COVID19 has created havoc in the film community. So, how has it affected
"Being Mennonite in America?"Fortunately, to this point, it has had only a marginal effect.Why? Because over the past year Mary and I, along with our crew, have been very busy recording interviews. Interviews that needed to have the video format converted from camera format to editing format. They also all needed to be transcribed, entered into a text document and edited, then reviewed along with the video so that time-codes could be tagged onto the text. This allows us, when finding a comment in the transcription that we want to include in the documentary, to very quickly find it in the more than 50 hours of video interview files. Frankly, we were behind on this intensive process. Too many interviews coming at us too quickly. Covid19 isolation has allowed us to complete the necessary processing of all the completed interviews!Yes, we had to cancel scheduled interviews when Covid19 hit. In the future, we'll be needing to continue recording video interviews on topics not yet covered. But even more critical in the short term will be the necessity to once again access national, regional and local archives, all of which closed due to Covid19. While we accessed some of the Mennonite and other peace libraries earlier, and limited content is available online from some archives, we need additional material from other archives to round out the documentary.In the meantime, we'll be editing the opening scenes plus the first section of the documentary which will cover Mennonite experiences during WWI. This will keep us busy through the summer months and into the fall. Later, further isolation may begin to affect the production. We will then need to decide how we can gather the additional scenes we'll need to finish the documentary while observing the health precautions that will surely persist. I've been meeting on-line with documentary producers world-wide to discuss best practices that the film community is adopting in response to Covid19.
Below you can view a short clip I've edited of video we previously recorded.
Reedley, California is using a creative Restorative Justice program to divert high school students with minor infractions from the criminal justice system. It's a partnership between West Coast Mennonite Central Committee and other community agencies, along with the Police Department and the local school district. This initiative grows out of local Mennonite's efforts to provide a peace-based alternative in their community. It's a model other schools and police departments are adopting.
Tina Siemens
Calvin King
Bob Gerber