A promotion and a note about rude people...

Viscera Organization 2012 trailer. from Viscera Organization on Vimeo.

As some of you may know, I'm involved with the Viscera Organization, a 501(c)3 non-profit out of L.A. that works to support, promote, and encourage women working in genre media by offering a variety of services.

My film aftershock is a part of their library and played the L.A. kick-off event in 2011. This year, I started working for them as a tour coordinator with James Morgart, the Director of Media and Distribution for the Organization. In August, I was given a different role: I was asked to run the yearly L.A. carpet ceremony which basically means that I'm in charge of everything for the Viscera Film Festival EXCEPT the actual film program (that's all up to the rockin' Heidi Honeycutt and the amazing Kayley Viteo) and which includes the other activities for the weekend such as the Mistresses of Horror Alliance dinner on Friday and the Post Apocalyptic Brunch on Sunday.

My role has expanded again as I've been voted onto the executive board of the Viscera Organization as the Director of Operations!

This won't be affecting my filmmaking, though it's more important than ever that I move out to the Left Coast. Not to L.A., though. I LOVE my L.A. friends, but I really don't want to live there.

On the filmmaking side, however, I have some great news! Tonight, Stella Buio is up for Best Horror Short and our leading lady, Linnea Quigley, is up for Best Actress in a Short at the Buffalo Screams Horror Film Festival! Good luck to all of the nominees, but fingers crossed for Linnea! :D

And, speaking of screenings, the film also screened last weekend in the October FilmSlam at the Enzian! It's a great venue and the crowd was wonderful, surprising to me since we were the only horror film in the 'Slam. It was a great time and I have to thank Tim Anderson for screening the film and just being a really awesome guy! He loves indie film and it shows in the twinkle in his eyes.

And, finally, for this post anyway...Stella Buio screened at Creative Loafing's Reel Terror Film Festival in Tampa last night and we won an award for Best "Jaw Dropping" F/X!!

This was my second year taking part in Reel Terror and I like what Creative Loafing Tampa is trying to do. So far, it doesn't seem to be about fostering relationships with "celebrities," but about fostering a community. I did have one problem with the event this year, however, and it's not Creative Loafing's fault. My problem was this: if you want to have a conversation with someone and there's a panel or screening going on at the same time, either whisper or take it the fuck outside.

It's fine if you're not interested in whatever's going on because it's not about you, but you don't have to be rude to whoever is on stage, the filmmakers whose film is on screen, or the people who are trying to watch what's playing.

JustUs WON at Creative Loafing's Reel Terror Film Festival! :D

Last night, my film JustUs won Best Faux Radio Broadcast at Creative Loafing's Reel Terror Film Festival in Tampa! A near-the-hometown award at a near-the-hometown screening!!

In my inimitable way, I'm sure I looked like a complete prat on stage when I went up to get the award...I hope I said the right words and they came out making some semblance of sense. I'm sure I forgot to thank people so... Huge thanks go out to the Creative Loafing group for liking my flick and giving it an award, my cast and Janine for helping me make it, Kristin Mellian and Aaron Pushkar for giving me incredible radio sweepers, and, of course, the wonderful Brinke Stevens for lending her voice and talents for the DJ, Sheryl Black!

I'll keep checking to see if they have a piece up soon about the festival.

Also...I just discovered that JustUs was REVIEWED on Ain't It Cool News! (click the link and scroll down until you see my trailer. :D )

"Director Lori Bowen shows restraint and patience in this pretty straightforward revenge snippet involving a rapist/murderer released on a technicality, a woman in white, and a room filled with plastic. The tone is pretty heavy and the camera work is done with a talented hand. Definitely a good and terrifying treat that only takes six minutes to unfold." -- Mark L. Miller (AmbushBug), Ain't It Cool News

WMIFF's People Choice!

Hi everyone!

The music video I made for World Collision, "Sine," has been accepted by the World Music and Independent Film Festival and is in the running for a People's Choice award! "Essenger" came so close last year, we were in third or fourth place up against national acts like OK Go and Laether Strip. I really want to rock D.C.! Please go and vote for us on their website!

Here's the music video as a refresher:


At this festival last year, my video for "Essenger" was nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Alternative Rock.

THANK YOU!

Picture It...L.A., 2011: The Third Day

So, this was it! The day had finally arrived! A few days before I left, my rosacea went “Oh, you’re going to have photos taken? Well, I say ‘BLA-DOW!!!’ and it was (and still is) pretty bad. Not only that, but the day we took off for L.A., I got the biggest, most painful zit ever right next to my right eyebrow. The day of the film festival, I had the second largest, most painful zit ever on my left temple.

