Last month two fundraisers were held in southern California & they were incredibly successful! Lydia’s high school classmate Polly Firestone Walker kindly hosted a screening near Santa Barbara and even increased her own previous donation to become a Funding Producer – we’re so grateful to have her on board. On a similar note, the awesomeness that is Lydia’s high school class gets even better every time I look up. I was excited enough to find out that Lydia went to high school with the author of The Da Vinci Code, Dan Brown, but the excitement was upped when I found out that he and his wife recently donated $5,000! Let’s just pause for a second here and think about how cool Dan Brown must be. […..] Really cool, right?!
Thanks to all of the generous donations received over the past two years, editor Beth Segel has officially set up shop and will begin editing in the next few weeks. It’s safe to say that Beth truly knows her way around an edit suite! She has been editing documentaries for TV for the past ten years, and edited The Camino Documentary trailer two years ago with Lydia. She recently moved to Portland with her husband, Patrick Symmes (an amazing super cool travel writer for Outside, Conde Nast Traveler and more) and four year old son Max to devote herself to editing this film for the next year. Lydia and Beth met through Sally Bentley (another one of our producers) and cemented their friendship by traveling through Ecuador together back in December 2001. I recently had the chance to sit down with Max (that’s right, the four year old) and hear all about their move. They rode on an airplane with their cat Lulu and their new house has stairs! Exciting times for young Max, I must say.
Along with Beth arriving, there’s also another addition to the film crew. Associate Producer and full-time Camino Documentary devotee KC recently took on a full-time job at local animation company Laika. We’re excited for her, but this definitely leaves a KC-sized hole around the houseboat! She’ll still be working on the project when she can volunteer, though, which we are so thankful for! She is most definitely the fastest transcriber alive on the planet. To make up for said KC-sized hole, Meet Evan! Evan has been volunteering for us for quite some time, and we’re excited to have him on more of a full-time basis. He’s a technical whiz and is known to be a zen like presence amongst all of the film’s volunteers. He also knows his way around a kitchen. He and Assistant Editor Andrew prepared a feast this past week for the Volunteer Appreciation Party. I thought I was a Mexican food aficionado, but was blown away by the amazing spread. They made Carne Asada tacos, Pozole, Chiles Rellenos, and Tostones… among other things! Quite amazing.
Lydia has been hard at work preparing for the Camino tour with Spanish Steps in October. They’ll be staying at lovely hotels and converted country inns along the way. A few spots are still available if you’re interested in going! I can tell it’s going to be an amazing trip – definitely a once in a lifetime kind of experience. Read more or send an email to info@caminodocumentary.org