Progress

Distribution begins: Film festival premiere and theatrical release of the first film, Before Rumbula. Play additional film festivals and public screenings. Followed by TV broadcast, international distribution, and the beginning of educational distribution. The process is repeated annually for release of the second documentary, Rumbula, and then the third in the series, After Rumbula.

Post-production Part 4: Finalize rights licensing for archival materials. Refine and polish the first documentary, Before Rumbula, for test screenings.

Post-Production Part 3: Begin historical advisor review of the film. With 4.5+ hours edited, restructure Rumbula's Echo's story to be a three-documentary series: (1) Before Rumbula (pre-war times through the first four months of the Holocaust), (2) Rumbula (the Rumbula Massacres in late 1941), and (3) After Rumbula (the struggle of a few thousand to survive 1942-1945, liberation, and modern times). Begin documenting rights licensing for the legal review and E&O insurance policy required for release. Document the resolution of each archival photo in the edit and where higher resolution versions are needed for the films' release.

Post-Production Part 2 - Complete Rough-Cut (draft): Conducted test-screenings of 76 minutes of excerpts with audience surveys to inform further work. Performed supplementary filming for specific scenes in 6 countries and 83 locations creating 44 hours of additional footage. Conducted research worldwide to gather extensive additional archival material, expanding the film's catalog to more than 5,000 historical photos, more than 100 hours of archival footage, and selected war crimes trial excerpts. Prepared archive-based scripts for 20 voice actor stand-ins of the words of deceased survivors, murdered Jews, a rescuer, a local collaborator, and Nazi perpetrators in their languages (with English translations). Supervised and conducted 20 voice actor recording sessions in Yiddish, Latvian, Russian, and German. Researched and located art, music,and artifacts relevant to the film's story. Created custom maps of the country, region, and ghetto for specific scenes. Completed a full rough-cut of 4.5+ hours.

Post-Production Part 1: Initial Rough-cut Excerpts (drafts of parts pf the film) – 76 minutes: Easiest parts of the film to assemble and edit. Add narration, and temporary placeholder music.

Film for three separate 7-8 day periods in Latvia, coast-to-coast in the U.S., and again in Latvia, conducting 30 interviews and capturing "B roll" for a total of 60 hours of footage.

Develop shooting script. Begin selecting potential archival content. Capture "B roll" footage of relevant events. Produce and edit initial trailer.

Concept, basic research, scouting of sources of archival content, initial pre-interviews, project planning, development of story and treatment.