Yay.

And then, I discovered that I forgot a critical component of my wardrobe and I couldn’t be all dressed up for the blood red carpet. I decided to wear my A Nightmare on Elm Street shirt, might as well stick with the Nancy theme, right? Shawn looked pretty, though, in his Chinese style suit.

I look like a rosy-cheeked goofball, but whatever...lol

I sent out invites via Facebook to all of the people I could think of that live in the area so I could see and / or meet them. One of them was actress Brinke Stevens, who I met at my first ever film festival, ShockerFest, two years ago. I’ve mentioned her here before, she’s one of my favourite Scream Queens and I set up a screening of Sorority Babes at the Slimeball Bowl-a-Rama to honour her as our Queen of Hallowscreen.

She mentioned that she might be able to come, but that she was busy filming a documentary called Screaming in High Heels, the Rise and Fall of the Scream Queen as well as a trailer for a book that features her likeness called Video Pirates from Mars. I figured that she’d be too exhausted to come over, but I received a text message from her that said she was on her way! That gave me a great shot of happiness, to know that other than my brother, there was going to be at least one friendly face in the audience!



We headed over to the venue and were really early, but there was already a huge crowd milling around outside, giving blood and chatting. Linnea Quigley was there (Brinke’s co-star in Sorority Babes, another favourite Scream Queen of mine, and a good friend of hers), but Brinke hadn’t arrived yet. At the ticket table, I got to meet Brenda Fies, one of the co-founders of BleedFest. She was co-ordinating the volunteers and obviously very busy, but we were able to talk later and soon after that, we met Elisabeth, her sister and festival co-founder. These sisters are amazing people, y'all. They're lovely, warm, supportive people and great filmmakers themselves. It was so great to meet them finally!

I also finally met the awesome Heidi from FanGirlTastic! She’s an amazing force for recognizing the work of women in genre films!

Shawn and I milled around while they got the background for the red carpet set up and when Brinke arrived, I gave her her fest pass and she introduced me to Ms. Quigley. I saw her in Orlando, but I was focused on meeting Heather Langenkamp and didn’t really work up the nerve to talk to her, but it was awesome that Brinke was the one to introduce us! It turned out that Brinke told Ms. Quigley about the festival! She also introduced me to composer Chuck Cirino and director Kevin Tenney. I was in horror geek heaven!

Linnea Quigley couldn’t stay, but I gave her a copy of my compilation disc so she could check it out. I hope we can work together at some point in the future!

Brenda came out and said that they were getting ready to start the program so Shawn, Brinke, and I went in and found some seats and watched some really great films! First up was “The Horror of Our Love” by Dave Reda who was the Partnership Award winner from January, but there was an issue with his disc during his original screening and they played it again this month. Works out because I would’ve hated to miss that! It was hilarious!

Next up was a special award for Katt Shea as a trailblazer in film for women. She directed films like Poison Ivy and The Rage: Carrie 2. After that was a screening of the Producing Award winning Night of the Hell Hamsters from Elizabeth Pinto. Another hilarious short!

After that was the presentation of the award for Social Commentary to Stacy Title, director of The Last Supper, which was one of my favourite films of 1995.

Then, they jumped into the shorts package. Everything was in competition for the Audience Award and the Film Radar award, but we all received award certificates from the festival. I had two shorts in the package: “Essenger” and aftershock. “Essenger” got the award for “Best Don’t Bite the Apple...”



and aftershock got “Best All American Zombie Slayer.”



I feel confident that I can speak for the band and for Janine, the star of aftershock, when I say that we’re all honoured and thrilled to have received these amazing awards!

There was a break at that point and Brinke, Shawn, and I went out to the back patio with Chuck Cirino and chatted for a while. Kevin Tenney joined us, but I had to run out to the front to work out when I was going to be interviewed and photographed. I got caught up meeting a few filmmakers so I didn’t get to do the publicity thing before the screening for February’s Partnership Award winner Cam McCullouch’s zombie opus Home began and then award ceremony took place.

Tyrrell Shafner won the audience award for her short film Threnody, which I happened to see in New Orleans at the Vampire Film Festival this year. It was a fantastic flick and congratulations are definitely in order! The Film Radar award went to Susan Bell for The Patchwork Monkey, another fantastic film.

There was another break during which I was quickly photographed and interviewed and said farewell to Brinke who needed to go home and get some sleep, and then we watched the feature film the US premiere of the Aussie slasher Slaughtered.

Some of the shots were really good and there were pretty amazing set pieces, but it was in need of another draft or two...or three in the scripting phase.

