Most people have seen the 1975 film Jaws, probably more than once. It annually tops lists of the best films ever made, and many people call it their favorite movie. But for some people, it's more than just a great movie, it's more than just their favorite film, it's a bit of an obsession.

These people aren't fanatics, they're finatics, and documentary filmmakers James Gelet, Erik Hollander, Michael Roddy, and Jake Gove count themselves among their number. As such, Gelet and company knew of the Jawsfest extravaganza planned for June, 2005 to celebrate the 30-year anniversary of the release of the film. Gelet and his filmmaking friends planned to attend Jawsfest on Martha's Vineyard and film it, creating a documentary of the event.

As producer Michael Roddy began lining up interviews with key festival participants, he was able to secure interviews with the likes of Peter Benchley, the author of the book Jaws, Producers David Brown and Richard Zanuck, actors Roy Scheider and Richard Dreyfuss, and even director Steven Spielberg.

The film crew, now calling themselves Five o'clock Productions, quickly realized they were going to need a bigger documentary. "Now we were talking about Jaws' impact on culture in any way it manifested itself," says Gelet, "whether it be the way movies are made and marketed, the fact that people don't swim, or that many of today's successful filmmakers were inspired to get into film because of Jaws. The fingerprint of Jaws is all over Hollywood, so we wanted to point that out as much as we could."

Vegas software really is a one-stop shop for editing. From capturing to mastering and everything in between, everything can be accomplished so quickly.

James Gelet

Using a Sony^® HVR-Z1U camcorder, the crew traveled to Martha's Vineyard for Jawsfest, and to Long Island, Manhattan, Albany, Indianapolis, Orlando, and Los Angeles (three times) to film interviews with the people involved with the making of Jaws and the fans that still love it.

When it came time to edit over sixty hours of footage into a three hour documentary, Five o'clock Productions turned to Vegas software. "Vegas was originally recommended to us back in 2001 when it was in version 3," says Gelet. "We were using Speed Razor at the time and had no desire to learn how to edit all over again. We took the plunge because everything we were hearing about Vegas was so much better than what Razor was giving us. There was a month or so of unpleasant growing pains but there was no turning back after that. Since then, we've upgraded with each new version. The nature of this type of project really benefits from NLE and the Vegas layout. We had about sixty hours of footage before we started assembling any kind of thematic flow to the material. The flexibility of Vegas Ripple tool and other features has really given us tremendous freedom to keep the project as organic as it needs to be."

The color correction tools in Vegas are superb! With digital mega pixel photography and videography you can use the Pan/Crop to zoom in as tightly as you want on any image and simulate any move you want. I do that quite a bit with stills that we've incorporated into the movie. I have a lot of fun with the motion blur envelope as well.

James Gelet

To see clips from the film and to keep tabs on the release, visit www.sharkisstillworking.com.