Craig and I had the interview/photo shoot for “Way To Go” Magazine today. The publication (an insert in Style Magazine) should hit newstands around April 19th. Alter Communications publishes Style Magazine. They also publish The Jewish Times, and as a result of today, we may be able to secure a promotional interview with that newspaper on the basis that our subjects are Jewish. I’m all for it! Let the world know: “Freedom Dance” is alive!

Quite an entourage we had for the shoot: Barbara Herron (the journalist); Jason Quick (the art director); Kirsten Beckerman (the photographer); Linda Davenport (the Amtrak rep); and Walter Hayes (the Public Information Officer for MTA). As you can imagine, with many set ups at Penn Station (Baltimore), on the train ride, and at Union Station (Washington), we attracted a crowd of on-lookers wherever we went. In fact, during a set up in front of Union Station, Craig and I caught a Japanese couple taking pictures of us from afar. We later learned they were tourists. Apparently, they had approached Barbara, pointed to me and asked, “Is that Tom Cruise?”

“No,” Barbara replied. “They’re just independent filmmakers were covering for a story.”

“Oh,” the disappointed couple replied. (I wonder if they eventually erased the photos of us from their digital camera?)

We were hoping to use the trip to DC to meet a Communications Director from Radio Free Europe whom I’ve been talking with about “Freedom Dance.” It didn’t work out, but I am hopeful for a meeting soon. (It’s appropriate because, as I understand it, radio was a big part of the Hungarian Revolution. A radio station is where the University students marched, attempting to broadcast their treatise for Independence. And it’s where the Hungarian Secret Police gunned them down. This is the opening scene in “Freedom Dance.”) What more appropriate network could their possibly be?

After the photo session, Craig and I travelled to Studio Unknown, an audio studio housed at Blue Rock Productions in Baltimore. Thanks to a gifted Sound Designer named Kevin Hill, we finished cutting the soundtrack to another of our projects: an animated commercial for the heating, plumbing, and air conditioning company, Blue Dot.

In May 2004, I was commissioned to create and animate a cartoon representative for a Blue Dot ad campaign that includes television, radio, and print ads. I serve as the Animation Director and Key Animator. Craig was hired as the Visual Effects Animator, and John Bintz as an Animator and Ink & Paint artist. The commerical is nearly done. Look for it on a TV near you! (You can see the first spot at John’s site: http://www.coswellproductions.org/animations.php/a_new_face.html)

That’s all for now. Until next time…

Steven Fischer
Writer/Producer/Director