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!!

Help an Orlando-based filmmaker raise completion funds for his Super8 short!

Tim Anderson is a talented producer based out of the Orlando, Florida, area and he's looking for help raising completion funds for his shot on Super8 short film La Fleur de Mort. If you have a moment, please head to his Kickstarter website, watch the video and if you feel so compelled, contribute!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1267783718/la-fleur-de-mort-an-experimental-horror-film-0

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