Prodigal Altar Boy Blog 180-Day Countdown: Prologue

Prodigal Altar Boy Blog

180-Day Countdown
T+3 Days and Counting

Prologue

The “Last Hundred Days of 2011” experiment was a success.  Now it is time to stretch out.  At the end of the month, I will be part of Karen Everett’s “Inner Circle 6.0,” which is a six-month program where a group of filmmakers gets together with Karen for group consultation to move their documentary projects along. 

Taking what I learned from the 100-day blog experiment, I am going to do a 180-day blog.  My goal is to blog every day for six months.

Here are my goals for those 180 days:

Goal 1:  2 hours per day working on the film

Goal 2:  30 minutes per day music practice

Goal 3:  30 minutes exercise per day

Now that TQ is gone, finishing the documentary has to move up to the front burner.  In fact, it may have to occupy both front burners (and the back two, too!).  It is just that important.  My mother tells me that TQ made the front page of the Virginian Pilot. I will post that down the road.

What I do have for you is a 1974 TIME Magazine article about TQ.  The title point to what my original thesis for the documentary, the media attention TQ garnered when he did his shock liturgy caused people to fixate on the media hype rather than the adaptation of the Gospel to the 20^th (and 21^st) century. 

The article is important because it captures a pivotal point in TQ’s journey, as he moves from predominantly white suburban northern Virginia parish to the predominantly African-American urban parish in Norfolk Virginia. I think TQ really hit his stride during his stay at St. Mary’s.  While riding in a Volkswagen or on a forklift into church woke people up, the double adaptation, fusing contemporary cinema and Broadway to the liturgy would blow their minds.  Once launched, it would be impossible to see where the show left off and the liturgy began.  TQ explained at length, “These weren’t gimmicks,” the liturgy committee planned the entire liturgy out.

Read the article

TQ Project Updates

TQ Project Updates
 
Just because I haven’t been blogging about the documentary (The TQ Project) doesn’t mean nothing is going on with it.
In late August, Kathleen McBlair and Jean Klein of ScriptWorks Press published a collection of TQ’s writings, homilies and rants entitled “A Reluctant Malachi.”  The book was not a surprise because in May TQ invited me to interview Kathleen and Jean (as well as TQ) about the book.  I have a short YouTube Video from that interview.
 
While the book was not a surprise, it was a wake-up call.  My initial reaction to the publication was to make plans to shoot some footage of the book signing events TQ had set up to promote the book.  During the planning stages for those shoots, my heart just was not in it.  After a lot of prayer and introspection, I realized the reason I didn’t want to shoot them was I needed to move on to the next phase of production.  
 
TQ  picked up on this well before I did.  Even before the may shoot, he was constantly asking me, “Don’t you have enough yet?”  I would laugh and say, “Probably so, but I want to make sure.”  Looking back I see I wanted to shoot absolutely everything I would need to be ready for the next phase of production.  That works for film school, but not in life.  It is nearly embarrassing that in the midst of doing a documentary about a man of great faith, and spending hours  and hours in his presence, listening to him talk about God, scripture, faith  and Christianity, not much seemed to be sinking in regarding moving in God’s time.  
 
So here I am, out of the comfort zone of shooting and in the discomfort of logging and editing all the footage I have shot.  I got so involved (and evolved) in shooting I nearly lost sight of the fact that I still had the rest of the process to go.  A very good friend, Chris Schafer, told me to watch the movie “Exit Through The Gift Shop.”  Ostensibly  a documentary about a guy making a documentary  about street art, there is a scene where the protagonist  looks at box after box of tapes he’s shot, and realizes he’s shot so much he does not know where to start in the editing process.  
 
Before I can edit, I have to fine tune the  dramatic arc of the movie.  Yes, this is a documentary, and even documentaries follow the three-act format.  Crafting the dramatic arc of the story comes down to determining what it is TQ wants and what the obstacles are to that goal.  While I have my original thesis to work with, answering those questions in the context of the footage requires a refinement of that thesis. And I thought I was finished with that!
 
So, hang on as we move to the next level.  I will spend a lot of time analyzing what TQ wants (not hard, it’s all there), finding the supporting footage and editing that into 90-120 minutes of watchable film.  Now THAT’s a challenge.
 
Thanks for checking out the blog.  Leave comments and let me know what’s on your mind.

