American Circumcision will screen at the Social Justice Film Festival in Seattle, WA on Sunday, November 19, 2017 at 6pm at the Rainier Arts Center (3515 S Alaska Street Seattle, WA 98118).

Pre-order tickets here: http://www.socialjusticefilmfestival.org/?tribe_events=american-circumcision

RSVP for the event on Facebook here: https://www.facebook.com/events/120997145270201/

Please come and invite your friends!

Update: If you want to hang posters for our event, you can download them here (right click, save as).

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American Circumcision has been accepted to two film festivals!

American Circumcision will screen at the 2017 Lone Star Film Festival in Forth Worth, TX (Nov 8-12). http://lonestarfilmfestival.com/

American Circumcision has also been accepted to the 2017 Social Justice Film Festival in Seattle, WA. http://www.socialjusticefilmfestival.org/

For the Social Justice Film Festival screening in Seattle, we’re told the film will screen Sunday November 19, 6pm at the Rainer Arts Center. Tickets will be available online and at the door. We have already created a Facebook event for the screening here.

We don’t have exact screening details for the Lone Star Film Festival yet, but we’ve been told the screening will likely be Saturday afternoon, November 11.

We’re really excited about both these festivals, and hope to see you there. If you can’t make it, don’t worry – there will definitely be more screenings.

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Big news everyone…

The film is done. We have the final movie, with final sound mix, final end credits, final titles, final color, etc. This week we’re even exporting the final files we’d need to play in a movie theater. That thing we set out to make, we have made.

I’ll have a lot of news in the coming months as we plan our release, and do an update later breaking down what that process looks like. It’s going to be a lot of work, but by now you should know we’re up to it.

Thank you for supporting our film.

First the main news – we are on the home stretch – another 2-3 weeks on post-production, and then we are DONE, and the film will be 100% ready for festivals and theaters.

Originally, we were going to be done the last day of July, but two things happened 1) color-correction took longer than anticipated, and 2) I decided to make some changes to the edit of film. I’m actually glad the first happened, because it gave me the time to make the call on the second.

If you’re just wondering “when can I see the film” – that hasn’t changed. We left well over a month between final export and first potential festival screening. But if you’re wondering what we’ve been up to the past month, it’s story time…

Changing the Edit

I went out to dinner with a producer friend to talk about distribution ideas for the film. Producer-friend has made multiple documentaries, some of which have been in theaters. He likes our film, gets the issue, and had a lot of good ideas for how we could get this film to the world.

At the end of chatting, he asked what the runtime was. I told him – 1 hour 46 min. He gave me a look and said, “that’s a little long…” I felt it when he said it. On the drive home, I began editing the film in my head (that’s how well I know it at this point). There were two small moments that always bothered me, but I knew if I took them out, I’d have to take out even more.

I messaged my post-production crew and said I was thinking of making some changes. Making changes after picture lock would mean creating a lot more work for sound and music. Every change has to have the exact timecode logged, so you can make the same change to sound. Thankfully, they said they could make it work, and that if I was going to make changes, now was the time to do it.

Forty-eight hours later, I’d taken five minutes out of the film, taking the runtime from 1 hour and 46 minutes to 1 hr and 41 minutes with credits. That may not seem like a lot, but perception-wise it’s the difference between “almost two hours” and “a little over an hour and a half.” For a person or couple on the fence about whether or not they’ll watch the film, that could make the difference between seeing it and not seeing it.

I think it also strengthened the film. When I showed the new edit to my producer-friend he said it was much better. Looking at it again, I felt the same. It flows much better, and the weakest moments – things a hater might latch on to and make the center of their criticism – are gone.

Our goal is to make a film that people are still taking about and recommend ten years later, so if adding another week to the post schedule means this film will be that much better, so be it.

Color

Color was a bit tricky, because our colorist was in Los Angeles and we had to work remotely. Part of the reason it took longer was because we had some technical difficulties with the way changes were being sent back and forth. Because of his schedule, it meant we had to do some late nights, where we could both be on a shared screen and see the changes.

That said, the film looks WAY better now, and the images are really going to pop with a visual aesthetic that is far superior to anything you’ve seen in our trailers thus far.

Home Stretch

So right now, we are on the home stretch. Sound is 90% mixed. End credits are done. Color correction is done. Music is done. Right now, someone is making the title cards, and sound is making those last few tweaks to the mix. Sometime later this week or early next we’ll have our final sound mix and get this out the door.

Then the real fun begins. Promoting the film.

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We are going to decide where we screen our documentary American Circumcision based on where we have the most supporters from on our email list.

That means if you want a screening near you, sign up for our email list here and enter your zip code.

If we know a ton of people in your area want to see this film, we’ll definitely have a screening. If only a few, it’s less likely. That means if you want a screening, tell your friends to sign-up too.

Theatrical screenings will start until after we’ve done film festivals.

Note: If you’re already on our email list, check for a link at the bottom of our next email to update your profile and add your zip code.

This update was origionally published for Kickstarter backers here.

Work on our film continues to go well. Here are the latest developments:

Music

This month we finished a first pass of music, and let me tell you – it is really good. Way better than any documentary score deserves to be. We still have a few minor changes and revisions, but it’s definitely brought out some new layers in the film. It’s amazing how music can elevate a film and make it feel like a bit movie.

Post-Production

Everything else is close. Sound is basically there, mostly just waiting for music. Color correction still has a bit to go, but it’s don track. We’ve also got a post supervisor now who’s going to help us with final end titles and exporting the film in the right format for every platform including theaters.

Currently, we anticipate that all post-production will be done by the end of July. 

Bonus Features

Part of our release strategy from the begining has been to include a huge amount of bonus features. While the film is a stand-alone piece that will make sense on it’s own and appeal to audiences with zero previous knowledge about this topic, we know a lot of you are activists, medical professionals, birth educators, or just people who want additional information, who might be interested in additional material.

Currently the special features are going to include mini-bonus docs on specific areas (such as female genital cutting), deleted/bonus scenes, and extended interviews. We’re still deciding how much to include, so let us know if there is anything you’re curious to see in the bonus features – like a specific interview subject in an extended interview, or a topic that might not be covered in depth in the main film.

Distribution

There is an old film joke – a director and an studio executive are talking. The director says, “there’s three stages to making a movie: pre-production, production, and post-production. “No,” the studio executive replies. “There are two stages – making the movie, and selling the movie.” I tend to agree with the studio executive here.

This past month, I have been reading everything I can on indepedent distribution, consulting with other filmmakers, and developing a plan. We are going to have to treat distribution as it’s own separate stage, which could be as big as making the project itself. Doing this stage right might mean raising additional funds or bringing in additional help, so that this film reaches those beyond our current sphere of influence, and becomes a movement, not just a moment.

I’m developing a plan here, but I’d like to save talking about it till the next update or later. Just know that we’re working on it, and that getting this film out to the world will be it’s own crazy adventure. We want this film to be seen by as many people as possible, and that means taking it’s release as seriously as we’ve taken making the project itself.

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Tl;dr version: it all continues to go well. Let us know on social media know what bonus features you’re looking forward to. Distribution plans are in the works.