After the festival was over, the Fies sisters, Deepika Daggubati, Ray from FilmRadar, and my brother and I went across the street and watched the rest of the Super Bowl over appetizers and fantastic conversation. Afterward, Shawn and I went back to the hotel, then got dinner at the Cheesecake Factory and went back to the hotel to go to bed early for our early flight out.

Yesterday, Monday, we got a cab to the airport for our 9 am flight and got home at 6:45 my time. We had an absolutely fantastic time and I’m so glad that Brinke and Linnea Quigley were able to come out and support women in horror and this amazing film festival!

BleedFest is one of the best film festivals I’ve been to. The venue it’s in is small and intimate which leads to better networking, and the sisters Fies have put a lot of thought into the festival and its structure. They’ve done an absolutely amazing job! It’s a wonderful festival with a worth-while message that women have just as much to give to genre film as men and are just as talented.

As long as BleedFest is around, I’ll be sending them my work and supporting the festival as much as I can!

Picture It...L.A., 2011: Day Two

I don’t know exactly what constitutes early in L.A. I woke up at seven o’clock and did some research to find a good breakfast place that was open. Well, most of what was close either didn’t sound good for breakfast or was open after I wanted to be on Hollywood Boulevard so we just ate at the hotel restaurant. I had my first fruity Belgian waffle and, as I said to Twitter, the Belgian who decided to combine fresh fruit with their waffle needs to work on world peace because holy crap that was yummy!

We grabbed the cab and I said to the driver, “We’re going to Grauman’s Chinese theatre, but we need to make a quick stop at 1428 (address redacted).”

I know that the address to the house is easily found on the internet, but it’s still a private residence and you’re not going to get the address from me.

So what is 1428 (address redacted)? Why, I haz pictures, let me show you them...



and




as well as



That’s right...the house from A Nightmare on Elm Street whose address in the movie is 1428 Elm Street.

In the caption for the photos, I mention that I’m not ashamed to admit that I was super excited to actually see the house right there before my eyes. I’m a filmmaker, but I’m also a fan. Technically, I was a fan first. So there! :D

From there we went to Grauman’s Chinese Theatre and the Hollywood Walk of Fame. The slideshow below will show you all of the L.A. pictures except for the Chinese New Years ones.



Highlights from the trip to Hollywood Boulevard are seeing Cary Grant’s imprint and various favourite stars. I wanted to meet up with my friend Kimberley, but that didn’t work out since my brother and I decided to do lunch in Chinatown instead of on the Boulevard and then we never made it back, but that’s just one more reason for me to return!

After walking up and down the boulevard a little bit, we headed over to Chinatown to catch the New Years parade and festivities! Words can’t do the beauty justice. I LOVE the idea of two New Years in one year. I know, to the Chinese it’s just one a year, but I don’t see why one can’t celebrate new beginnings whenever they want! Plus, it was gorgeous, just check out the slideshow below!

A quick warning first: There are videos in the slideshow, one in particular of a martial arts demonstration that will make everyone, but especially men, cringe. The videos are all at the end of the slideshow. Consider yourself duly warned...



We walked around Chinatown for a little while, watched the martial arts demonstration at Central Plaza, and then we got lunch. I let UrbanSpoon decide for us and it pointed us toward Yang Chow which turned out to be a happenin’ spot! Betty White, Omar Epps, and LL Cool J are among the famous actors whose photos grace their walls and it was packed! With good reason...the food was delicious! Shawn got their famous Slippery Shrimp and I got their sliced chicken and snow peas, which is something I always get here. Well, not again. Theirs was so amazing that there’s no way I could order chicken and snow peas here. And the slippery shrimp? It has a wicked name, but it’s also delicious!

From there, we walked south on Broadway into downtown L.A. In total, we probably walked about three or four miles, not even how far we walked in NY (from the Bowery area to Times Square and back), but it felt like longer because nothing was open. There were businesses and clubs, places I’d heard of, that weren’t open. I had to check my phone for the time...it as only about 8 at night!

It didn’t seem like the best part of town, but I didn’t feel like we were in danger, either.

As we walked, we happened upon some crane lights and a caravan of trailers. I got excited: maybe it’s Spider-Man and we can see a multi-million dollar movie being filmed so I guided us over. Turns out it was a Verizon commercial.



and




In the commercial, all of these people are driving carphones* when the newest, bestest carphone evar!1 drives by. We couldn’t see the model of the phone so maybe it’s something that has yet to explode on the market, but the cars were cute. So much money being wasted, though, with at least half of the crew just sitting or standing around.

