When Corporate FM won the AMC Documentary feature award, I was very proud and shocked at the same time. I didn’t feel like the film was completely done. One of the judges (Rudd Simmons, The Life Aquatic, High Fidelity) gave me this advice: “Tour with this film for a year, and sit with every audience who sees your film. Then you can re-edit it.” I’m so thankful that I took his advice. Along the way, it won an Audience Favorite Award and I had Q & A sessions with very diverse crowds. I took a year off to let things settle; then rented an edit suite in the stock yards of Kansas City. The film was completely disassembled here. Some characters were added, some deleted. Entire scenes fell to the cutting room floor (you can see them in the DVD extras). Even a song by the Capsules made it in. During this time I fell in love with film-making all over again. If I felt like the film needed a shot from the mountains, I’d go to the mountains and shoot it. I rediscovered the process of deliberate story construction guided by the creative inquiry within.
With my 2 cork boards of note cards showing plot points (Walter Munch style), I cut the film we have today.
A nice thing about feeling “done” is that I can now pursue things like TV and VOD (Video on Demand). It’s been a long road to get here, but I find that the film and I are better for it. -KM