losing a limb

We've cut out about 15 minutes of the documentary since premiering at the Los Angeles Film Festival. The good news is that the movie plays better...it's tighter, the pace is improved and there is more overall depth, all of which should help us to get distribution. The bad news is that we had to trim down a lot of a team that we truly love...JUMPING FOR JOY. I spent so much time with them during the filming and in the edit bay; I grew very attached to Coach Joy, Veyom, Jessica, Christine, Sarah & Katie as people and as characters in the doc. They had some comical and good tearful scenes, represented aspects of the sport & sportsmanship in important ways, and even had a great theme song (thanks composer Matt!). Every filmmaker hates this moment. And it has happened a few times on this project -- I filmed with far more people than we had time to include in the film. Stewart from the Ropin' Rockets -- who I think is a little prodigy -- was another casualty of the editing process. When we get distribution, there are going to be GREAT dvd extras with these "missing" scenes.