We eventually left them to their devices* and walked around some more, finding ourselves outside a Regal on West Olympic. It was the best, nearest landmark for the cab. We decided to go back to the hotel. I needed to lie down for a minute, I was dizzy (yay vertigo) and then we could decide what to do. It’s so weird that there was NOTHING to do in L.A. at 8 that didn’t involve alcohol, but whatever...

After my lie down, we headed out to the Sunset Strip around ten or eleven to choose which club we were going to check out for a taste of the local music scene. Shawn saw a sign that said that Wino from St. Vitus was playing the Viper Room and the guy at the door said that he was up after the band that played next so we walked up and down Sunset and headed into the Viper. As it turned out, Wino, a headliner, played way early in the night and all that was left were local rock bands. Jesus...is L.A. like this ALL of the time or was it a special occasion because of the Super Bowl?

I don’t want to name the band that played when we walked in, but oh my God, they sucked. They could play just fine, but there was no heart behind the music. Boring. After about a song and a half, we headed over to the Whiskey A Go Go and watched the group there, The Standells. They’re an older group and though the write up I read said they were early punk, they sounded more like a slightly rockier Beach Boys. They were good, but not really our scene so we stayed for a couple of songs, then went back to our rooms for an early night. It was a good idea because the while reason we were there in the first place, BleedFest Film Festival, was the next day and it was going to be a long day.

*Puns intended.

Picture It...L.A., 2011: Day One

The great thing about flying from America’s right coast to the left is that you fly backwards in time. If you go to L.A., you might have an eight or nine hour flight, but you arrive at your destination only a few hours after taking off. Such was the case when my brother and I took off from SRQ at omg o’clock in the morning and arrived at LAX at 12:30 in the afternoon, though it was 3:30 our time.

If you don’t live in or around LA or the suburbs, you may hear about the crappy traffic, but the main issue with the place is how far things are from each other. To get anywhere you have to get on the infamous 405 at some point. LAX is 30-45 minutes from the hotel we were staying at on Ventura even on the highway. It seems like everything is half an hour away from wherever you are which isn’t too bad a drive (except in traffic), but is murder on the wallet. However, actually driving in LA is insane and it’s better to have a native behind the wheel.

I wanted to stay in a hotel that was close to the venue, but still rated as being safe and clean. The Courtyard by Marriott in Sherman Oaks was a 45 minute walk from the venue according to Google Maps (but only 6 minutes by car, figure that one out) and it was near restaurants and shops. I’m no expert when it comes to travel, but I am reasonably experienced in walking everywhere. That’s not entirely feasible in L.A. At least their public transportation runs late, but things close really early there, even on the weekend, and they open relatively late in the day. It’s weird to say, but Sarasota keeps better hours than LA.

We got settled in the hotel and, I don’t know about Shawn, but I was exhausted and we hadn’t eaten for twelve hours. We decided to go to P.F. Chang’s which was a Chinese restaurant in the shopping center down the street from the hotel. I accidentally guided us in the opposite direction (don’t let me navigate when I’m tired...), but we turned around and got on the right track.

The food was delicious (I had crispy honey chicken, omnomnom) and while I was still tired, I definitely felt better so we grabbed a cab and went to Griffith Observatory. Wow, that was far away...but very much worth it.



I did adjust the brightness/saturation a bit on the sunset photos, but only because the camera (my Casio point and shoot) adjusted to 800 ISO and it looked like crap.

Griffith Observatory is amazingly beautiful. Of course, it’s most well known for the James Dean and Natalie Wood film Rebel Without a Cause, but while I was up there, I kept thinking about how Heather Langenkamp and Johnny Depp went to the Observatory in 1983 for a character building date before they shot A Nightmare on Elm Street. God, I’m such a geek...and I love it!

Anyway, my brother and I caught two shows at the planetarium, which is something I highly recommend doing: Centered in the Universe which is about the expansion of our knowledge about the space that surrounds us and how much more is still out there to explore, and Lights of the Valkyrie which is about the Northern Lights and the early vikings’ interpretation of them and the stars. It was really great stuff made even better with a live narration. The woman who narrated the shows kind of sounded like Susan Sarandon (whom I love), and though that was distracting, she was excellent and added a special slice of awesome to the show.

Before we left for L.A., I did research on some things to do and see there. I knew that Kevin Smith recorded his SModcast podcasts live so I looked at the schedule and found out that he and Jason Mewes were doing Jay and Silent Bob Get Old at the Jon Lovitz Comedy Club in Universal CityWalk. Score! We got a cab from Griffith to CityWalk (which was surprisingly close, but definitely not within walking distance, like most of LA) and went right to the Lovitz theatre to make sure we got tickets. The show was slated to start at 10 and we got there around 8:30 or 9. There were still tickets, but a line had already started.

