BACK

In LA. Interviews done. Punching up the trailer.  

Who did we interview?  Richard Lacayo, the art critic of Time Magazine; 

Suzanne Stratton-Pruitt, a leading art historian; 

Jeffrey Robinson, an author and the man who did research for Seymour Reit's 1980 book "The Day They Stole the Mona Lisa; 

Mary Gibson, a professor who gave us insight into Peruggia's psychiatrist Paolo Amaldi; 

Ann Benjamin whose family owns the rights to the Karl Decker story about the theft from the Saturday Evening Post; 

Lawrence Roy Stains, a professor at my alma mater Temple University who told us what kind of journalism the Saturday Evening Post practiced;

and Thomas and Dorothy Hoobler, the authors of the recent book on the theft "The Crimes of Paris."

WAITING FOR MY NEXT INTERVIEW

It's going to be Richard Lacayo from Time Magazine. He recently reviewed the Scotti and Hoobler books about the theft.  He also say he Decker story is "baloney" and "garbage."  I couldn't agree more.

IN NEW YORK

At the London Hotel. Our first interview is tomorrow.  Justine just told me that I only brought two short sleeve dress shirts. I didn't really pay attention to clothes packing.  I was too sidetracked trying to finish a cut of the trailer and get all my gear together.  So I guess I'll be doing some clothes shopping.

I've only been here an hour and already it's cost me $30 in tips. A bellman brought a tray with chocolates, nuts, popcorn and a bottle of water.  I think he said it was complementary.  Well, I'll know when we look at the bil for checkout. 

OFF TO NEW YORK

We have 6 interviews to do in NYC. We'll keep you posted.

A TITLE CHANGE

You may notice that the title of this blog has been changed from "The Missing Piece" to "A Missing Piece."  It's an experiment because I recently read that if you want your documentary to be easily found on I Tunes, it should start with "A" -- it's the old alphabetical thing.  But I'm not doing it just for that reason.  The more I investigate, the more I realize that there are so many missing pieces to this story. We've found quite a few but  I don't think we'll ever find them all. The story is nearly 100-years old and there are so many documents that are missing or destroyed, (See the missing piece from one of Peruggia's letters) I'm afraid in the end, there will still be a missing piece. Hence the title.

THE TALE OF THE TRAILER

The long worked-on trailer is closer to completion.  I have a 4:27 cut which I'm fairly happy with. Now comes the grunt work of adding graphics, archival photos (like the 1911 Mona Lisa postcards above), mixing, color correcting -- all the time consuming but necessary stuff. 

Welcome to Lola Scarpitta

We're happy to say that we've made the acquaintance of artist Lola Scarpitta who is a native Italian speaker and is helping us translate our film.  Here is her bio and a link to her website. Check it out! 

www.lolascarpitta.com