See a Screening of TransGeek!

TransGeek movie posterWe have a busy few months ahead of us. Before Thanksgiving.

TransGeek will  be screened at six festivals and 2 community viewings. We will be traveling to 4 countries, across 3 continents, and everyplace we go we are looking forward to meeting our supporters and fans.

Head over to our Screenings page to see where you can find us and how to get tickets.

If you are in the LA area we can hook you up with discount tickets to our screening at the Awareness Film Festival on Oct. 5th; but you need to act before Sep. 27th! Go here and leave us your information.

Click here to register

We’re so excited!

You can fix it in post…

We have been very pleased with how powerful and compelling a film TransGeek turned out to be. And yet, there are those professional touches that make all the difference. Color correction is one of those touches. I spent last week in New York City working with Aharon Rothschild of Possible Impossible to work on those rough bits that arise when the pressure of getting an interview compromises the quality of the image. The results were dramatic. Ari is a master of his craft, and TransGeek is looking fine.

Color correction

…and none too soon

That’s right. We have a screening coming up on Sunday, July 8th in Charlotte NC. Thanks to the sponsorship of Transcend Charlotte, Time Out Youth, and PFLAG Charlotte. we will be doing a free community screening. You can find tickets here.

…prefer a cooler climate?

We will be screening at the public library in Ottawa, Ontario on Aug 23rd, as part of Capital Pride! We will post details about the screening time as soon as they are available.

…and then there are the laurels.

We have been accepted to our first festival! Tilde, Melbourne Trans & Gender Diverse Film Festival; in Victoria, Australia in November. We are very excited, and are looking into ways to travel to Melbourne to participate in the festival.

 

More screenings are in the works, and we await the decisions of more festivals. We will let you know when TransGeek will be in your city.

Thanks to all of you for making this all possible.


Edit 3/Jul/2017 14:47EDT:

Edit to correct typos, insert color correction image, and delete reference to Luststreifen – Queer Film Festival. Due to a change in personnel at the festival, the acceptance we received was erroneous.

Getting to the Finish Line

We can see the finish line from here!

Tartan Track CCO by anncaIt’s been a long road. I sat down to do the first interview for TransGeek nearly six years ago. In that time we have recorded the stories of dozens of folks. We have seen hope grow, and had our hopes dashed. We have seen our world change in ways that we could not have imagined. After all this time, TransGeek remains an important and timely project.

As I look for the final bits of b-roll and Lisa polishes the final edit, we are facing a few more challenges to getting these amazing stories on the big screen. So what’s left to do? Color correction, sound mix, motion graphics, promotion, web extras…and more.

Enough more that our funding is beginning to run short. We have reserved what we need to fulfill the rewards we owe our wonderful and oh-so-patient Kickstarter supporters. But that leaves us a nearly zero balance in the production account.

So what to do?

Grant Writing CCO by jarmolukWe are applying for completion grants, a form of funding specifically intended to aid independent film productions that find themselves in this sort of situation. Producers with films that are essentially finished can seek funding to put those final touches on and get their film in front of an audience. This is where you come in…

WANTED: Grant Writer

If you agree with us that TransGeek is an important project and have some experience writing grants, we could use your help.

We are all working hard to get the film out. By enlisting the aid of someone with grant writing experience, the rest of the team would be able to concentrate on the work best suited to their talents.

Want to help? Know someone else who could? Email me, Tweet at me, or Leave a message on Facebook. Together we can make sure that these remarkable stories are seen by a wide audience.

Seeking screeners:

As TransGeek Movie moves into post production, we are looking for a small group of people willing to view work-in-progress cuts, and give us detailed feedback/criticism. If you are interested, please message us on Facebook or DM us on Twitter.

You can see a synopsis of the film, and read about our team at our “About” page.TransGeek Movie

 

Gaming History, “Old Sküül” Style

Occasionally I take advantage of my privilege as a documentarian.  Last weekend, Dark Tower coverinterviewing Jennell Jaquays and Rebecca Heineman was one of those times:

I was fortunate enough to find a copy of Jennell’s D&D module. “Dark Tower” on eBay, and brought it along to our interview at Olde Sküül. She graciously consented to autograph her work.

The inscription is for the members of a D&D campaign lead by my co-producer Mallory.

Jennell's Autograph

Mal seemed pleased when

The Newest Addition to Our Team

Mallory Anna Wood

We have a new co-producer joining us.

Mallory Anna Wood is a trans lesbian feminist activist and writer. She’s also a tabletop and PC gamer, a cartoon and horror film fanatic, and a huge science nerd.

Mallory’s involvement in the film began as a friend and general cultural consultant, and has slowly metamorphosed into her current role as co-producer. She adds a critical transfeminine perspective to the production team, as well as keeping the project aware of and involved in trans youth culture and activism.

[Edited to update bio. 13/Nov/2018]

 

Well Deserved Recognition

Sayer Johnson honored at Trans100, 2015

Sayer Johnson  photo courtesy of Meg Hensley and the http://steppingforwardproject.com/ for more info on this amazing project please check out the website.Our friend, and the producer/assistant director of TransGeek Movie, Sayer Johnson, was named as one of the 2015 Trans100 last night!

Sayer is a parent, partner, artist, social worker, and lifelong activist. He proudly identifies as a queer transgender man. Sayer sits on the board of the LGBT Center of St Louis; and is President and Co-founder of the Metro Trans Umbrella Group. Sayer worked with MTUG and The University of Missouri St. Louis, to help create the first conference on transgender issues in the St Louis Metro region. He has a screenplay called “Intentional” in pre-production. Sayer has also helped to bring the stories of trans people to NPR’s acclaimed “StoryCorps.” He spends as much of his time as he can with his family and working to help create power for transgender people in St. Louis and the metro east regions.

Sayer Johnson  honored at Trans100, 2015Without Sayer’s friendship, encouragement, and patient guidance; their would be no TransGeek Movie. He has guided every step of production; schmoozing with potential participants; and gently guiding my understanding of the cost and rewards of living an authentic life. Sayer is a fierce and loving advocate in all he does. This film is only a small part of his amazing work. I am very lucky to count him as a friend and creative partner.

Congratulations Sayer on a well deserved honor. You are awesome and we love you!

 

Methods of work: Testing the design and automation of lower thirds.

From the nightly news, (does anyone watch that anymore?) to mocumentaries, directors have found it necessary to identify the person speaking on camera. The typical device that is used to do this is the “lower third”. So named for it position, (occupying the lower third of the frame, below the image of the speaker).

For TransGeek Movie, I wanted to design a lower third that was visually interesting, distinctive, and easy to reproduce It should not, however, disrupt the viewer’s experience of the voice of the person on camera.

17 (16) segment display

I have not settled on a final design yet, but I think I will be using an animated lower third that emulates an old school, 17 segment, alphanumeric display.  This is easy to read, and adds a bit of geeky eye-candy.

Testing the design and automation of lower thirds.There will be many lower thirds throughout the film. Composing and animating each would be far too much work to do manually; and prone to error. Automation is a lovely thing.

I designed a template in Inkscape, an open source vector editing package. I then wrote a bash script that modifies the template with the appropriate text. It outputs the individual customized frames, using Inkscape’s command line interface; and then strings it all together into the final animation using  avconv. ImageMagick is used for creating the key channel.
I am currently using Kdenlive as my editor and compositor.

The result is satisfactory. At least until I get a real graphic artist and editor on board.

It doesn’t hurt that my test clip features Mattie Brice sharing some wise insights.

Edited 16 Dec. 2014 for clarity.