We wanted to see the show, but not THAT badly so we walked around CityWalk. Here in Florida, CityWalk is HUGE, but they had more space to work with. In LA, since it’s next to the working studio park and in the middle of the city, it has to be small and build upwards for more space. It’s not only small, but loud and bright. CityWalk in Orlando would be that loud and bright, too, if it was in such a limited space with every club and bar on the strip vying for your attention.



We stopped in at Things From Another World because I thought it would be awesome. The one I went to in the Portland / Seattle area has a large collection of awesome Japanese toys and cool things like that. The TFAW CityWalk was cool, but not as cool as the one in Washington. So weird to say that... Other than that, we didn’t really stop in any of the shops, even the gigantic GameStop.

We got in line at just the right time because we were still relatively close to the front of the line, but soon after we got in place, the line blossomed into a long, unwieldy snake that wrapped around the sides of the club and possibly further.

We got to the door and the guy asked us how many were in our party and I told him that there were only two of us. So he said, “Would you like to sit up front?”

I wanted to say “Hell yeah we wanna sit up front!” but I calmly replied, “Well, yes, we’d like to...” So he pointed us to these seats:



How great are they? So great! Although, really, it seems like there isn’t a bad seat in the house. The club is small, but it’s also tall with three stories of seats relatively close to the stage.

Eventually, Jason Mewes and Kevin Smith come out and talk for an hour or an hour and a half. The Get Old podcast is really just like the two of them sitting down and chatting, but they have the live, paying audience. It was absolutely worth $40 total to see it live! If you like Smith, you’re in L.A., and they’re recording Get Old at a club, either the SModcastle or at Jon Lovitz or wherever, I highly recommend it. It was hilarious, a great way to end our first day in L.A.!

After the show, we went back to our rooms and collapsed to prepare ourselves for Saturday where we were going to check out Hollywood Boulevard, Grauman’s Chinese Theatre, and the Chinatown New Years Parade with a quick stop by a landmark that's very important to me and my career.

BleedFest February 2011!

Elisabeth and Brenda Fies have posted the schedule for the February 6 edition of BleedFest! Not only are aftershock and "Essenger" considered winning shorts for being selected for the festival, but they're both up for an audience award at the event!

I'm so excited! My brother and I are going for the weekend. It's a loooong flight from Florida, but we might try to sneak in some touristy things, it being my first time in LA after all!

In other, more local, news, I'm working on pre-production for a micro-short, but that won't be shot until after I get back from LA. Still working on pre-production for a new music video for World Collision and two other short films!

I've also been working pretty intensely on the A Hammer Fell in Jerusalem novel. A full length novel is between 70,000 and 150,000 words and my current word count is just shy of 30,000 so I still have a ways to go to get there, but I have a lot to tell. It's interesting going from short fiction to novel length, realizing the strengths and weaknesses of both forms. It's not unlike going from writing short films to writing features though so far, I'd say that writing a feature length script is "easier" than writing a novel, though no writing is truly easy.

This has been an intensely creative and fulfilling first month to the new year and I know I can carry that energy throughout the remaining eleven!!

In the seat of my country's government.

I got back from Washington, D.C., yesterday where my brother and I had gone to attend the first annual World Music and Independent Film Festival's awards gala on Saturday. What I didn't know was that the actual film festival part had been running all week, including the day we got in, because they didn't have anything on their website about it until Saturday. Oops! Yeah, they were a bit disorganized and disheveled, but now that I know it was their first event, I can understand all of the glitches much better. The event has a lot of potential and I would absolutely submit films to them again. But I am getting a bit ahead of myself.

After departing Sarasota at 7 on Friday morning (after I got home from work around two am and woke up at 4:15), my brother and I land at the Ronald Reagan Memorial Bowl International Airport and get into the cab to go to our hotel, the Capitol Hilton, which served as the event's venue. The room was heavily discounted, by the way. I think the regular price is a heart-stopping $250 a night. Something outrageous like that. And the wi-fi isn't even free! I know the money is going toward a good cause, like Paris' latest drug issue or something, but even Nando's Peri-Peri in Chinatown has free wi-fi.

I planned on us being there so early so we could take in some sights. At that time, I still thought nothing was happening on the festival front until Saturday night so we had a nice chunk of time to see D.C. and we went to the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. When I was a kid, I wanted to be an astronaut, but my asthma and allergies made that dream pretty much impossible (this was the early 80s, folks.) We didn't have a whole heck of a lot of time, but they didn't close until 7:30 that day so we got to see a lot more than we thought we would. We walked through every exhibit, though we didn't have time to read everything, and we got to see Journey to the Stars which was narrated by Whoopi Goldberg! That was awesome!

