get into a film festival

The First one was a Short Film That I acted in Titled “Cupcake”, and the second was a short film I wrote and Directed Titled “In the Shadows of a Song”. “Cupcake” Premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival 2008, and is still being shown in festivals around the world. “In the Shadows of a Song” premiered at the 2nd Annual 16mm Film Festival in Rome, Italy, but hasn’t been entered in any other festivals at this time.

The initial thrill of it subsided when their projector totally messed up the film, but it’s still something I’ll be proud of forever.

Finished one of my items! My first short film The Coffee Maker showed last weekend at the Winnipeg International Film Festival. You can read more about it at my blog . Waiting to hear on more festivals, but it was good to get one under my belt!

I’ve previously entered a film into several festivals, but it didn’t get into any. I’m now working on a new film that ought to have a much better shot, due simply to it being a much better film, and much better produced.

I should be submitting it in about 2 months, so I’ll probably find out towards the end of the year if this film will allow me to achieve this particular goal. Stay tuned, folks.

How to talk about NOT winning an award without sounding bitter?? No matter what you say people will assume you’re trying to cover your disappointment. I’m not. I really don’t feel hard done by or bitter or anything – the film I thought would win, did, not because it was better but because it had more appeal to that kind of audience, it’s a simple as that. So in that respect it’s very fair. Subtlety doesn’t mean much in our local industry anyway (see, that sounds bitchy but it’s actually true). And the rest of the judging was pretty crappy too, so it’s not just my category ;)

All in all, I spent $160 (festival entry + ticket + dress etc) on the priviledge of being completely bored for two hours, not winning an award, and consuming their “free” food and drink while schmoozing with industry people until the wee hours. And I actually enjoyed that part, for once. I had a good time, I didn’t say anything I didn’t mean, and I even made some contacts.

Sometimes being nominated is enough.

Aspen said no :(

So now it’s on to Oberhausen.

Have been nominated for Best Screenplay at the local awards! Do I sound totally ungrateful if I say I don’t really like their judging or setup anyway? Past years have indicated that they have virtually no taste. I think it’s all political, which luckily works a little for me this time round, but is still not a good thing.

Don’t think I’ll feel this is accomplished until its a REAL festival, like an international one.

Tampere said no :(

So I’m hanging out for Aspen.

Have sent my film off to the local screen awards, as well as Aspen and Tampere (Finland) festivals, and sending off to Oberhausen tomorrow.

Will find out by mid feb if I got in, not long to go now…

I hate waiting.

Our video screened at the Spoiler Film Project last night. Pretty soon it’ll be up on their site. It wasn’t the triumph we had hoped it would be, and we’d like to try again. A lot of the videos looked better than ours. I was told that there’s a lot you can do in Final Cut to make video look more like film. We just got a copy of Final Cut. Now we need that G5.

We dropped off our mini DV this evening. I’m still not counting on this happening. like it will be refected for being a tenth of a second over length, or something like that.

“Untitled” is done. It’s got some technical shortcomings, but for an amateur video edited in iMovie it’s good. It’ll screen at the Spoiler Film project at the UCB Theater on November 30th.