Peace
Cal  

Blog Improvement Plan (Part 3 )

Blog Improvement Plan (Part 3)

Audience (continued)

Here is the task from the Capstone Class:  

Submit a two- to three-page paper providing a brief rationale of the following components used in the creation and development of your Blog:

• Purpose
• Design
• Content
• Audience

This is the second part of the Audience plan for the blog:

Audience (continued)

Geographically, while the Hampton Roads area represents a contiguous audience landscape, the Richmond (home to the Diocese) as well as the northern Virginia areas are additional geographic audiences to consider.  TQ’s former parish in Alexandria still exists and his exploits there still resonate.  In the recent biography of Chief Justice Antonin Scalia, the biographer relates Scalia family lore of attending a northern Virginia church where the priest drove a Volkswagen down the aisle during a Palm Sunday service (Biskupic, 2009, p. 186).  That priest was TQ, and the persistence of that story reinforces the importance of northern Virginia for audience potential.  Norfolk, Virginia plays a geographic role given the amount of time spent and media coverage TQ garnered while there.  From an educational/research standpoint, TQ’s donation of 20+ boxes of documents related to his career as a rogue priest to the Norfolk Main Library (Ruehlmann, 2009) creates a connection with the city that could promote the film to a larger audience.  Posting archival documents to the blog and linking to the library is one way to exploit that connection.  TQ’s connection to Tidewater media also bears consideration.  I will be licensing archival photographs and stories from Norfolk media, so the use of those pictures on the blog can generate links to that media and serve as the basis for local interest stories.
Finally, from an industry approach, any media concerning documentary filmmaking, especially independent filmmakers, is a potential audience.  People who enjoy documentary films are another audience to include, as well as distributors of documentary films, to include the Public Broadcasting System (PBS).
Just as I have posted links to TQ’s Wikipedia page as well as one of his former parishes, I will add links to as many of the potential audience websites I deem fit.  I will use keywords and blog labels related to the target audience to enhance search engine performance.  In instances where I have direct contacts, email, phone calls and even personal visits will spread the word of the film, always directing them to the blog and websites related to the film.    I will make sure the web address of the blog appears in all marketing materials and will add that address to the end of my personal emails.

Blog Improvement Plan (Part 2 - Audience)

Blog Improvement Plan (Part 2)

Here is the task from the Capstone Class: 
 
Submit a two- to three-page paper providing a brief rationale of the following components used in the creation and development of your Blog:

• Purpose
• Design
• Content
• Audience

Part two of the series covers audience.  “Audience” forced me to define and refine the blog, as well as the movie’s target audience.  You always think you know the audience you are aiming for, and this in-depth academic excursion forced a reevaluation.  While my original target choices are intact, the exercise revealed important new segments of those audiences and sparked ideas on ways to reach them.
Enjoy.

.Audience
I define The Prodigal Altar Boy blog audience as “niches within niches”.  From a topical approach, under the general heading of “Catholic,” the audience includes disaffected Catholics, given many of the Roman Catholic Church’s shortcomings highlighted by TQ are pivotal reasons “lapsed” Catholics cite as reasons for leaving the Church.  TQ’s vast doctrinal knowledge, which backs up his “radical” pronouncements and shock liturgy, is a valuable resource for Catholic religious educators, as TQ’s presentation of religious history can take lay people behind the stock catechism answers.  A geographical spin on the topical approach brings the Diocese of Richmond and its media arm into the audience fold.  Since all of TQ’s battles against church hierarchy outlined in the film begin and end with the Diocese of Richmond, past and present leadership are logical audience members.  I used covers from the Diocese’s publication, “The Catholic Virginian,” as graphics for at least two posts.
Using the relational approach, TQ’s friends, colleagues and contemporaries comprise a large audience constituency.  Along with members of parishes where TQ was Pastor, the staff and lay leadership of those church communities are an additional potential audience pool.  With the bulk of interviews coming from former parishioners, the desire to see the story of their parish, within the context of TQ’s story can be a large audience draw.  Former parishes also form a loose network across Virginia with built-in infrastructure to support screenings of the final product.  Finally, TQ’s adversaries form an unlikely, but potent audience pool.  If news of the movie inspires a fraction of the op-ed ink his exploits sparked, the publicity can only help marketing.