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 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!
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.
One of the most common questions I get is "Are your films online?" and for a long time I replied no. They were still out on the festival circuit or I couldn't find a website that I liked that handled films in a way that made me feel comfortable. Then, I heard about this place called OpenFilm. They'll host features and shorts and it's built for filmmakers, not for vbloggers or machinimaniacs or anything that would normally wind up on YouTube. After BleedFest, I'll be putting "Essenger" and aftershock up, too, but for now, if you have an hour to spare, you can now go check out both Without / Within and A Hammer Fell in Jerusalem: Anathema online! Woohoo!!
Also, I've submitted A Hammer Fell in Jerusalem: Anathema to the Get It Made competition, a contest where the winner is given a bunch of dough to make a feature version of their short. If you have the time and the inclination, please create an account and vote for my film! Hell, go watch a bunch of the films and vote! It is free, after all. They say that 60% of the contest is based on viewer impressions so click on the stars (one for crappy, five for MINDBLOWINGLY AWESOME!) and vote honestly!
In closing: this year has been amazing and I feel so blessed. Next year, and the year after that, and the year after that and so on and so forth...they're only going to get better! Thank you all so much for sticking around through my long silences and then sudden bursts of tl;dr fangeekery! Be safe tonight and happy new year!!
The Hallowscreen Film Festival is looking for responsible volunteers (read: no pay, except in gum and gratitude!) for our Halloween weekend event! The film festival is being put on in conjunction with the Sarasota Chalk Festival, an event to raise money (via donations) and awareness for the Avenida de Colores, a Sarasota-based 501(c)3. There is no charge for admission to either the film festival or the Chalk Festival. The festivals will take place in downtown Sarasota, in the area where South Pineapple Avenue and South Orange Avenue converge.
We request that all volunteers are 18 or older as this film festival shows mostly rated R films and as one of the functions of the volunteers will be to check IDs at the door, it doesn't seem right for the volunteer to not be able to see the movies they're carding for!
We need volunteers for the following days: Friday, October 29, 2010, from 6pm-midnight. 6pm-9pm is the VIP party and 9 pm-midnight is the open to the public portion. The opening night film will be shown during both sections. The volunteer may be called upon to change discs as well as card attendees to verify that they are 17 or older for our films.
Saturday, October 30, 2010, from noon-midnight. Obviously, we don't expect volunteers to stay all twelve hours, but we're running films that entire time. Switching discs and checking IDs will be the main jobs for the volunteers. There is also an outdoor portion to this event, from 6:30 until 8, featuring local band World Collision playing a brand new, original score live to the silent film Nosferatu.
Sunday, October 31, 2010, from noon-midnight. Obviously, we don't expect volunteers to stay all twelve hours, but we're running films that entire time. Again, switching discs and checking IDs will be the main jobs for the volunteers.
Other functions that may be asked of the volunteers: help tearing down / putting up A/V equipment if the tech crew so asks, go-fer / errand runner, sell t-shirts that help to raise money for the Chalk Festival / Avenida de Colores.
There are no paid positions on the Hallowscreen staff. In fact, the entire staff is one person.
To apply, please send your name, availability, and contact information to Hallowscreen@gmail.com . Please use: "Volunteer for Hallowscreen" in your subject so the email doesn't end up in Spam. Volunteers are responsible for getting themselves to and from the event, which is in downtown Sarasota. Finally, serious applicants only, please. Please don't volunteer your time only to not show up and not even let us know that you're not showing up.
To learn more about the Chalk Festival, please go to their website: www.chalkfestival.com . To learn more about the Hallowscreen Film Festival, please visit our blog: hallowscreen.blogspot.com .
I awoke and headed down to the hotel restaurant Augustine's for breakfast. I got overpriced silver dollar pancakes, pretty good potatoes, and to see one of the actors brought in for the weekend being a douche because he was running late and he ordered the wait staff around like little more than chattel. I won't say who he is because maybe he was having a bad day and perhaps doesn't deserve to have his name dragged through the mud, but still. Wheaton's Law must always be in effect: Don't be a dick.
After breakfast, I meandered over to the con and got in line for the first photo op: Heather Langenkamp and Robert Englund. Since Robert Englund's solo op was first, I thought it would be prudent because the lines were a bit of a mess. I didn't care about being first (though that was cool because Mr. Englund and Ms. Langenkamp hadn't settled into a rhythm so I got to see a little behind the Con versions of themselves), I just wanted to make sure I got in there! I didn't know that Mr. Englund would have a glove...every picture I saw that he wore one, I just thought it was provided by the fan so I didn't have an appropriate pose in mind when I went in. Guess I'll have to take another one next time the two of them are in a con near me! Oh darn!