It was so awe inspiring to be in the presence of these machines, like the Spirit of St. Louis and the Wright flyers. It's amazing what human beings can accomplish when we bend our minds to the task. It's just too bad we can't seem to put that kind of dedication into other worthwhile pursuits like being kind to each other or helping each other out.

After our tour of the museum, we decided to get something to eat and cut the sightseeing a little short. On the way back to the hotel, we found a fancy Italian place called Portenza where we had good, but slightly overpriced, food. They're trying to build D.C. up as a foodie Mecca, especially after Top Chef had their most recent season there, and the food was delicious, but I would've expected a little more for a $13 plate of moon shaped cheesy goodness.

After that, and a quick stop at the CVS just down the street from our hotel, we went to our rooms where I turned on the teevee for some background noise. When I flipped past the Hilton events channel, I saw that there were films playing for the festival that day. By the time I saw it, it was a little too late; there was only an hour left in the last movie of the day. My phone, thankfully, has Internet so I was able to check out their website, even though I did check it just before leaving for D.C., and lo and behold, there was a link to a film schedule...sort of. That was upsetting. Then I tried emailing the festival founders, but the emails bounced.

Oh boy...

Since there was nothing to do about it, I started watching Repossessed on my iPad (I love that movie...and I love the iPad. It's turned my productivity up to eleven) and fell asleep around 9, only to wake up around 7:30 the next morning, which turned out to be a good thing since the networking party and awards and everything actually started really early. Like 10 am early.

I'm not a fancy dresser and am extremely low maintenance, but I got dolled up as well as I do (no make-up to conceal my rosacea, hair in my usual ponytail) and a severely low cut black shirt and black pants, grabbed my compilation DVDs (I only took four, I need to make a huge cache of these things, seriously) and met up with my bro to go downstairs and start networking. We met Gary Ugarek, the man behind the Deadlands movies, and Chris Kiros, a producer / cameraman on Deadlands who brought his own film Zombthology to the festival, and had a great time talking to them (indie horror at a film festival! I like WMIFF just for that!) and got copies of their films as well as permission to play them at Hallowscreen!

We walked around and talked to people and handed out CDs and DVDs and we were interviewed a couple of times and photographed quite a bit and finally it was time to go to the luncheon before the ceremony. We were seated with the band Flying Machines who were there to perform and also ended up taking home Best Rock Video and Best Director for a Music Video. They're not my kind of music, but they were really nice guys so it works out.

They had a lot of categories and even more nominees so the awards thing took about three hours, but at least they had musical performances to break everything up. Our video lost in both categories (Best Alternative Rock and Best Cinematography) to OK Go's amazing Rube Goldberg inspired video "This Too Shall Pass" and...uh...I forget who won Cinematography, to be honest, and the winners aren't posted on the WMIFF website as of this writing. I would've been happy to win, don't get me wrong, but OK Go's video is pretty damn amazing and I would've been surprised if they hadn't won!

The funny thing about the awards thing, to me, other than the fact that 1/3 of the presenters and maybe 3/4 of the winners didn't show, is how many people left after their categories were called and they didn't win. How rude is that? Okay, so you didn't win. You were nominated, for crying out loud! That's amazing! Don't act like a baby and pout when your name isn't called. Stick around to support your fellow artists! But maybe that's just me...whatever.

After the awards ceremony, which wrapped up 15 minutes early, Shawn and I got into some comfy clothes and did a tour of the monuments. We saw Albert Einstein's statue first, which is off the beaten path, but pretty close to all of the major monuments. The statue is huge, but Einy, as I like to call him, is adorable.

Then we went to the Lincoln memorial, which is a lot bigger than I thought it would be even after seeing it from the back when I took the boat tour from Alexandria back in July. So many people were at the memorial, hanging out on the steps or reading the words inside, but I do have to wonder how many people are going to go home and carry on with their bigotry after reading his speeches in slack-jawed awe. Then again, our government's in that town and they seem to have forgotten everything these statues and monuments are supposed to stand for and to remind us of.

One thing you don't really get from photos of Lincoln's statue is the immediacy of his posture and expression. It looks like he's about to stand up and go kick some tail, to be honest. And his stony gaze is focused on the Capitol Building (and the Washington Memorial since that's between then, but I prefer to think he's looking angrily down upon the travesty our government has become.) Don't get me wrong, my country was founded on some amazing principles, but those principles have become corrupted and distorted as our elected officials grapple after power and money, completely forgetting that it was we, the people, who gave them their jobs and it is we, the people, for whom they work, not Wall Street, not the corporations, not foreign interests. Us. And I don't know what it would take to remind them of that short of a complete dissolution of authority, which never works out well anyway.

