As you can see, the url of the blog has been changed to http://forgottenblackhistory.blogspot.com. That decision comes with getting a whole new site to promote the Freedom Lost: Restoration project: www.forgottenblackhistory.com
Truly these key words "Forgotten" "Black History" will help us in search engines and when people do a search for Black History they will have a better opportunity to find our film and learn more about the project and the history.
And actually,The more folks who have watched the film, have shared with me that they have never heard this history. It is truly forgotten Black History and it's a history that needs to be learned and rediscovered.
I recently edited an updated version of this compelling Black History documentary about New Bern and James City, North Carolina and hoped to release a new DVD by February 2012, Black History month. But it looks like delays have pushed it into April. Filmmaking is an extensive process and things happen beyond our control - but everything happens according to God's timing. So I'm sure it's right on time.
A number of changes have happened with the film. I removed the title: Memorial and just call it Freedom Lost: Restoration now which I think works better. If the project grows to a series of documentaries, then perhaps Memorial can be brought back again.
In the "Memorial" version, the aspect of breaking up the history was mentioned by others I asked to watch it as a disruption to the telling of the story. As I saw this common concern and critique, I determined to cut some of those scenes out and went with a straight telling of the history and ending on the memorial and slave quarters restoration. It was a hard decision to cut out the oral history scene, the walking tour, and the African Brigade Reenactors. As good as these scenes were, they were still disrupting the actual history of New Bern and James City and disrupting the story, which hurts a film rather than helps it most of the times. So I will be releasing those deleted scenes on a special edition DVD that is coming soon because I know these are scenes that need to be preserved and seen and I'm sure you all will want to see them still.
In the end, these changes gave me some room to restore a scene I originally cut out about the engraving on the memorial stone, which brings even better closure to the film. There are a couple of other minor changes of added music, an additional shot of slaves in the garden during the civil war scenes, and some added sound effects. I also spent more time doing another sound mix which is incredibly and painfully tedious as well as a time consuming procedure. I think these changes make the film much better and improve it greatly.
I also cut a new preview for the film which can be seen here. I also believe that is an improvement as well from the original previews:
I'm currently working on having some screenings in New Bern. Let me know if you know of any church or organization that would like to have a screening of it during Black History month.
I'm also continuing to press on in developing a feature film called "City of Refuge" about a slave who comes to New Bern during the Civil War. It's a powerful story about healing and forgiveness tied to the rich Black History of Eastern North Carolina.
If you take a look at the earlier posts on this blog alone, you will see how things have changed in moving forward with this project. You can see that other things were shot for the documentary that we hope to show in a future potential documentaries. We have a bunch of other interviews that have yet to see the light of day, for example. There is also potential to develop a sequel documentary that would be titled "The Forgotten History" and you can see how that ties in with the new website for the project. But in going forward, many of these things depend on how things go with this documentary and the feature film we're continuing to develop.
Change can be a positive thing and I believe these changes are important to improving this important project of restoration and healing.
Thank you for all your help and support.
Blessings,
Tom Swift
