I was looking today at some of the interview footage for the rum doc, along the lines of one particular narrative thread. I have at least one more interview that I want to do, getting the "enthusiast" angle, and I'd like to get a certain tiki bar in the mix but they won't return my email. What I'm wondering though is whether or not I'm going to have enough for a feature-length movie. That alternative is that it's a short film, but I really want to go the distance. I suppose that would mean getting more material.
I also wanted to get a clip of archival news footage, specifically from the coverage of Hurricane Ian, which affected the businesses that I talked to. So I reached someone from the corporate owner of a Ft. Myers TV station, and their standard rate for footage is $200... per second. Are you kidding me? Using a few seconds in a documentary most certainly constitutes fair use, but as an indie there's no universe where I even want to attempt to go that route. If I were able to sell it, and that's a big if, it would likely complicate things.
Trying to get someone to talk to from the big ag company that grows almost all of Florida's sugar cane, and therefore half of the sugar in the US, was a non-starter. It turns out that they haven't exactly been great caretakers of the environment in South Florida, which may explain why they're not interested in talking to me. They're secretive and spend more than a million dollars a year lobbying, especially in the last few years. The feds restrict sugar imports, making it more expensive. Their usage of water and discharge of wastewater is apparently harming the Everglades, which in turn may create a water problem for Miami and other cities on the Atlantic coast, because the aquifer they get their water from is fed by the Everglades.
Meh, I'm just frustrated about the sugar and the tiki bar. I need to get out and shoot more.
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