Magda has been asked by the Blanton Art Museum, to knit 99 trees as a part of this Spring's Explore UT event. Because of the Blanton's limited funds, and her busy schedule, Magda thought it would be better to extend this project to the community. She put out a call for interested knitters and was blown away by the response. This is what they sent out:
"On March 5, The Blanton plaza will be turned into a knitted wonderland! All 99 trees between the Michener and Smith buildings will be yarn-bombed by internationally recognized textile artist Magda Sayeg, in celebration of Explore UT, the University's annual open house. To make this vision a reality, we need your help!" They thought they would get a 100 people, basically a person per tree and they got a little over double that.
Joe wanted to come help film this event in hopes that it will benefit the bumper. He also wanted to listen and make notes on what to shoot later. Plus he hadn't met Magda yet.
My friend, Evan Ho, came out to help Joe and I film the preliminary meeting at the Blanton. We had the Panasonic HVX, Canon 7D (Joe's) and the Canon 60D (John's). We kept the HVX static and ran the audio through it as well. We put Lavs on Magda and had a shotgun mic pointed at the speakers. Joe and I were on the sides, grabbing B Roll of the audience in the auditorium. I mostly cared about the audio because Magda explained the project. Joe and I share lenses and shot things here and there. The Blanton was really helpful and supportive of us filming. They even made a blanket release form that everyone who came signed. We got some good stuff.
I'm really excited to be following this project. The energy in the room was amazing. I think it will be more fun filming the knitters putting up their work and all the eager eyes watching.
My boyfriend, John Spotswood Moore, has probably seen more documentaries than anyone else I know. Since I told him about my project, he has been grilling me on my story, structure, game plan. "Is it going to be retrospective or lead towards an event?" he asks me. "is it going to be Cinéma vérité or more direct cinema?" I have been playfully calling him my Documentary Drill Sergent. Lately, I've been more under this mindset of, I'll let it figure its self out--I don't want to make it be anything, I just want it to be. This apparently is the flaky way of thought.
Because we just moved into a new apartment and because we both don't make a lot of money, we put a price limit on our Christmas gifts, nothing more than $50. 
I got him The Mighty Ducks and Fantastic Mr. Fox on DVD, which are two of his favorite movies, plus a nice coffee grinder. John got me what he calls the Documentary Survival Starter Gift Set which includes 4 documentaries on DVD and a book plus he has offered to be my producer. The DVDs are Trouble the Water, Babies, Young at Heart, and Barak and the book is Making Documentary Films and Videos: A Practical Guide to Planning, Filming, and Editing Documentaries by Barry Hampe. It was a really great gift. He even wrote in the cover of the book "To Sarah, my love, producer, and best friend, always remember that my time with you has been more entertaining and exciting than any movie ever made." I got a little gushy when I read that.
I'm feeling pretty good about this and my new diet of documentary watching. I can do this and it's going to be awesome.
My old South by Southwest boss, Joe Nicolosi, asked me if I was interested in producing the Bumpers for this year's festival. If you don't know, bumpers are the short little narratives that play before a screening at a festivals. Television stations also use bumpers to advertise for themselves. TBS, MTV, and Nickelodeon are pretty famous for their these. I was really honored that he wanted 
my help and happily accepted.
He had to pitch his ideas to SXSW Film Festival but they already like a couple them. They ended up picking four of his pithces, but wanted him to come up with a few more to play in front of the documentaries at the festival. I told him about THIS knitting documentary I was doing and offered to let him use a piece of it as the doc bumper. He, and his bosses, loved the idea and now here we are. The basic idea for the bumper is that we will take a piece of a good interview, splice in some B Roll of knitting and yarn bombing, then have Magda or someone yarn bomb the camera.
I'm a little nervous of how his bumper will portray my subject matter, but I'm excited by the prospect of it creating a lot of buzz. He's going to put up a credit that says, "for more information about this documentary please go here..." I just hope Joe and I don't step on each others' toes. On one hand, this is my documentary and on the other hand, this is his bumper. I'm sure it will be fine. We've worked together before.
By the way, Here's my favorite bumper from last year's SXSW: Sewing Machine.
On a whim, I facebook messaged Magda Sayeg (aka Knitta of 
www.knittaplease.com) and she actually responded! She's in Buenos Aires at the moment but gave me her assistant's email and instructions to set up a meeting time. Hell yeah! She's kind of a rock star to me. I spent a couple of hours getting every internet article in which she's been featured and printing them out. I didn't realize how big this movement really was. It was impossible to read them all in one sitting. At least now I have something to read while I'm home, or at the bus stop, or need break from editing.
Magda has some interesting projects coming up this spring. She's teaching a knitting class at the Griffin School, the high school that dreams are made of. Most of her work is elsewhere, very little is in Austin. She recently knit some stuff for the ACL music festival and had some other work up during the East Austin Studios Tour (EAST). There's also a gigt coming up for the Blanton Art Museum. I'm hoping that I will be able to travel with her to her next locales, like Rome, Argentina, and New York. Oh yeah, one more thing. This knitta Queen Bee and I are having our first sit down next week!
I have decided that I am going to make a documentary. I know I can do it and have always wanted to...so why not? Sure, I don't have any money, equipment, or real connections, but I have ambition and the will to make it right. I'm really fascinated by urban art and, more specificly, this whole knitted graffiti thing going on. I recently realized the leader of the movement lives in Austin. Maybe she will let me film her and tag along. Here goes nothing!
"On March 5, The Blanton plaza will be turned into a knitted wonderland! All 99 trees between the Michener and Smith buildings will be yarn-bombed by internationally recognized textile artist Magda Sayeg, in celebration of Explore UT, the University's annual open house. To make this vision a reality, we need your help!" They thought they would get a 100 people, basically a person per tree and they got a little over double that.
