Tag Archives: editing

WSB Documentary Teaser

The 48th annual World Series of Bocce kicks off today at the Toccolana Club in my hometown of Rome, New York. In celebration of the opening of the tournament, I want to share a teaser for our indie, work-in-progress documentary that hopefully captures the history, spirit, intense competition, and community impact of the WSB.

My lifelong friend and co-producer Bill Vinci and I had talked for many years about doing a documentary on the WSB. And I’m excited because I can see the light at the end of the tunnel as I work with award-winning editor Mary Kasprzyk (my colleague at SU) to complete a project fraught with problems.

A little backstory. As producer/director, I received a Russo Brothers Italian American Film Forum production grant in April of 2020. A special “thank you” to the National Italian American Foundation (NIAF), the Italian Sons and Daughters of America (ISDA), the Russo Brothers, and AGBO.

However, COVID intervened, and the cancellation of the WSB in 2020 and 2021 prohibited us from capturing on-scene interviews and tournament B-roll footage. Then, after filming was completed at last year’s event, a post-production quagmire threatened to terminate the project. Now the doc is back on track and in the trusted hands of Mary K. We’re hoping to complete a roughly 15 to 20-minute documentary short before the end of the year. The working title is The World Series of Bocce: A Celebration of Sport, Family and Community.

Here are a few “producing” lessons I learned along the way. One: I know cloud storage is more reliable, but I still believe media should be backed up on multiple external hard drives stored in different locations. Transferring all the raw footage shot last summer to a $150 hard drive literally saved this project. Two: In working within tight budget constraints, you must accept your limitations—reconciling the disparity between the film you envision and the film you can actually produce. Three: the most valuable currency in indie film production is the relationships you make with your collaborators. There’s no substitute for working with people you know and trust and who are committed to their craft and the successful outcome of a project.

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Purging Paperwork

Here are some remnants from the second draft edit of my work-in-progress memoir.

I’m in the process of moving, and it felt good to purge these pages from my “working” tote. I’m taking a little break from the project in hopes I can go from a “shitty” first draft to a “not so shitty” second draft to a “totally mediocre” third draft—and down the line until I arrive at “somewhere near decent.” I’m afraid that could take me some time. But I will persist.

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Back to the Blog

It’s been too long since my last entry. I’ve been busy with work, family, creative side projects and a recent bout with a stomach flu (now resolved).

Winter has given way to spring-like weather in Central New York, although I’m not hauling my winter coat to the dry cleaner just yet.

And I wanted to return to the blog because today I made some interesting visual discoveries that I wanted to share. I left my cubicle at the office this afternoon to join one of my colleagues on a B-roll video shoot at Shaffer Art Building on the campus of Syracuse University. Some College of Visual and Performing Arts’ students were working on a professional film shoot for a project written and directed by a VPA professor.

While I stood in the hallway, I took notice of my surroundings and captured these images.

Light hitting wall. Photo by Francis DiClemente.

Steenbeck. Photo by Francis DiClemente.

I was so excited to see this Steenbeck editing machine. It made me think of Martin Scorsese’s longtime editor, Thelma Schoonmaker. I’m sure she edited some projects on a Steenbeck. I actually used one when I was a graduate film student at American University in the early 1990s. The machinery is now a dinosaur in a non-linear, Adobe Premiere/Avid/Final Cut world.

The next two images were terse, profound statements that I consider poetry. The words made me stop, pay attention and ponder their meaning. I wish I had the author’s name to give proper credit and supreme praise.

Selfishness and Loneliness. Photo by Francis DiClemente.

Pray to be Loved. Photo by Francis DiClemente.

 

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Essay: I Close My Eyes When I Edit

I have a short essay that’s published in the June 2016 online edition of Post Magazine. The piece recounts a technique I use in editing video projects at Syracuse University. You can read the story here.

And here are images of my editing workstation that are relevant to the story.

Avid Media Composer workstation

Avid Media Composer workstation

Avid Media Composer screen shot

Close-up of video timeline in Avid Media Composer

Office wall

Office wall

 

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