Anyway, after the Lincoln memorial, we headed over to the Vietnam Memorial. It's something I've wanted to see for a long time. In my childhood, I knew a lot of Vietnam vets and my mother's passion for supporting them kind of infected me, but I'm young and fairly removed from that era. It was hard to put that into a perspective for myself, but I can see it mirrored in a way with the Iraq wars. All of those names...they all belong to a person, someone who means a great deal to the people they left behind. It's yet another thing we forget, or just ignore, but it's hard to ignore the ache still in a parent's or sibling's heart as they lay a wreath by the name of their relative and press their hand against the wall to support themselves as they break down.

Hidden off the path of the Vietnam Memorial is a statue that compliments the statue of the three soldiers near the Wall. This is the Vietnam Women's Memorial. It's a beautiful and equally haunting tribute to the women who served in the war, but are so often forgotten though they gave their lives and hearts as well.

Nearby is the World War II memorial. It's very beautiful and very grandiose, but I'm struck by something my former neighbor, a WWII veteran, reportedly said (I'm paraphrasing, by the way): "I went there so people here could do what they wanted. If I knew then what I know now, I would've stayed home." Whatever his political leanings, that's a pretty strong statement, one I think a lot of veterans feel. From there, we went to the Washington Monument, but we didn't go up the stairs or anything. It's impressive and really tall. Can't really say too much more about it after being gobsmacked by Lincoln's statue and the Vietnam war memorials.

After our tour of the nation's monuments, we headed over to Chinatown were we ate at a restaurant that served American food with a Portugese / African / Middle Eastern twist called Nando's Peri-Peri. Not cheap, and it's essentially a self-service restaurant, but once their computer problems were worked out, the food was delicious. Seriously, the best ear of corn I've ever had. Very spicy, though, so if you're like me and you don't dig the kick in the mouth, be careful how you order.

From there, we headed back to the hotel because the after party was due to start at Lotus at 10 pm and that gave us an hour or so to get ready. Our flight was at 8:45 the next morning, but I was afraid that security might be crazy so I didn't want to leave the hotel any later than 6. The club didn't even open until 11 and when we went back, we were turned away because they had a dress code and Shawn's shorts weren't Lotus material. Whatevsies! We didn't get to go to the after party, I really hate elitist clubs anyway, so we went back to the hotel and got some sleep.

All in all, it was a great trip and I would absolutely submit to WMIFF again, like I said before. Washington, D.C. itself is a beautiful city with just as much homelessness as anywhere else (and quite a bit more police action), but I started to feel like I was walking through a huge cemetery. Nearly all of the architecture is sepulchral and what little isn't doesn't feel very alive, but the people were friendly. Maybe that's because most of them are tourists...

I'm back!

Whew! I've been away for a couple of weeks. Part of it was vacation fun times in Orlando with some of my best friends and part of it was working fun times as my brother and I went to New York City to attend the screening of the music video at New Filmmakers at the Anthology Film Archives!

There are TONNES of photos in these slideshows...and I'm not sure why most of the daylight New York pics are out of focus...kind of annoying, actually. Guess I'll just have to go back. Oh darn. ;D

Orlando:


The Harry Potter area of Universal Studio's Islands of Adventure opened up maybe a month ago and that happened to co-incide with my sister-from-another-mister's vacation here in FL (which also co-incided with New Filmmakers in New York) so I arranged for some time off and ran away to Orlando with her, her sisters, and some of her friends for happy fun times! Harry Potter is insane, J.K. Rowling really pushed the reality of the area as the most important thing even at the expense of common sense (as in the main souvenir shop which is WAY too small), but the details are incredible and the area as a whole is well worth the oppressive press of humanity in the hothotheat of a typical Florida day.

The main food attraction is the butterbeer. Yes, they have pumpkin juice, but I couldn't even drink a whole bottle of that stuff. The butterbeer, however, is utterly amazing, refreshing, and delicious. It's like butterscotch cream soda. Thankfully, it's not distributed outside of the park, or even outside of that area of the park. That would diminish the specialness of the drink, I think, to be able to go to Walgreens or 7-11 and buy it.

The main attraction for the park, however, outside of the loads of Potter merchandise, is Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey, a Haunted Mansion-type ride that's anything but Haunted Mansion. I don't want to give the whole thing away because you really need to go and experience it, but suffice it to say that it's utterly amazing and is absolutely worth the hour and a half wait for it. It's housed in the forced perspective wonderland that is Hogwarts castle. Seriously. It's pretty amazing.

