"My Montgomery" is a collaborative documentary film about the people and places of Montgomery County, MD.

The project is to produce the collaborative documentary "My Montgomery". This film celebrates the diversity of people and places in Montgomery County. The final work product will be a documentary film at least 30 minutes in length. This is a follow up project to "Make a Movie in a Month" from 2016 where we successfully produced 8 short films about Wheaton, MD in just 30 days. At the bottom of this page is the film "The Escalator" by Rick Judge, Winner of our 2016 "Make a Movie in a Month" project. This film is a sample of a collaboration. In the "My Montgomery" project we will collaboratively (1) record & compile stories from a cross section of our residents, (2) record and highlight video highlights of distinctive and beautiful locations in Montgomery County, (3) use this project as a vehicle to help mentor and educate filmmakers, and (4) share the finished film at a free public screening and online.

The term "collaborative" means that:

• participation in the project is open to the community,
• determining the people and places to highlight in the film is open to the participants, and
• the finished film is comprised of different scenes with each scene produced by a unique crew who comes together for this event.

In 2016, we successfully completed the collaborative film project "Make a Movie in a Month" (MMM2016) where we produced 8 unique short films in 30 days that highlighted the community of Wheaton, MD. It was a great experience, the participants were wonderful to work with, and we learned a lot about opening up the creative process to the community, including non-filmmakers. The "My Montgomery" documentary film builds upon the lessons from MMM2016. The improvement here is where we had 8 separate films before from MMM2016, we will now combine the different parts to produce a unified documentary film as the work product for "My Montgomery". With this collaborative film project, there will be no pre-chosen stories. Participants will sign up, pitch stories, form crews, brainstorm ideas, assign responsibilities, and we will plan to make a movie in 60 days or less. The project will involve recruiting participants, educating them on the format and structure of the event, forming film crews, producing the individual scenes, editing all the different scenes into one cohesive film, and then producing a screening event of the film. The production team will combine all the scenes into one comprehensive film. The creative direction here is not one person dictating from the top down, but rather the producer facilitating participation and contribution from many different creative voices and then combining those voices into a film that has a tapestry of ideas.

4/16/18 Info Meeting at Make Offices in Dupont Circle (6:30 pm to 10 pm)
4/18/18 Info Meeting at Make Offices in Bethesda (6:30 pm to 10 pm)
5/18/18 Submission Deadline 6 pm

6/08/18 Screening Event at Make Offices in K Street (6:30 pm to 10 pm)

At the bottom of the page is the film "The Escalator" by Rick Judge, Winner of our "Make a Movie in a Month" project. This film is a sample of collaboration.

Lead Characters: Deb Fensenthal as "Jamie" and Rob Palack as "Zach"
Director: Rick Judge
Cinematographer: Chris Pirisino
Producers: Rob Palack and Deb Fensenthal
Production Assistants: Naveen Kumar and Jennifer Pirante
Production Coordinator: Sandra Oyeneyin
Editor: Rick Judge

Production Company: Emerson's BS