We spent an exciting evening at the Hungarian Embassy in Washington, D.C. Every year in October they honor the people involved in the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.

After everybody sung the Hungarian and the American Hymns, the Ambassador, Mr. Andras Simonyi, introduced the honored guests. Miki Hargittay then gave a heart-filled speech.

We met lots of new people there who were interested about our documentary film, Freedom Dance.

Mr. Karoly Dan, the Cultural Attache, first introduced Steven and me to a few important people, than suggested we do an Art Exhibit within the Embassy based on Freedom Dance and on my drawings, which were created for the documentary. Hopefully this will bring in some donations that can help to finish our work much easier.

Later in the evening, Mr. Simonyi asked the magic question: “How much money do we need to complete Freedom Dance?” Steven said, approximately 30 Thousand Dollars. He didn’t make any definite promise to get it, but he said he would see what he can do to help us with this problem.

He helped us before and since he is very interested about our project I’m sure, he will be our mentor in the future also.

Edward Hilbert

Ms. Lane Page came to my house the other day to talk about the productions that I made for Enchanted Forest when this lovely family park was still in operation. I showed pictures and different newspaper articles about them. We talked at length about my past and present work. I mentioned our animated documentary, Freedom Dance, what we are doing now. She was very interested about it. She is planning to interview Steven, Craig and me soon, and write a separate article about our animated film production. Two days after this interview, she sent out Mr. Matt Roth (their photographer) and he shot a bunch of pictures. The article should be in the paper in September.

Edward Hilbert

I’ve spent lots of time drawing images on which our film, “Freedom Dance”, is based. Now we’ve reached a point where we have enough drawings and need help separating the layers. Getting help is not easy, especially when we cannot pay for it. Craig, who is doing a wonderful job transfering my still drawings into animation, asked my help to do the “layer separations” on my characters. I said to him, I love to help you, but I don’t know anything about layer separation and I’m not too great with my computer either. Luckily, he felt more strongly in my ability than I did. He said he will teach me and I will learn in no time.

Next day he was my teacher and I was his student. Four days passed and I learned how to separate one body part from the other and make separate layers from each of them.

Thanks to Craig I’ve learned something new, and now I can help him with this time-concerning work.

Thanks, Craig! Edward Hilbert

I was seated in front of 3 digital cameras under bright lights at Montgomery Community Television Studios. Next to me was Craig Herron and Mark Cohen talking about our movie, Freedom Dance. It was an interesting experience.

We will have the possibility now to get our documentary on the air much before we are able to actually complete it.

This TV show will be aired on several cable channels in the Baltimore/Washington areas.

The questions that the interviewer asked varied between how I managed to get out from Hungary to how and where I started drawing my journal-sketchbook. Craig was asked about different technical questions about our documentary, what kind of system that we using to animate my drawings and how we will combine the drawings with life shots, photographs and the narrations in our documentary film. I did my best on the first questions that Mr. Cohen asked me. Craig did a great job explaining the technical part of our film.

All we missed during the taping is Steven Fischer. He should have been seated with us since he is one of the main anchors and a producer of our talented group.

I hope this interview will help produce some needed donations so that we can complete our film in time for the 50th Anniversary of the Hungarian Revolution in October 2006.

Edward Hilbert

The Coffee House: http://www.coffeehousetv.org/