The photo op process is one that, by necessity, goes quick. The printing process takes about an hour or so so I went off to take in more of the con. I bought a couple of shirts: one is a composite of the posters for Nightmares 1-6 (although they used an Asian version of the Nightmare 1 poster, but at least Nancy's represented by the original Nightmare 3 art!) and the other is a shirt for Lucio Fulci's Zombie. :D I may have been there to meet Heather Langenkamp, but I'm still a fan of horror!
My next photo op was with Ms. Langenkamp solo and wasn't supposed to happen until 4:30 so I kill some more time walking around and taking in the environment, then I got into line around 3:45 / 4:00. Then I found out that they were going to smush the one-on-one photo ops for Ms. Wyss, Ms. Langenkamp, and Mr. Saxon into the same time frame as the trio photo op and they pushed it an hour. I figured that was to give more time to the John Carpenter photo op, but then I learned that I was the only one to buy the photo op time for Ms. Langenkamp. (Turns out there were two of us, but judging by this book's cover, I was the less scary one...) So, I went outside to chat with my mom until it was time to get into line for the photo op when two ambulances pulled up.
There are a lot of things that happen at cons. There was a table selling real metal Freddy claws (dulled down, I'm sure, but not collapsable and people are stupid.) People cosplay, some with real weapons as part of their ensemble. Some cosplay in outfits they really shouldn't be wearing and for a multitude of reasons. And some people are just jerks and bring these attitudes in with them. I'd been witness to some douchiness already, mind you, so I thought some stupid fan did something stupid. I found out the next day that the ambulances were for John Carpenter because he'd had a seizure.
Ho. Ly. Crap.
He's okay and when he showed up on Sunday for the Q&A, he looked fit as a fiddle, but that was shocking news, especially when I heard it from a source outside of the con. No one talked about it. A stupid fan does something stupid, you don't hear about it. When one of the fathers of modern horror suffers a seizure at the convention where you're conventioning, you'd think it would've been talked about, but no...weird...
Back to Saturday: I got into line for my solo photo op and got my photo taken with Ms. Langenkamp again. She took a moment to thank me (remembering my name!) and said I should stop back by so she could give me an I Am Nancy button (even though I was already wearing one.) I wasn't about to pass up another I Am Nancy button! I lost my first one in New York when I was there for a film festival and Arlene Marechal and the I Am Nancy crew were nice enough to send me more, but I plan on giving some of those away during Hallowscreen if I'm able to secure a special teaser clip to play. I wanted the movie, but Ms. Langenkamp told me they just submitted to Sundance. Sundance gives special attention and consideration to premieres and it wouldn't be a world premiere anymore if Hallowscreen got it. I hope they get in to Sundance!
Once the photo was printed out, I went in to the autograph room and got her to sign it. She couldn't believe that I didn't have a favourite quote, but liked it when I asked her to sign it with a lyric from the Just the Ten of Us theme, "Life is a race and I know I can win it." Uplifting. Wholesome. Not "screw your pass!" or "9, 10 Never Sleep Again!" or anything like that. Hahahaha! I thanked her again and left to go to the special effects panel hosted by Rick Rodriguez.
Rick isn't a very engaging host. He lost the interest of the once-packed house pretty early on and they all started talking amongst themselves which was very rude, but he seemed to be more focused on name dropping and the effects demonstrations than actually talking to us. To be more precise, it felt more like a long, slightly boring version of Universal's Horror Effects Make-Up Show with pauses to sell products that were made by some of his colleagues. Personally, I wondered why they didn't get Ms. Langenkamp's husband, David LeRoy Anderson, to come in and talk about effects. His work is top notch, but he's not local so maybe that's why the organizers didn't bother. Instead, this guy showed the KNB anniversary reel (he's not a part of KNB so I'm not sure why it was there), a clip from the original Day of the Dead (his army zombie ripped out Miguel's throat at the end of the film, but you don't see the zombie in the movie, you just see the rope latex effect of Miguel's throat), and a few effects clips from other movies.
After that, I went back to my room to give myself time away from people before I went to the VIP party. I got there just in time to see G. Tom Mac play "Cry Little Sister" and see a little kareoke, but a large group of people and alcohol do not a friendly mix make so I hung around for a little bit, then went to see She Wolf Rising at the Freak Show Horror Film Festival. The trailer makes it seem a little goofier than it actually is...it's more of a mindtrip fairy tale of sorts, but Tiffany Shepis was excellent. I talked to the associate producer, Glen, after the film was over about picking up a copy for my festival and he said that I could pick up the back up DVD from the festival organizer the next day so with that all worked out and the movie over, I went back to my room to get some sleep. Sunday was a big day after all!!
