While Isaza Tuzman and Herman were completely willing subjects, the filmmakers found it difficult to gain access to board meetings and venture capital firms. Says Hegedus, "We had to resort to a lot of tactics we used during The War Room. We would just show up rather than get rejected," Hegedus laughs. "Sometimes it helps being two women because people feel bad throwing you out."

After months of careful observation and shooting, Hegedus and Noujaim had more than 400 hours of video footage. Plans to end their coverage with govWorks.com’s IPO were thwarted by the stock market crash last year, which brought a sudden end to the IPO mania. They continued shooting anyhow, unsure where the story was headed and how it would end.

Trying to cull a 90-minute documentary from 400 hours of footage was yet another daunting task. "Choosing the most effective scenes and tracing a thru-line out of hundreds of hours of footage took an incredible amount of time," says Noujaim.

"We must have more than 25 different cuts of the film," admits Pennebaker. "We had so much great detailed material that you would never have gotten shooting on film. There’s so much you have trouble even watching it all. It’s both the luxury and the drawback of shooting on video. And it’s really a case of the technology affecting the final product."

After months of work, editors Noujaim, Hegedus and Erez Laufer settled on the final cut; although up until recently, Hegedus and Noujaim were still periodically revisiting both Isaza Tuzman and Herman to document developments in their lives.

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