Al Gomez
Sat 18 Feb 2006
•
Hello, documentary filmmakers. I am glad to have run across your
community as I have been involved in the entertainment industry for
over 25 years now and have never forayed into the documentary world...
until now. It is an exciting and thoroughly engrossing field. This
is how I got involved... I was producing a little movie in New Orleans
when Hurricane Katrina changed my life, the lives of my director and
his family, as well as thousands of others. My director, James L.
Bills had taken his Sony FX-1 hi-def camera with him when he evacuated
to a downtown New Orleans hotel. He thought he was going to capture
some storm footage as it glanced by the city, but as history has
already proven, that didn't happen. Instead, the storm hit head on,
and the city was flooded. He was in there capturing not only the
natural disaster, but the man-made disaster that followed. I was in
the Baton Rouge area when he finally informed me that he and his
family were alright. A few days later, he made his way to Corpus
Christi, TX, and we decided to create a documentary about his
experience. With the help of Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Corp., who was
so kind as to send us an editing bay, we put together a
work-in-progress over the period of a month. After getting feedback
from various distributors, and other experienced documentarians, we
have now completed our first feature documentary entitled "Refuge of
Last Resort". I now have such a deep appreciation for the documentary
process, and I salute all of you who endeavor to make films that
matter! Thank you for letting me share with you this experience that
has changed my life!
community as I have been involved in the entertainment industry for
over 25 years now and have never forayed into the documentary world...
until now. It is an exciting and thoroughly engrossing field. This
is how I got involved... I was producing a little movie in New Orleans
when Hurricane Katrina changed my life, the lives of my director and
his family, as well as thousands of others. My director, James L.
Bills had taken his Sony FX-1 hi-def camera with him when he evacuated
to a downtown New Orleans hotel. He thought he was going to capture
some storm footage as it glanced by the city, but as history has
already proven, that didn't happen. Instead, the storm hit head on,
and the city was flooded. He was in there capturing not only the
natural disaster, but the man-made disaster that followed. I was in
the Baton Rouge area when he finally informed me that he and his
family were alright. A few days later, he made his way to Corpus
Christi, TX, and we decided to create a documentary about his
experience. With the help of Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Corp., who was
so kind as to send us an editing bay, we put together a
work-in-progress over the period of a month. After getting feedback
from various distributors, and other experienced documentarians, we
have now completed our first feature documentary entitled "Refuge of
Last Resort". I now have such a deep appreciation for the documentary
process, and I salute all of you who endeavor to make films that
matter! Thank you for letting me share with you this experience that
has changed my life!