening on the Facebook page of the film. This proved to be very useful in actually bringing people to my screenings (so far in Bucharest, Paris and London), so I try to keep up and regularly update the page with news and screening.

Of the most interesting things that are going on there, I’d mention the chance to ask Constantin and Elena your question (you post the question in the Topic page, and I interview them answering it!). I already shot the first interview with the first four question, and the clips will be online, soon.

I also just uploaded a video of IDFA awards ceremony, when the First Appearance Award went to… Constantin and Elena.

So, please join me on Facebook. Click on “Become a Fan” to receive updates.

The year of glory for my film has finished. The year, not the glory…
The film has been to 23 festivals in 13 countries and is broadcasted by televisions in Korea, Japan, Finland, Spain, Portugal and Romania.
I have visited most of the festivals that screened my film, all over Europe, Russia and South Korea (a complete list, below).
I have met wonderful audiences who always fell in love with Constantin and Elena.
Guardian.co.uk’s David Parkinson has included C&E in the “Top 10 films of 2009 you probably won’t have seen” [read here].
And… it’s not finished! 5 new selections for beginning of 2010 and the long-waited US premiere!

Thank you all for watching, supporting, recommending, selecting, broadcasting my film and for reading this website.
From me, and from Constantin and Elena, a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

With this special occasion, I dug up some footage shot in late December 2007.
Never-before-seen, a special “Happy New Year” scene from the raw footage of my film.
You can watch it only by logging in to your Facebook account. And if you do so, please go to C&E Facebook Page and become a fan. It’s the easiest way to keep in touch, to watch special content like photos from festivals or video clips and to get notice of new screenings, news and events.

Please go to the Facebook Page of C&E and become a fan! You can watch more videos there!

Probably the biggest thrill after the selection in IDFA is premiering in the US. After trying to get into many, MANY US festivals, I really started to wonder what isn’t working with my film and American selectors. Now I think it was worth the waiting!

Please go to the Facebook Screening at MoMA page to get the details or get in touch with me. Please pass the word on to everyone you know in New York. This being an US premiere, it is very important to have a good audience!

• 2010 February 25th 4:30pm & 26th 7:00pm | New York, USA* | MOMA Documentary Fortnight [link]