JustUs heading to Rock and Shock, Sine heading to Europe!

Sometimes, you don't get emails from festivals that your work got in. I think it's because they depend on Withoutabox to notify when "Accepted" is clicked next to your name, but the fact of the fact of the matter is that Withoutabox, for all of its convenience, doesn't work like that apparently. Twice now, I've discovered that Sine has been accepted to a film festival because I logged into my account and saw the lovely green "ACCEPTED" under the festival name. The obverse is also true: I've been notified that it HASN'T been accepted only because I logged in.

Anyway, I'm happy to announce that "Sine" has been accepted to the European Film Festival which tours Europe from October 14 - November 17, 2011!

Also, I'm happy to announce that JustUs has been accepted to the Rock and Shock Film Festival which takes place October 14-16, 2011, in Boston, MA! The film festival is part of the Rock and Shock horror convention to which I WISH I was going not the least of which because Heather Langenkamp is going to be there! (And Robert Englund...but HEATHER! ;D ) Plus, I bet it's going to be a LOT of fun, but I'd already committed to filming my brother's side project, Didges Christ Superdrum at Zombicon in Ft. Myers that weekend. Plus, JustUs and Sine are playing Canton that weekend...and my friend and JustUs lead actress Sage Hall is getting MARRIED that weekend.

Neither of those festivals have posted their schedules yet, but I'll come back and post when they have. Plus, I have to update my laurels!

Whew! What a month!

A new music video!

Hey all!

I know, I need to write up my trip to LA last weekend. Almost as soon as I got off the plane, I was practically consumed by projects. One of which was the music video to promote the DVD World Collision and I made of the original 1922 Nosferatu with their score (also a Hallowscreen-related piece.)

Without further ado, I present "Sine" by World Collision (if you want to watch it in high def, please watch the video here!):



I'm so busy with projects to pay the bills and projects to further my skills, a lot of which I can't talk about at the moment, but I'm still around! As soon as I can spill them thar beans, I'll tell you all fourth! (cuz, seriously, my mom would be first, then a mass text to family and friends, then Twitter...all about ease of communications. I almost wish I had a brain implant that would allow me to automatically upload my thoughts when I want to blog, but then this would be waaay too stream-of-consciousness and have a lot of random Python sketches...which ain't a bad thing.)

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!

So much to tell, so little time to blog!

Hi guys!

I am a terrible blogger. I have all of this stuff going on and I've neglected my blog. I love this blog and I love all of you. I'm going to try and rectify some of that now with some of the news I have to share!

In a little less than a week, I'll be heading up to Virginia for the Female Shorts Film Festival which is being held at the Torpedo Gallery in Alexandria. A Hammer Fell in Jerusalem: Anathema is one of only 22 shorts to be shown over the four day event.

The music video I made for my brother's band, World Collision, is up for a People's Choice Award at the World Music and Independent Film Festival. If you haven't seen the video yet, it's at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vWloc1uajZI and if you'd like to vote (which is really a veiled plea for you to vote, haha!), go to: http://www.wmiff.com/?q=music/vote-peoples-choice-music . This festival is in Washington, D.C. in August and I go plan on going to that one, I just haven't firmed up travel arrangements yet. I was just notified that voting will end at the end of July so get crackin'!! ;D

I'm in the middle of a reedit of my Colson Award winning documentary Circus Sarasota. I received some interviews with the co-founders of the organization, Mr. Pedro Reis and Ms. Dolly Jacobs, and I'm working on fitting them into what I've currently got and rearranging a few things, tightening it up a bit. Thankfully, it's all on my laptop so I can work on it during my "downtime" in the airports and in Virginia!

World Collision have asked me to make another music video for them! I may be the sister of the band's originator, but it's still an honour to be asked back! I have no idea when this is going to be shot, to be honest, but I've got some ideas and maybe this can be shot when I was originally hoping to shoot my next short since that one might take a bit longer in the pre-production process. Sounds like a plan to me! And, that said, yes, I'm doing at least one more short film! A talkie this time (I get asked that a lot since Anathema is a silent film...) The biggest thing I've learned from Anathema as I watch it with people in theatres is that I am not a writer suited to silent film, though I love the form.

Finally, everything at the theatre is up in the air again. Das Wunderkind that corporate brought in to replace our first booth manager decided to return to his old theatre a month after starting at ours. They offered me the job and I said no. Once they rejected me for it the first time around, I refocused and now have some really great things happening in my true profession. It's not my fault that Das Wunderkind couldn't hack it (to be fair, he lives an hour / hour and a half away...a terrible commute, but he knew that when he said yes.) That said, things are a bit chaotic at a twenty screen theatre with no booth manager. Hopefully, they'll pick one soon...I've got a lot to do!!

Things Fall Apart and Things Fall Together

Things work out the way they're supposed to. About a month ago, maybe just over, my work life kind of blew up when the booth manager, who had been booth manager almost since the place opened (that'd be about 13 years), had to suddenly transfer to another theatre. We're a bit understaffed as it is so this sudden and completely unexpected move knocked all of us projectionists for a loop. And by all of us, I really just mean the two of us who are, for all intents and purposes, full time upstairs.

