GenCon Indy 2008

GenCon Indianapolis proved to be a fantastic trip. We had two great screenings of both Captain Blasto and Mercury Men, each followed with a half hour Q&A session where we passed out mini-posters. To all who attended, thanks for checking out the films!

Also screening this year was A Great Disturbance, a Star Wars mockumentary I was part of. Once again, two great screenings and Q&A sessions. What's great about the GenCon crowd is that they get jokes that many other audiences don't. It was really nice to hear the "Green Lantern" joke from Blasto Episode 5 get laugh.

Beyond the films, we got to see/play some great games. Kleiber picked up Last Night on Earth a zombie survival game. Geis went with Settlers of Catan, which is the world's most famous "underground" board game, and despite the horrible box art, is actually quite fun. I came home with the Savage Worlds core role playing guide. The hot game of the weekend was Monsterpocalypse, miniatures game of giant creaters, robots, and UFO's fighting amongst buildings ala Godzilla. Yes it's true, we don't just play dorks, we actually are.

Okay, back to getting Episode 7 uploaded.

The Mercury Men Screenings

Some great news came in recently for The Mercury Men, a short film we produced as a concept for our upcoming web series.

The Mercury Men will be screening at the San Diego Comic-Con International Independent Film Festival on July 27th. (2:05 PM, Room 26AB) The film was selected by Tom DeSanto (producer of X-Men and Transformers) and Borys Kit (senior film writer at The Hollywood Reporter). The Comic-Con film festival can be found at http://www.comic-con.org/cci/cci_iff.shtml

TMM will also be screening at the Action On Film International Film Festival on July 30th at the Laemelle Theater in Pasadena, CA. On top of that, TMM was nominated for Best Visual Effects, Best Sci-Fi Film, and Best Short Film! The AOF Film Festival can be found at http://www.aoffest.com

If you happen to be attending Comic-Con or live in the San Diego or Pasadena area, I encourage you to come check out the screening and introduce yourself.

London Independent Film Festival

Found out this week that Captain Blasto was accepted into the London Independent Film Festival. We entered the category for "no budget films" which is films made for under $20,000, a perfect category for this film. I don't know many details yet, other than it's playing at the end of June.

It's a shame there's very little chance of being able to attend, as bad as I want to, since the dollar is pretty freakin' low right now.

Keep ya posted as we find out more.

The Lake County Film Fest Strikes Back

Proud to announce that The Mercury Men will be premiering at this year's Lake County Film Festival in Libertyville, IL. (And before you ask, no, the film isn't done, but I sent out a rough cut in time for the deadline. We are in the last few weeks of post though.) It will be screening both during the Shorts and Children's programs. Captain Blasto played there in 2006 and A Great Disturbance in 2007. Along with TMM, The Nintendo Office will be screening ahead of one of the features, Last Stop for Paul, which actually screened just after Captain Blasto at the 2006 Newport Beach Film Festival. (Last Stop is a pretty unique concept for a film and has picked up and INSANE amount of awards. You can check it out at: www.laststopforpaul.com). On top of all that, Captain Blasto will be screening again this year.

The Lake County Fest was easily one of the best experiences we had during our run with Blasto. Libertyville is very reminiscent of Munhall, the town in which Blasto was shot, so we really seemed to connect with audiences. And they had some great bars around town for after parties and such. Looking forward to another mid-west outing.

You can read more about the festival at: www.lakecountyfilmfest.com.

Oakland Film Festival Wrap-up

Attended the first North Way Oakland Film Festival last night. I was pretty impressed with many of the films. Of the ones that I can remember, Robin Rd., a black and white film noir, had nice framing and lighting. Wanted, which won best short film, was a neat concept. (It also featured Shawn Smith, who I previously worked with on the Assassin's Creed video.) Erie, which may be my personal favorite of the night and won best documentary, featured two friends riding their bikes 130 miles to Lake Erie in the middle of a 19 degree winter weekend. Although the filming wasn't particularly spectacular you'd be hard pressed to find a cinematographer that could achieve much better in a gray Pittsburgh winter. The story and it's stars were funny and endearing.

The night also included a handful of self-portrait pieces that featured 45 second stories by each director who were not able to maintain a shot longer than a few frames. They were frantic, sometimes funny, and captured a wide range of hobbies, experiences, or beliefs.