We did ride other rides there, like The Simpsons, the Mummy, and Rip Ride Rockit, but Potter's where it's at right now, especially with the disrepair that some of the once-pristine rides have fallen into, like Spider-Man.

Even if you're not a Potter fan, I think you'll enjoy the Potter area at Universal: Orlando.

New York:


A couple of days after I got home from Orlando, it was time for me to take off for New York. My sister-from-another-mister asked me to use FourSquare so she could stalk me from Florida so those of you who are on my Twitter, I apologize for the inundation of notifications of where I was, but once I started, it was kind of addictive... I'll only use it for vacations, special occasions, and film festival trips, though...y'all don't need to know my work schedule or my address!

The first thing my brother and I did in New York was get to our hotel which was in Chinatown, between Bowery and Mott on Grand, then we had the most delicious pizza at Lombardi's (the first pizza place in the US) and then we went to Times Square to see Nathan Lane and Bebe Neuworth as Gomez and Morticia Addams in the new Addams Family musical. I've been a big fan of the Addams Family for as long as I can remember and while I was excited to see this, I was dubious because it could've been terribly bad. It wasn't. It was WONDERFUL! It reminded me of why I adore the Addams family. While there is no other Gomez for me than Raul Julia (sorry, John Astin, but Raul was amazing), Nathan Lane did a fantastic job! To me, Bebe Neuworth isn't Morticia, but she was good in the role. I really don't know who I would've cast. Everyone else was brilliant and the show is so funny and the songs are great, but they're pretty show specific so I can't say you should run out and get the soundtrack if you haven't seen the show.

The screening was fantastic. There was a good, receptive crowd and a lot of people took some of Shawn's CDs and a couple of my compilation DVDs. Most of the filmmakers left after their films showed or weren't there. I can understand not showing up, but I don't really understand not watching the other films you're screened with. That's one of my favourite parts about going to these festivals: checking out what else is playing. I did get to meet the director and one of the stars of Modern Love is Automatic, a feature film out of D.C. that was produced by the juror of the Female Shorts film festival in VA where Anathema had just played. They were super-sweet, even though we were the only ones who stuck around to watch it, and the film was great. The actresses in particular were spectacular!

My brother and I walked around New York City...quite literally. The day of our screening, we walked from Chinatown to Times Square (took about and hour and a half or so) and went to the Empire State Building (the best photo keepsake picture EVER!) and Madam Tussaud's and just all over the place!

I moved to New York after I graduated high school in '97 to go to the School of Visual Arts in Manhattan. While various events conspired against this and I had to come back to Sarasota, I've always loved the City. It's dirty and stinky and dangerous, but vibrant and real. The mentality there is if you don't keep moving forward, you might as well have stayed home. Seems like a pretty good analogy for life if you ask me. And jaywalking isn't just against the law, it's a way of life.

Now, I'm returned to a pile of work, both at the theatre and for the Circus documentary I was working on and the Sarasota Fringe Film Festival's Halloween Mini-Fest for which I'm the program director, not to mention my own films. Speaking of which...I have to make the arrangements to go to D.C. at the end of August for the World Music and Independent Film Festival where "Essenger" has been nominated for Best Alternative Rock video and Best Cinematography!

Also, voting is still open for the People's Choice Award, where we're in 4th place! C'mon y'all! If you haven't voted yet, you can do so by clicking on THESE WORDS, finding our video (World Collision's "Essenger"), clicking ADD then scrolling to the bottom and clicking on vote!

A break in the VA tale for GOOD NEWS!

Good morning!

I know, I owe the fourth and final day of the Female Shorts Film Festival, but I pretty much had to hit the ground running as soon as I returned from Alexandria because the music video's playing in New Filmmakers' Summer Series in New York City on July 7 and my brother and I are planning on being there and I had to get right back to work at the theatre and continue cutting Circus Sarasota...I've been crazy busy!

This morning, I was notified by Laura at the World Music and Independent Film Festival that the music video (which is currently in the lead in their People's Choice category - if you haven't yet voted, please do so! Go to http://wmiff.com/?q=music/vote-peoples-choice-music , click on "add" near World Collision, then scroll to the bottom and click on "vote!") had been nominated for two awards: Best Alternative Rock and Best Cinematography! Here's a list of all of the nominees! I think I can speak for the band and cast here when I say we're deeply honoured and terrifically excited! A few of us were planning on being there anyway so, like I told Laura, this is like the cherry on top!