May 2004

TWISTED Goes West!
Sara and Naomi travel to Arizona, Nevada and Utah to conduct follow-up interviews with balloon twisters--10 days, 8 cities, 32 hours of footage. We were both inspired by breathtaking views and awe-inspiring personal stories.

Part I: ARIZONA (Phoenix, Flagstaff, Sedona, Mesa)


ELP and Vera, The Balloon Lady of Flagstaff


Karaoke girls at the American Legioin party


Aaron shows off his new 'do


Tape 12 and the car keys--lost but not gone forever

Part II: NEVADA (Las Vegas)


"S" shows off his Eliot Lives spirit


Adam shows off his balloon belt


Young twisters at a balloon jam


Taks films against the New York skyline


G-Force and Mr. P (our Grand Jeep Cherokee)


Marvin Hardy poses with a classic balloon creation


Naomi gives a fancy moose lady a kiss


Sara gets romantic with a balloon dragon fly

Fundraising Parties!!

June 12th
The Parlour
250 W. 86th St
New York, NY
8:00 PM
$10

June 19th
The Asgard
350 Mass Ave
Cambridge, MA
8:00 PM
$10

Come party with the twisters, watch the new trailer and bring your checkbooks! Spread the word!

April 2004

The Balloon Proposal Naomi provides some balloon assistance to her brother as he proposes to Chavi with a balloon diamond ring (the real one came afterwards...)



Welcome to our Summer Interns!
Eliot Lives Productions welcomes Tamar and Jonathan to our TWISTED team! Our interns will be helping with all aspects of production such as logging and transcribing footage, going on follow-up shoots, and helping with funding research. We are SO excited to have them on board!

March 2004

Documentary Educational Resources (DER)
Naomi meets Cynthia Close, Executive Director of Documentary Educational Resources at a funding workshop at Boston Neighborhood Networks. Cynthia is very impressed and excited about TWISTED and accepts our application to serve as our Fiscal Agent! You can now make a tax deductible donation to TWISTED through the DER website (scroll down film list to get to TWISTED).


TWISTED's Letter of Commitment from DER.

Summit Meeting #5: Networking and Logging
Sara and Naomi meet in New York for some serious footage review and serious networking. Partying with the folks at the Comedy Central Bar Mitzvah Bash, Sara and Naomi stop to make the first ever Eliot Lives Productions chocolate lollipop. Naomi and Sara also go out for dinner and drinks with Jeff Marx, writer of hit Broadway Musical, Avenue Q.



ELP at Comedy Central Bar Mitzvah Bash

February 2004

A crazy busy month...Sara and Naomi work every weekend to prepare for Twist and Shout 2004. The weekend (3 days, 32 hours of footage, 5 hours of sleep) is a great success and a heck of a lot of fun.

Twist and Shout 2004

Eliot Lives Productions setting up our interview studio


..don't worry: we have actual real cameras.


ELP crew


Charlie with balloon skydiver


Don with the drunken balloon pirate


Cheech and Chong


Balloon sushi!


Congratulations Debbie, Top Twister!

January 2004

Grant Applications
Sara and Naomi start applying for grants (LEF Foundation, Independent Film Project) to help fund TWISTED.

December 2003

Still watching footage...

Summit Meeting #4
Sara and Naomi meet in New York City to begin planning for upcoming filming at Twist and Shout 2004 and the International Balloon Artists Convention.

November 2003

The Fundraising Push
Sara and Naomi finalize pitch packages about the film and mail them out. Checks start coming! Special Thanks to Washington University in St. Louis Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton for his donation and nice note!


Chancellor's letter