Duane Fahey

RE: 9919 - Hot Cocoa

Dear Duane

Thank you for submitting your film to the 2006 Sundance Film Festival. Regretfully, I must inform you that it was not selected by our committee. We appreciate having had the opportunity to view your work, and want you to know that the decision was a difficult one, as we saw many more worthy films than we had space for.

I would like to wish you the best of luck with this project and your forthcoming work. I hope that you will give the festival the same consideration in the future.

Sincerely,

Geoffrey Gilmore
Director, Sundance Film Festival

This is a still captured from the very end of the interview portion of the film. This sepia version was used for the initial DVD photo, when the DVD menu is still loading. This photo was also used for the paper on the DVD cover, for the DVD that was sent to Sundance.

At this point, I actually committed. I registered with Sundance, filling out online forms for submission of this short. I also purchased hotcocoamovie.com and the web space. One of the questions on the form was a web site address, so this all happened about the same time.

I decided to actually make the short, so I decided that a G5 with a bigger hard disk was in order. And I decided to buy Final Cut Express HD. I thought about Final Cut Pro, but decided to learn the express version, and perhaps upgrade to Pro later, if I ever make another movie.

I think I've been to the Waterfront Film Festival 3 times now. When leaving this one, a few shorts convinced me that maybe my idea of using the Hot Cocoa footage was not too far fetched. I found myself enjoying simple shorts, that were quick and funny.

I don't remember for sure if this had Mac OSX, but I think it did, and was dual boot with Mac OS9. With this computer, I first experimented with iMovie and iDVD, bringing in old footage with a Dazzle thing, to convert the VCR output to Firewire. I then created a few DVDs for family, of old footage.

I don't remember the exact date and time, but I was living in Milwaukee, and I was home for Christmas. I shot some footage of Joshua and Paul playing in the snow. Later, as we were having Hot Cocoa, I set the camcorder down on top of a piece of tupperware that held the powdered cocoa.

I found that by setting the camera down, and simply twisting it now and then, aiming at the 2 boys, they tended to forget that it was on, and simply talk to me.

I think there was about 25 minutes of footage, much of it out of focus and so-on. It was a cheap VHS-C camcorder.