Chocumentary

Now for the biggest deal - we are making a movie! I have been thinking for a while that it is a travesty that the Food Network - on which I rely so much for so much food information - seems so uninformed about fine chocolate. It seems as though they feel they are providing us with some service by unleashing some percentage value of baking chocolate on a show. I thought they should know more.

How does one tell the Food Network that they have it all wrong in my favorite area? I thought that maybe if they just had some concerned citizen write a cleverly-worded email they would see the error of their ways, and then they would produce some beautiful sweeping documentary about fine chocolate - one that would dispel all the myths of chocolate and receive such heavy rotation that you would think it supplanted reruns of Seinfeld as the most played show in history.

Something about that feels unlikely.

So I thought about it more, and I talked about it with a film-making friend of mine. He got all excited about the idea of doing some epic film about the true story of why chocolate is "the food of the gods." He started throwing around ideas of travel to the sources, and feature-length. It had me thinking a lot.

The next day was a Society meeting, and I spoke to Scott about it. Scott works at a local news station as an editor primarily for a local investigative reporter, and he has a lot of equipment, training, and skill. He also has a camera and buckets of excitement. I mentioned to him that I wanted to make a documentary, and he started sharing plans he has been formulating for the last year or so.

Meetings began quickly, and we have already started shooting. Our goal is to educate about the history, makings, and experience of chocolate. We want to celebrate the best, and leave the "lesser" chocolate out - we will keep our hands clean. Investigating claims of foul play will have to wait for the next film...

We plan to interview all the major players we can get our hands on - and the more eloquent among the enthusiasts. We hope to go to the Academy of Chocolate awards banquet this summer to capture the best of the best producers all in one spot. We want to go to Venezuela and/or Ecuador to show the origins of some of the best beans that incidentally have some interesting stories.

We plan on hiring planes locally to get some high-end shots to spice up the film. We have some good networked connections to fantastic camera people. We have enthusiastic and skilled people willing to put their own time into the project - and me. I am enthusiastic, but my skills pretty well end at being a network hub. But that I am good at.

The hope is we can complete shooting this year, and wrap up editing early enough next year to start applying for festivals by March. We want to apply for all the major festivals starting with Cannes. If we can get in, we will educate people about chocolate all over the world!

This - combined with the newsletter - could be a huge force in introducing so many new people to the wonderful world of fine chocolate. Finding funding for this could end up being the most difficult adventure, but I imagine it will be well worth it in the end!