~~~~~
I got up early on Sunday and the first thing I noticed was that the world was spinning. Again, I don't drink and I don't do drugs so it could only mean one thing: my vertigo decided it wanted to dance. Yay. I was dizzy, depending on the position my head was in, from 9 am until I went to sleep around 10 pm, but I wasn't about to let it put a damper on the final day of the con!
The VIP badges are good for getting into the convention area early. Mainly, that applies to the dealer's room. I planned on going back to get one of the 3D Elm Street posters so I went in, but, alas, they were all sold out and there were several sprinkled throughout the dealer's room. They had a plethora of Friday the 13th 3D posters, but no Elm Street. Ah well. Instead, I found a WGON shirt, then I got into the VIP line for the first Q&A of the day: Return of the Living Dead!
I love RotLD, not enough to get autographs, but I'm so glad I went to the Q&A! They were all hilarious and warm and they were kind enough to pose for group photos after the show. When the Q&A was over, they asked the staff to lower the house lights and for the audience to illuminate our faces with our cell phones. I was the fastest on the draw with the flashlight app on my phone so they all pointed at me and took my picture. If I can find any, I'll come back and post them.
Immediately following them was the Q&A with John Carpenter! All the general admission schlubs had to get out, but us VIPs got to stay where we were. That's the kind of perk I can enjoy! ;D
That is actress Erin Gray next to him. I don't know why she was his handler, but I thought it was pretty cool regardless. He seemed to take the constant Halloween questions (and questions about the sequels that he has no part in) in stride, but when asked about his newest project, The Ward, he didn't really say much. Now, don't get me wrong, I love Halloween and Escape from New York and Big Trouble in Little China and Cigarette Burns and everything, but I really wanted to hear more about The Ward as it's a new project and he says it's old school horror probably coming out next year. Most importantly, though, it was good to see that he felt well enough to be there!
After that, they kicked everyone out, even VIP, to reset for the Elm Street panel...which was pointless because as soon as I got to the back of the VIP line, they ushered us back in. I lost my seat, though, and ended up a whole seat to the right. :D At first, they were saying it was going to be just Robert Englund, which would've been fun, sure, but I wanted to hear from the whole cast, not just him...then, at the very last second, they brought out more chairs! Yay! The whole cast was coming out!
You'll notice that some of the photos use the flash and some don't...this is the story for all of the photos I took during the Q&As. I didn't want to blind anyone because I wanted to take lots of pictures, but the lights on stage weren't quite good enough for flashless photos. Then, the light wasn't all that good to focus by, either. Ah well. I tried!
Anyway, the Q&A was great. Of course, the questions were focused on Mr. Englund, who does talk a lot, but he tried to involve the other cast members. I was able to ask my question before the end of the Q&A and it went something like this: "This is mainly for Ms. Langenkamp, but I'd love to hear Ms. Wyss weigh in as well. Freddy wouldn't be who he is without Nancy, you need to have the strong hero to balance the strong villain. Were you aware at the time that Nancy would be so important or was that something that dawned on you as the popularity in the film grew?"
I meant the question as more of a Feminist / Woman in Horror type question as opposed to a character centric question, but I really liked the response Ms. Langenkamp and Mr. Englund gave which was that the two of them (mostly Mr. Englund) went for a Beauty and the Beast style energy not so much in the romantic sense (though that was there, too), but in the sense of these diametrically opposed beings struggling with each other and yet they're part of the same energy. Originally, Freddy really was just a dream, a part of Nancy's subconscious as a young girl burgeoning into womanhood. A real life pedophilia scandal in the area around the time Elm Street was being filmed made Wes Craven decide to tone down the pedophiliac aspects of the character, and then producer Bob Shaye wanted the possibility of sequels so he and Mr. Craven fought over the ending until we have what now ends the film.
My favourite thing about Nancy is that she defeats this demonic child murdering pedophile without the conceit of superpowers. Even the series' next strongest female character, Alice, has superpowers in the dream as the Dream Master (which really doesn't help her much at all, to be honest.) Nancy doesn't belong to any clique, she's beautiful in a very real way, she's very smart...she's a regular girl who's been thrown into this impossible circumstance and no one will believe her when she warns them about what's happening. The same thing goes for movie!Heather in Wes Craven's New Nightmare unless you want to call being a dedicated mother a superpower to which I would concede.
This very same thing is what I hate about remake!Nancy: they made her a freaky artist chick, said she knew what was going on when she had no flippin' idea until the Glen surrogate told her what was up, and made her little more than a plaything for Jackie Earle Haley's terrifying portrayal of remake!Freddy. Without that equality between the main characters, the whole story is lost.
