long overdue rough abstract

Heavenly Mountain Abstract

It is our goal, through documentary form, to show what happened in Heavenly Mountain and to portray any future developments on the land. The documentary should be 10-15 minutes long with interviews and footage from the location itself. Following is a brief outline of what we would like to achieve by the end.

We would like to have 3-4 key interviews from different perspectives. One from the planning perspective, one from someone who lived up there at the time it was all about TM, one from someone who lives there now, and hopefully one from David Kaplan – the owner. However, they are subject to change as we continue researching. After having been up there twice we already have some great pictures and b-roll. This footage will show during the interviews so the audience will be able to see what people are talking about.

The documentary will start with a brief introduction of TM, the Maharishi, Heavenly Mountain and David Kaplan. After that introduction we will move into the interviews and show pictures and footage. David Kaplan’s interview will be the most important and will probably take up a majority of the time. After throwing in some controversy from the other interviews along with his interview we will move on to future plans for the property and Kaplan. We plan to ask Kaplan about how and why he started Heavenly Mountain, what happened to make it decline, how he felt about what skeptics were saying about it being cult-like. With some help from Tom Hansell we know how to phrase questions so they do not sound attacking, so that will be very helpful.

Sara or I might have to do a little bit of a voice over to make sure the events proceed in a story-telling manor. Depending on the phrasing in the interviews we may have to have some writing too to help it make sense. We have not decided about music or sound effects yet, but that will become more important when we begin the editing process. Once we are finished filming and we begin to edit we will figure out what is best. Our plan is to get plenty of information and footage so that once we actually do begin editing we will not need to rush around get more footage or do more research.