So today, I’m going back through the 17 episodes we made of the Congocast podcast over the last three years to begin the process of cutting it down into a rough cut for a film. The hardest part about this is figuring out where to start! Right now when you back the 17 episodes we have up end to end the entire video piece is about 2 hours and 24 minutes in length!

The first step is to just start pulling things out and see what is left and whether it makes sense! I have an additional 60 hours of footage from last years trip waiting in the wings – but I thought to get the process rolling again I could start by editing something I’m more familiar with.

I’ll continue updating the congocast.org site as I get more into the process of turning this crazy project into a film! So check in again soon as I will be using this blog to update you on things that are happening in the Congo activist community and the progress I am making in cutting the film together!

- Evan

Well, it has been quite a bit of time since I’ve been at work on the Congocast.org project! Sorry for long wait!

Editing on the Congocast project has restarted. Thanks to the help of some awesome volunteers this past fall, we have gotten all of our footage from our trip last year into the computer (it was giving us quite a bit of trouble). It is ready now to be edited, so we will keep you updated as the process of doing post production unfolds. To start, I’m currently taking all 17 episodes and putting them together in a single video project to see what happens. Right now the whole thing is 2 hours and 24 minutes long!

(Here is a shot of the what the video timeline looks like with that much footage on it.)

So needless to say, cutting this video into a longer format project is going to be some work – not to mention adding in the new footage that we shot last year to wrap the whole thing up! I’ll check in again soon as we start to make progress!

- Evan

Today CNN is running a lead story on the continued conflict in the DR Congo (READ the article). It highlights the fact that the battle in the DRC is far from over and speaks to the growing number of rapes being used to crush the population of a country that has seen war since 1998.

A new staggering statistic from the article reveals that over the course of this conflict nearly 200,000 women have been raped.

That is two times the population of Wilmington, NC.

I have met some of these women.

I have become friends with them.

That number leaves me silent.

But we can’t be silent. That is the last thing we should do. We have voices that can be used to make a difference. We have voices that can be used to end this conflict. We can call for an end to violence against women. I hope that this article resonates with you the way that it has with me.

If you would like more information about how you can help in the DR Congo – visit enoughproject.org to find out how you can make a difference today.

Thank you CNN for running this article today!

Six months ago today, I returned from the DRC with 60 hours of footage and the big question mark of what to do next now that I was done with the “Production” piece of this project.

Since then I’ve become a father, finished the podcast, and had the help of a few generous friends to sift through all that footage. I’m excited to tell you that we are almost at the end of that part of the process! We have almost logged the 60 hours of new footage and I am capturing it to my computer as I write this! Soon we will be able to begin editing the EPILOGUE to the podcast which is the first step toward eventually working on a longer format piece.

Below are a few pictures of a recent “footage day” we had to help get this video into the computer so we can show you what happened on our most recent trip (which does not seem like it was 6 months ago)! I can’t wait for you to see it and share with you the awesome experience we had back in March!

Here are some pics of people volunteering to log tapes:

Rachael logging footage

Parrish logging footage

Joey logging footage

A special thanks to Luke, Joey, Parrish, Rachael, and Casey for volunteering their time to help get this footage ready to edit!

See you all back here soon!

Evan