One of my fears of a church holding a film festival is that they are going to limit what's being shown to clean, G rated, 7th Heaven style stories. North Way however, showed films with a whole range of subjects that you'd be surprised to find in a church. There was a documentary on a father hoping to win custody of his child and a short film featuring a guy who has been sleeping with a girl for months and is terrified to discover she loves him.

The general tone ranged from serious to very serious, so my only critique is that a bit more lighthearted selections would have been appreciated. Nintendo Office ending up taking home a prize in the Misc. category. That makes the quickest video I've ever made now the most successful, which is hysterical.

Great job done by Lindsey, Mike, and the gang down at North Way Oakland.

Oakland Film Festival

Just wanted to let y'all know about a short film festival that's happening in Oakland next week. (That's Oakland in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania for you out of town readers.) It's all going down Friday, September 7th from 8:00 - 10:00 PM at North Way Oakland, 120 McKee Place, Pittsburgh, PA 15213. Cost is $3.00. All the films will be screening on a large widescreen HD projection screen.

The first year festival will feature short films from local filmmakers, primarily Art Institute students. I've got three films screening, including The Nintendo Office and a short animated piece from a year or so ago. I encourage y'all to come check this first year festival.

New York

The Nintendo Office played up here...

In this room...
On one of these HD flat screen TV's...

But our video wasn't in HD, or any of the other shorts for that matter, so it just looked normal.

The observatory is called Top of the Rock. It costs $20 (yes, we had to pay to see our own movie) and is based around a tour of the construction of Rockefeller along with NBC's long residence there. So in between gazing out at New York and listening to fun facts from Tom Brokaw people would walk past some short films. It's basically filmmaking's equivalent of a guy playing a saxophone in the subway. He may be good and you may like, but you aint stoppin' to listen. Especially when all of Central Park is sprawled out before you.

All in all a good trip. Caught Lovedrug/Sparta show with Eric, Em, and Bradstreet. Lovedrug is RIDICULOUSLY good. I suggest you give the guys a listen.

Gen Con Double Feature

Just got word that The Luigi Story has also been accepted into GenCon Indy, making it's theatrical premiere. That's right, youth group videos can make it into film festivals.

For those of you who don't know what the Luigi Story is, I'll explain. It's a short film spoofing E! True Hollywood Story, documenting the tragic underdog life of the eternal player 2, Luigi from the Super Mario Bros.

GenCon Indy 2006

Captain Blasto will be hitting GenCon Indy 2006 in just a short few weeks from August 10th till the 13th. GenCon Indy is a national gaming convention that brings in more people/money than the Final Four. There will be tens of thousands there for the weekend event. DVD's of the original extended cut will be on sale for $5.00. We've yet to hear back as to whether we've been accepted into the GenCon film fest. Should know soon.

Also appearing at GenCon will be the national debut of A Great Disturbance, the Star Wars mockumentary. DVD's of this film will also be up for sale, although I'm not sure on the price just yet.

EDIT: Just got word that we HAVE been accepted into the GenCon Indy Film Fest. Captain Blasto will be screening on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. If we win something we'll also screen on Sunday.

Newport Report

I didn't even intend to rhyme.

In short it was an amazing festival. The staff were ridiculously supportive, more than I expect from even a small festival, let alone one of this size. Special thanks to Geoff Patino, the Director of Features Programming. We were able to meet some other filmmakers and catch sevearl quality films. The highlight of which has to be the Raiders of the Lost Ark: The Adaptation. You have to check that out here.

Our screening went well. The Q&A was fairly brief. The Digibeta transfer looked pretty good, except for shots that contain alot of red and black. We got good feedback on some improvements to make. It seems that every time I get to screen the film at a festival I get a better look at how to make the film a little better. Usually this means trimming a few minutes to speed it up, especially in the early "Colin is a lonely bastard" scenes.

I'll post some more on specific topics, and get some pictures up soon, but for now here's some other films you should keep an eye out for:
Hidden Blade (gotta love samurai films)
Fumi and the Bad Luck Foot (hyterical animated short)
Last Stop for Paul (neat concept, funny as well)

Newport Beach Film Festival Screening

We officially screen at the Newport Beach Film Festival
Sunday, April 23rd at 12:00pm
If you live in California, you best be orderin' some tickets.

First Award

Captain Blasto has recieved it's very first festival award:

Special Jury Award for Visual Design

from the jury of the Lake County Film Festival.