And I'm babbling. But I won't delete it, so there. :P
After the Q&A, Ms. Langenkamp happened to pass by me out in the hall so I was able to thank her once more and she thanked me, too! By name! I suppose it's silly to be so giddy that she remembered my name, but I don't care. She remembered my name! :D
Still on a high, I wandered around a bit. The con was winding down and I watched actors pack up their wares to head back to their hotel rooms or catch the next flight out. I thanked Linnea Quigley for coming out (and soon after discovered that she was going to be at a film festival in Ybor which is about an hour north of me, but I'll be at a friend's Halloween party) then remembered that she had a presentation at 4:30 so I went to see that. She and this dude named Erik have put together a half hour comedy pilot about paranormal investigators. Funnily enough, Steve Gonzales from Ghosthunters was in the audience. The show needs work...all the jokes are too "hey, look at me, I'm funny! See? See how funny I am?!" There were a couple of funny bits, but they would've been better with a more subtle build up. At least, they would be in my opinion. I booked out of there kinda fast only because I needed to make sure I was able to pick up the back-up DVD for She Wolf Rising from the Freak Show Film Festival and I wanted to attend the awards ceremony. Ms. Quigley's thing was supposed to end within ten minutes of the ceremony starting, but either the presentation ran late or they started the awards early because I made it back in time only to hear the final award: Best Feature went to Kiss the Abyss.
I was able to get She Wolf Rising from Robert Massetti and then went to my room because the return bus was to leave at 5:15 in the morning. The vertigo went away while I watched something on my iPad before turning it off to go to sleep and other than a little bit of dizziness today, which might have just been tiredness, I've been vertigo-free since I woke up! Yay!
So...long story short (too late), I got to meet my heroine and she was absolutely lovely. I had a great time and I'm glad I was able to do the con at my own pace instead of trying to please a group of people because I was there just to meet Heather Langenkamp and I did a lot of waiting to make sure I got to meet her / see her. All of the other experiences were like the sprinkles on top. It was well worth the time, effort, and money to go to the con and I'm so glad I did it!
As I ate dinner last night, the last actor I saw before heading back to my room was Robert Englund...a nice, circular way to close out a fabulous weekend.
Not that she'll ever read this, but thank you again, Ms. Langenkamp! And thank you Spooky Empire for having her as a guest!
With a title like that, who can refuse seeing it?! Well, to be honest, me, up until a few years ago. I wish I hadn't waited so long! It's freakin' hilarious and fun, everything one would expect from a B-movie with such a title and where the director publicly admits to being sloshed pretty much the entire time.
Ms. Stevens, with whom I've kept contact after I met her at Shockerfest '08, was kind enough to provide me with three titles from her filmography that she's particularly proud of. After the event's over, I'll reveal the other titles and what happened (assuming I can't track them down), but even if this is all we get, I'm still happy with this much! And how awesome of Full Moon to let us show it!!
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!
Yesterday, we finished the fourth day of our shoot. Other than a couple of bumpy areas, it's been going like gangbusters (to quote Shawn McBee) and I thought that in advance of our last day of filming (January 4), I'd post all of the photos we've taken so far.
I was sad that we didn't have a whole lot of photos from the first shoot and resolved that on my next flick there would be as many as possible and set Shawn to the task of taking them. This time, I'm so happy! We have over a hundred photos!! With one day's shoot left, too!
After the pick-ups, I'll post about the shoot as a whole, but for now, enjoy the photos!
I received word today from the British mag Morpheus Tales that they've accepted my story "Warm Body in a Cold World" for publication in their Undead-themed special issue. They're hoping to put it out in the Summer of 2009. When I get more information, I'll let y'all know.
I've also been doing some video tests. They're not that great since they're just tests, but I thought I'd post the link to my YouTube channel in case you wanna check them out...
The ever-so-kind Marvin the Martian has awarded me an Arte-Y-Pico award! Only four other people can say that...well, those that Marvin tagged as well. With the power that accompanies such an award, however, comes great responsibility. Taking out the garbage is but one example. And I must tag five people to do the same whilst telling of five unspectacular things about myself. I'm not sure the folks I would award it to would do the same, plus I'll have to use LJ and these friends have flocked journals, but they're awesome and I love them...
First, FIVE UNSPECTACULAR THINGS ABOUT MYSELF. Really not hard.
1. My mom and I just finished watching the sixth disc in season five of CSI: Vegas and I still can't pick my favourite character.
2. Contrary to Stephen King's advice, and much like the previously mentioned Marvin, I write more than I read. And I write a lot. That said, when I feel like I've run out of words to use I'll read voraciously, but it's still uneven.
1. Link the person(s) who tagged you. 2. Mention the rules on your blog. 3. Tell about 5 unspectacular quirks of yours. 4. Tag 5 bloggers by linking them. 5. Leave a comment on their blogs to let them know they've been tagged.