Wanting to keep the booth in the family, I applied for the booth manager position as was "strongly recommended" to me by the former booth manager and several higher up employees. I was told, though, that they'd probably go with someone who had some experience with the digital projector that was installed a week or two after the booth manager's transfer and, though I'd practically been running the booth for the past few years, I'm inexperienced according to the corporation's standards. Everyone at the theatre thought I'd get it and I wouldn't be lying to you if I were to say that I was disappointed when I didn't, but I was also relieved. I'm a filmmaker, not a career projectionist, and to be the booth manager, I would have to sacrifice the relative freedom of being able to shoot pretty much whenever I want. Just the month or so I spend as the interim booth manager was mentally upsetting.

During that time, I found out that one of my really good friends, whom I don't see very often as it is, is moving away (she actually pushed the date of her moving to today and we still haven't been able to get together), and I got several rejections for Anathema, and if you've read the last blogpost I made, you know about the particular sting that accompanies a hometown rejection.

In that same post, I mentioned that I was sending the film to the Sarasota Fringe Film Festival which occurs around the same time as the Sarasota Film Festival (to differentiate between the two, I'll just call the other one "the Fringe") and that I also donated money to help get the festival off the ground this year (via Kickstarter: click here if you have a desire to donate a little green to the scene and if not, that's okay, too. :D )

I received an email from the director of the Fringe requesting a meeting based on the cover letter I sent with my film. Yes, it did mention that I'm a projectionist for the mainstream festival, but really...I don't know any trade secrets or anything that isn't already in the papers. It's not like I can tell them anything and I'm certainly not about to start off my career as a saboteur by making other filmmakers miserable when the selection process is political and subjective all at the same time. Like the director of the Fringe, I'm a local filmmaker who was rejected (twice now) by the hometown festival and yet both films have played other festivals and won awards.

So, I went to the meeting, not entirely sure of what it was that we were meeting about. After some small talk, he offered me a job as an editor on a short documentary that had been shot locally - so Sarasota Film Festival people, if you're reading this and starting to get worried or something, don't. I'm not working for the Fringe as staff, I'm working for a film sponsored by the Fringe to be played at the Fringe and this freelance editing job will not interfere with my duties as the film projectionist for the Sarasota Film Festival. I just won't be getting a whole lot of sleep over the next couple of months!

This news came down the pike on Wednesday before I had to go to work at the theatre and I thought, "Hey, this is pretty cool! I'm building my professional CV, I'm going to be making more contacts, and I'm going to be making a little dough in the process!" It felt good to be happy while working, which I really haven't been in a while, even with the mixed feelings of not getting the booth manager position and all those rejections. And, yes, I am prepared for it to go tits up because that's the nature of the business I'm in, but we did shake on it and that still holds water with some people like myself.

Last night at work, which is the busiest night for a projectionist because new films open on Friday, I received two emails. One, I can't really go into right now, but I may have some exciting news here toward the end of the year, but the other one was a notification that the music video I made for my brother's band was accepted to the World Music and Independent Film Festival in Washington, D.C.! Once I know more, I'll post more - like usual. Woohoo!

I'm expecting an email from their director closer to when the festival is supposed to take place (which is in August). If I can go, it would be my first trip to the nation's capital and while it's a terribly dangerous place (morally, ethically, and physically), I'd really like to check it out.

In the minus column, I appear to have sprained my middle finger which would be funny had I been giving this last month The Bird; however, I was only threading.

The music video is finished!

Part of the reason I've been even more silent than usual lately is because I was asked by my brother to create a music video for his band, World Collision. It took me a while to come up with a concept that I liked and that I felt captured the mood of the singer's lyrics and then I had to submit it for approval. As soon as I had that, I started casting, reaching out to Brian Dennis, who was in A Hammer fell in Jerusalem: Anathema, for the role of the Tempter and through him, I found the wonderful Miss Chelsey Panisch for the role of the Innocent. The rest of the cast speaks for themselves: the band is played by...the band. The Fire Dancer is Dr. Marguerite Barnett (how cool is that part, too? How cool is ALL of them? I mean, the fact that I made the video not withstanding, I love all of these people and it was so much fun to make this video!!)

After that, movement into actual production was swift. I did storyboards and a shot list and the next week, we shot all of the daytime stuff at Dr. Barnett's property, which I also used in AHFiJ: Anathema, and a couple of days later we shot the "limbo" and band stuff at night. I started editing at 11 am on Thursday and breaking only to go to work or grab a quick bite to eat, I finished post officially today, unofficially yesterday.

For those who are into the technical stuff, I shot in standard definition on my Panasonic DVX100b (no, I'm not being sponsored by them, but I have to say that love that freakin' camera) using the "squeeze" mode set to 24fps. I hadn't used that setting before, using standard 4:3 for Without/Within and AHFiJ: Anathema and letterbox for aftershock.

Without too much further ado, here is the video, as hosted by YouTube! (Watch in 480p if it gives you the option. Or you may want to watch it on YouTube since my blog format cuts off a bit on the right -- I'll work on that...):