All About Drew

My capstone documentary takes a look into the life of motorsports culture by following Drew Carl through his day to day tasks. However, I think it would be good if everyone knew just a little bit about Drew before they view the documentary in November.

I met Drew sometime during my freshmen year in high school. At Chartiers-Houston High School, classes usually graduate with give or take 100 students, so it didn't matter that I was a freshmen and Drew was a senior we had similar interests and kept with the same group of friends. Naturally a bond formed.

When Drew graduated he went to a local community college for computer programming. However, every time I had a chance to see Drew he was usually talking about going to some race on the other side of the country or how he was fixing up his ATV's.  By the time it came to be my senior year in high school Drew had decided to start his own business E-score. Coming from a small school and having a close friend prosper at such a young age gave me something to look forward to.

The downside of Drew having his own business is that he had to spend most of his time (not to mention his entire summers) building up his company. As a result, I lost touch with Drew and saw him during an occasional Penguins game during winter breaks. This all changed last spring when I had to make a 15 minute documentary. Through trial and error with bad ideas the only logical action to take was to get in contact with Drew and see what his summer was like. Of course, Drew had to be spending a vacation (or his down time) in the Grand Canyon-his cell phone never received my calls.

Finally, Drew returned my calls and said he would be more than happy to have me come with him on a couple of his business trips.

Before I really had time to prepare to make this documentary I was throwing my bags in the back of Drew's truck to begin a two week adventure to Minnesota. Fortunately, I was able to catch up on all my preparation (and tell old stories with Drew) during the 14 hour ride into central Minnesota.

During the ride I also found out Drew was a bit camera shy and realized that would affect my interview process. So I began writing questions to "soften" Drew up, questions I still wanted to know but didn't think there would be room for them in the documentary. I asked Drew how he got started and why, his plans for the future, his outlook on the industry he is in. To my surprise, Drew gave some in depth answers and his cooperation encouraged me to ask some of the questions I decided should be left out.

The interview with Drew went really well and was able to find some "nuggets" in his answers. If I could go back and change anything, I would have interviewed Drew while he drove his truck (or at least find out a way to get ample lighting to do the interview.

My main concern for viewers of the documentary is its' lack of diversity. During the interviews, no matter how differently the questions were worded, the subjects gave the same general answers as those before and after them. I'm hoping I can find a clever way of editing to make this work for me.