KimyooFilms on OpenFilm!

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!!

An announcement about "Essenger" and aftershock

I received word just the other day that my very short zombie film aftershock and the music video I made for World Collision were accepted to Bleedfest for their February 6 edition! Bleedfest, which I've blathered on about before, is a female-centric genre film festival, but more than that, their horror edition is in February which is Women in Horror month! I'm so honoured and excited to be a part of this event! Hopefully, I'll be able to go! Thank you Elisabeth and Brenda Fies!

The festival takes place on the first Sunday of every month at CAP Theatres in Sherman Oaks, California, which is half an hour outside of Los Angeles (an hour in traffic, according to Google Maps.)

More from the World Music and Independent Film Festival

I was interviewed recently by Laura Hartman of the World Music and Independent Film Festival where this past year, the music video I made for World Collision was nominated for Best Cinematography and Best Alternative Rock Video. The interview can be found by clicking here.

I have something exciting to announce, too, that does tie in to my interview in a round about way. Hallowscreen was an amazing experience and I met some truly fantastic people because of it. Among those I met are Sage Hall and Jesse Kozel who made the short film Candy. They're making another short film next week and I've volunteered my services for pretty much whatever they need. It's been a long time since I was on someone else's set so I'm really looking forward to, well, everything! I volunteered to do whatever they need. I have no problem with going from the captain of the ship to being a deckhand. All positions are necessary and if I can help in anyway to make their dreams come true, then I'll be happy!

I believe in supporting the community, of helping each other when and if possible. I know that film is a business and that it's very competitive, but like they say in Second City: if the other guy looks good then everyone looks good. I heard that twice this week (once on the Ghostbusters commentary from Harold Ramis and once on a random interview with Bill Murray that was on TCM) and I really like that philosophy.

In other news, I finished the second draft of a new feature script the other day. This one is one I've been trying to write for years, but it just didn't want to come out. I'm very happy with it and want to start on the third draft, but I need to do this short film first since I plan on shooting it early next year. On that front, I re-started the storyboards last night. I was using a computer program to hand draw them (don't ask) and it was okay at first, but the program locked up on the fourth page and wouldn't let me erase or edit so I had to restart it. It's all good, I'm a terrible artist, but I think I prefer to be terrible on physical media anyway.

I may have more to announce soon, but I'll wait until I have confirmation. For now, keep screaming!

BleedFest

Now is a pretty exciting time to be a woman in horror, by the looks of things. We've got FangirlTastic, formerly Pretty/Scary, which seems to be kicking thing up a notch, and the wonderful Viscera Film Festival. Now, there's BleedFest, a monthly festival for female genre filmmakers! How great is THAT?! Both Viscera and BleedFest are free to submit and they're both in California and 2011 will mark the second year of the Women in Horror movement started by Hannah Neurotica of AxWound Magazine!

Hmm...I'm not sure I have enough links in this post yet so here's one more for good measure: I Am Nancy because, duh, I'm super excited for this documentary and it totally fits in with my previous topic since the creative team locked picture and have started that torturous process: festival submission!

I'm seeing a lot more women being recognized for their work in the genre and even more coming out of the woodwork, as it were, to make genre pictures. Our work is never done, but at least I, and others like me, won't feel so alone now!

In other news, I'm in pre-production on another short film! I plan on shooting it early next year, depending on funding and all of that. I've got the script locked, which is always a good thing, and I plan on starting the storyboards tomorrow! I also just finished the first draft of a new script. It's almost feature length, but I know the areas I need to address in the next draft which will put it into feature length territory. This particular story is one I've been trying to write for years and I'd love for it to be my first feature. If I were to have my way, I already know who I would cast for the four major roles, but I'm getting ahead of myself, which I tend to do when I get overly excited. :D

I've also got two more music videos to work on for World Collision, one to promote the Nosferatu soundtrack they recorded and one for their next album! I'm very excited for both of them! I've gotten to listen to bits and pieces of the studio version of the Nosferatu soundtrack and, I've gotta tell you, it's pretty fabulous!

Hopefully, I'll be back to my babbling self on this blog soon! Hope everyone's Thanksgiving was fantastic!!

Hallowscreen: Seven Days Later.

I've written up a quick round up of the Hallowscreen Film Festival over on the festival blog: http://hallowscreen.blogspot.com/2010/11/seven-days-later.html

I had an emotional shock on Tuesday when I was already mentally and physically exhausted from the festival so for my own health, I took the past two days off. Today is errand day and we'll see what the weekend holds, but my project plans are as follows: I have a 30 second commercial to make for a local business in exchange for them letting us into their parking lot early to set up for Nosferatu, I am doing pre-production on a music video for World Collision, and I want to make another short film. In between all of that, I want to write, write, write. I haven't written for most of this year and that makes my head go all splodey... :D

Downloadable versions of the Hallowscreen Film Festival schedule.

In an effort to reduce how much paper is used at Hallowscreen, I've created two more ways of getting our schedule in addition to the physical, printed brochure and the web-based version of the schedule.

Click here to download our schedule as an epub document hosted by MediaFire.

Click here to download the inside of our brochure as a PDF, also hosted by MediaFire.

If I'd remembered about QR codes earlier, I would've put them on the posters...ah well, next year!!

Chatting up the Hallowscreen on local access TV!

Here's the video of me on local access television talking up the Hallowscreen! I excised my parts from the whole show because of YouTube's length restrictions. You should definitely check out the Sarasota Chalk Festival's Denise Kowal in the video at the bottom of this post for the rest of the episode!

Lori chatting up Hallowscreen:


Denise Kowal chatting up the Sarasota Chalk Festival:


Y'all know that I'm really not that big a fan of crowds and attention and stuff. I get really nervous when I do Q&A for my own films. I've done live TV before - closed circuit stuff at school and that sort of thing - and I've been interviewed before. I really prefer to be behind the cameras as opposed to in front of them. Last night, I received an email from Denise asking me if I would go with her to be on At the Movies. I may feel uncomfortable with that stuff, but I am in the film business. No one can promote my stuff but me, right?, so it's a good opportunity to get used to it so I said yes. Well, first I said EGADS, and then I said yes.

Cut to today: Denise picked me up at 6:20 and we headed over to the Comcast broadcast studio where we met Gus Mollasis, the host of the program we were going to be on: At the Movies. As befitting public access, it was a small studio with a cramped green room, but cozy and personable all at the same time. We sat and went over what we were going to talk about in brief so we wouldn't go on completely cold. We trudged into the studio and chatted some more as we donned our lavaliers and got comfortable. They had a quarter of a wall covered with old 3/4" decks that they don't use anymore and are just sitting there for storage. I haven't seen a 3/4" deck since I graduated from high school, so that was pretty neat. Another couple of minutes and we were off and running!

The broadcast went smoothly and I'm pretty happy with everything I was able to say. My Nancy Hair was totally in effect, too! (you'll notice that I am wearing an I Am Nancy pin...in fact, it's the one that Heather Langenkamp gave me at Spooky Empire. :D ) He put me on the spot with that "what films should I see" thing, but I think I handled it pretty well. lol

Gus Mollasis is a great guy and I'm so glad that we was able to fit me in without any notice. I'm also glad I thought to bring a brochure with me so he could look it over to have fodder for questions.

Eight days until the festival starts! Whoa!! And five until my birthday!! Hahaha!