We are now half way through mixing the film at Sony, and have with a wonderful team of of talented folks working with us this week.  After the mix we just have a few finishing touches – final animation and color correction – and then we’re done!

We’re not yet sure where he film will be premiering, but will you posted as to where and when!

Here are a few pics from the scoring and mixing stages…

- Emmanuel

Check out the slideshow here.

We just expanded the team to include Fernando Villena, a great documentary and narrative editor with numerous award winners under his belt including Rize, Youssou Ndour: I Bring What I Love, Bella, East of Havana and Every Little Step. Fernando will be focusing on our Canadian story with Eriel Deranger, bringing his talent and fresh eyes to the film.

Next month, we’re heading to England for the Meet Market at the Sheffield International Doc Fest.  We’ve been invited to present our film to numerous broadcasters and people in the industry from the European market – one we hope to reach when the film is released next year.

Although it’s early on, we’ve also started reaching out to potential partners–NGOs etc., who we hope will partner with us for the grassroots outreach campaign.  If anyone has suggestions, connections with orgs and communities etc. you feel would be interested in partnering, please let us know!

Also, a very big thank you to the anonymous $1000 donation that came in last week.  If you’re reading this, we are so grateful for your generosity!

More soon….

Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee

Dear Friends,

Thank you for the generous donations last month that came in after our World Water Day newsletter and Huffington Post blog.  We’re so grateful for everyone’s support and are excited to let you know that we’ve officially started editing the film!  We had a successful shoot in Australia last month, and with the exception of a few more days of shooting spread out over the next couple of months have officially moved into post-production.

We have a wonderful team working on the film, including our editor Pedro Kos who recently edited Wasteland (definitely worth watching), which was nominated for best documentary at this years academy awards.  Next week I’ll start writing the score with composer Scott Salinas, who has composed music for many of our films including What Would it Look Like and A Thousand Suns.  We’ll be writing an orchestral score with plans to record with the Bratislava Radio Orchestra in Slovakia at the end of the year.  Needless to say I’m very excited about this, and look forward to start working on the score.

We’re still on track to complete the film by the end of the year, or early 2012 and will keep you updated on our progress over the next few months.

Thanks again for all your support!

- Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee

Around the world environmentalists, scientists, economists and politicians are telling us that our future well-being and prosperity depend on water – our most precious resource.  Many say that that peak oil could be overshadowed by a global water crisis as unsustainable agricultural, industrial and domestic use strain a finite water supply impacted by population growth, pollution and climate change. But is that really all water is, a resource whose sole function is to provide us with services?

For thousands of years, across cultures, water has been recognized as much more than simply a natural resource. Sacred, revered, and even sentient, it has been known as the ‘source of life’ and has become a central part of many of the world’s cultures, religions and spiritual traditions.  Many of these cultures and traditions believe we are interconnected with and dependent on water – not just for our physical existence but also for our emotional, spiritual and psychological well-being.  Is this just spiritual and religious nonsense, or should we look more closely at the multi-dimensional role water plays in our lives?  As we grapple with the severity of not only the water crisis, but the ecological crisis at large, maybe we should consider drawing upon this understanding and using it help bring about the needed changes and solutions to problems we face.

These are many of the questions I’ve been asking myself over the last few years and eventually led me to make a film about our connection with water.  After spending the last year traveling the world and seeing firsthand how bad the problems are, I am convinced that for real change to take place we have to look at water and the natural world as an interconnected part of our lives, and to develop solutions from that understanding.

I for one want to use this year’s World Water Day as a call to action and an opportunity to reflect on water, considering the many ways it impacts our daily lives.

- Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee

Our hope is to finish shooting in the next few months, disappear into the edit room for the rest of the year and emerge with a finished film in hand in time for the new year.

We’ll be continuing to post updates, both on location and from the edit room in the coming months, so stay tuned.

- Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee