Special Guest

We have a special guest with us today, which is Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!!! Anyway, our friend John Stoll is here with us in Palo Alto on this fine day. It's been very nice to see his face! He arrived last night and will be staying through Saturday. Yay for us. So I thought while I have him here I would ask him a few questions and write his answers for all of you. In case you don't know who John is, he is the main character in our film. His picture is on the Which Hunt page... check it out. Anyway here's John.

Dana: How is your Thanksgiving so far this year? (we haven't eatten yet but plan to when the wee one wakes up.)

John: Well, I'm really pleased to be here with you guys. You make me feel like part of the family.

Dana: We just previewed the second 20 minutes of the film, nice lighthearted Thanksgiving viewing. What did you think?

John: I was really impressed. I'm looking forward to seeing more.

Dana: Is it weird to see yourself in a movie?

John: Are you kidding? Of course it is. I'm glad to be part of the project.

Dana: What's it like seeing all the other people?

John: Saddening. You start to think about yourself but when you see how many there were of us. It's sad to see how many lives were ruined.

Dana: What's your favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal.

John: Turkey. We never got real Turkey in prison

Dana: DO you have any fun plans for the near future, you're always going somewhere.

John: This summer I would like to go to Europe. But right now I'm just enjoying living at the beach. I even have a little tan don't I? I'm also going to the Rolling Stones concert in December.

We're going to sign off and go eat! As always, thanks for checking us out!!

Dana

Letters from prison

Hi, y'all.
Things are moving right along. Don and I work religiously every Saturday, and today was no exception. Admittedly, Don did way more work than I. I had to log some extra Saturday hours with the fam because of my trip to LA earlier in the week. That was for my day job at NBC.

Anyway, when I returned home on Wednesday I had a pleasant surprise waiting for me. A huge box from Brenda and Scott Kniffen. They are two of the characters in the film. They're a super nice couple that we've met through all this. I don't want to give too much away, but I will say that they sent me a binder of letters that they wrote to each other while they were in prison. Let me tell you, this is a love story. These are legit love letters. We are going to reveal some of these letters about 40 minutes into the film. They are very very touching. I do believe that their love story is a film in and of itself. Alas, another project for another time. We are so thrilled that Brenda and Scott agreed to be in this film.

More to come soon... by the way, we have about 50 edited minutes. Yes, I'm anxious to finish it... we're getting there!

Let us know if you have any ideas for our website!

Thanks for listening.

Dana

The Innocence Project

So, I don't know if our website really addresses the fact that we are working with the Northern California Innocence Project. I've been working with them for so long that I just assume everyone knows about the Innocence Project... do you? If not, here's a little explainer. The Innocence Project started in New York and has satellite groups all over the country. Our local one is in Santa Clara, it's affiliated with Santa Clara University's law school. They represent people who are the victims of wrongful conviction. Most of them get cleared by DNA evidence. It's this relatively new technology that's brought the concept of wrongful convictions to the forefront of our society. DNA cases are clear; either the perpetrator's DNA matches the DNA evidence from the case, that means he's guilty, or it doesn't, and he's innocent. Now take it even a step farther... if DNA cases show that there are indeed wrongful convictions then we have to assume that even for cases where there is no DNA available, there are people who are mistakenly behind bars. Cookie Ridolfi is the director of the Northern California Innocence Project. She says they believe one percent of people who are in prison are actually innocent. That's a lot of people. And those people are represented in our film. We're really proud to be able to tell their stories. Each one of them is cooler than the next. Even though we've been working on this project for two years, I still can't believe this happened. I can't believe these people spent DECADES behind bars for nothing. It's unbelievable! Please join us in our outrage and support them and the film! Thanks, as always, for listening!!!