Update: Too Many Things
August 2023 Monthly Update
July was too much. My update last month was about being in Michigan to visit family and NYC to produce a doc about CPI’s recent event about the American criminal justice system. It was framed through the book Usual Cruelty: The Complicity of Lawyers in the Criminal Injustice System (by Alec Karakatsanis), a good basic critique.
It turns out that’s a difficult task. I had figured that would be a much less laborious edit because I would already know what I need from the first CPI doc, but this is not the case. The first doc we did was about CPI itself, and I think the passion of everyone in the org just smacks you right in the face, while this one is more based on facts and statistics. This puts it in a different category in terms of “type of work,” where I’m trying to figure out the optimal way to present this information rather than how to let people’s personalities and enthusiasm shine through.
In this way, it’s a little more similar to Very Important Documentaries. Which, the hold-up on the next one, Marx For Sale, has been the production design. My first attempt at putting together the “set” in my dining room was just winging it, and the result just didn’t click, so I took a photo of the room from the spot I intend to film it from.
I then used Photoshop, figured out the scale of everything, and added all of the Marx Merch to make my YouTube Influencer Set™
Then I used that as a guide to put the set together. Then lit it.
This is, of course, not what I will be wearing in the video, but god damn if this isn’t the right way to do things. Obviously, this is a rudimentary process, but this matches what I had in my head, which is inspired by various nerd/fandom YouTuber sets – I have a folder of reference photos and an algorithm that now thinks I like Marvel Movies to prove it.
The point is that’s what Marxism has become for many (thus “Marx For Sale”).
So, I believe I will be filming this tonight, meaning this doc is not far off. Thanks to the friend who helped pick up the packages for all this nonsense while I was out of town last month (I highly doubt they read this, but worth conveying appreciation nonetheless). Further, thank you all for sticking with me, and I look forward to putting this thing out.
-Peter