Dos Gringos

Skip and I had breakfast at Dos Gringos in Columbia Heights this morning, where we sat down and formulated a plan, of sorts. Then we hit the streets. We got some b-roll shots of DC for the documentary, at the the White House, the Washington Memorial and the Lincoln Monument, as well as in front of the Capital Building. We were even able to interview a few people about next month's election and the issues most important to their vote. We also asked them how they felt about the state of education in the U.S. today--we might attach a short to Skip's site.

It's a good thing that Skip has hired me as his cameraman for this documentary, because after we spent an hour walking and riding the metro to get to the National Mall, we realized that we only had 2 minutes of tape left, and I had left the other tapes in Columbia Heights, along with the extra battery. The learning curve for documentary filmmaking is going to be pretty steep this first time around. (Side note: DC hates tripods.)

On top of that, finding people willing to stand in front of a camera and be interviewed is not easy. Three guys in black cowboy hats said they were "on a schedule" (a phrase I heard multiple times today). I'm convinced one elderly gentleman thought that I had a rabid skin disease because he would not even shake my hand. And the sorority of flag-footballers I handed out cards to never came up to get some camera time; it seems no one cares about education these days.

Here are a few things I am learning about Skip:

-He sings all the wrong words to "Come Together," all day long.
-He eats like a horse, if horses ate Burger King and not hay.
-His specialty in mathematics is in graph theory and combinatorics. (Wikipedia it; I had to.)