Lake County

Driving to Illinois for the Lake County Film Fest today with Ashley, Kleiber, and Alan. Hoping for a good weekend and a decent crowd. Wish us luck.

Newport Beach Film Fest

Officially made it into festival number four, The Newport Beach Film Festival. They haven't listed the films yet, but you can check them out at http://www.newportbeachfilmfest.com.

Rejection

I don't have the new Microsoft Office, but I'm going to take a wild guess and say there's a new "rejection letter" template on there. Let's take a look at the opening sentence of a few festival rejection letters we've recieved:

"This year, The Deep Ellum Film Festival had hundreds of submissions and the overall quality was higher than ever. This means that we must turn down many worthy films. Unfortunately, we did not select your film for screening at this year's Deep Ellum Film Festival."

"This year's Carolina Film & Video Festival received an onslaught of exceptional entries making it one of our most competitive fields ever. Despite the merits of your film, Captain Blasto , we are unable to screen it this year."

"We have had a record number of entries this year and the quality of films has been unprecedented. We have had some very difficult decisions to make and we’re sorry to say that your film has not been selected as one of our finalists.

Man, it seems that all these fests are just having record breaking years, with such phrases as "unprecedented" and "onslaught of exceptional entries."

Kind of stinks when you get home from a long day at work to find one of these, but this is how the festival world works. You submit a hundred, you get into a few, and we've been accepted into several wonderful ones. Really hoping to make it out to the Lake County fest because the more and more I hear about it and more and more I think it's the perfect place for a film like ours. Check them out at http://www.lakecountyfilmfest.com.

2006 George Lindsey UNA Film Festival

Captain Blasto has made it through the preliminary judging process and is scheduled to screen between March 2nd - 4th at the 2006 George Lindsey UNA Film Festival in Florence, Alabama.

Check out the fest website at http://www.lindseyfilmfest.com.

Lake County Film Fest

Captain Blasto has been selected for the Lake County Film Festival in Illinois. The festival will be screening a new shorter cut of Blasto on Saturday, March 4th at 4:30 pm. You can check out the festival at: http://www.lakecountyfilmfest.com.

And The Award Goes To...

...a bunch of filmmakers that didn't even attend the festival.

Back from L.A. after an incredibly LONG and TURBULENT red eye flight. (Not to mention a woman passed out in the middle of the aisle and a bunch of doctors had to help her. Zero sleep was had by all.)

The Theater
Mann's theaters are absolutely beautiful. The lobby is great. The auditoriums look like they just jumped out of the 30's with this great fabric curtain that rises up just before the movie plays. We'll be posting some more pictures on the site as soon as Alan and Kleiber forward them to me.

The Festival Volunteers
Great people. They knew spotted Kleiber and I and instantly knew who we were. Asked for autographs, gave great feedback, and were incredibly nice and supportive.

The Screening
The screening went well despite incredibly low attendance. There was roughly 35-40 people in a 170 seat auditorium. Disappointing? Yes and no. This was the festivals first year so it was fairly unorganized despite a great staff. There was little to no advertising around the area for the festival, BUT individual films were not permitted to hang any advertising for their screenings. So little to no advertising means little to no attendance. On top of that the price of admission was incredibly steep. $250 for a full festival pass and $12.50 for a single screening pass. Would you pay $12.50 to see a movie you've never heard about AND there's no posters anywhere for it? I have a tough time paying that for movies I'm pretty sure are gonna be good, let alone risking it on some independant stuff. So the 35-40 crowd was the average for EVERY film there. The audience was usually made up of filmmakers from the other films in the festival. After the screening there was a Q&A session that was fun. I love talking about the movie. Most questions revolved around the graphics, comic panels, and music.

The Other Films
Unfortunately, I didn't get in until the last day of the festival so I only caught one film. It was a horror/thriller/comedy called Shadows. Made by a middle aged guy for $15,000 who was upset by the lack of creativity/talent on Cinemax late night movies, so he decided to make his own. Lots of those moments that are built up to be scary but end up being just the character's buddy tapping them on the shoulder. Enjoyed watching it and I'm always proud to see someone just get in there and make a movie, but this story wasn't my cup o' tea. And as a side note, there was one particular female character that took off her clothes in roughly 90% of the scenes she was in. It got to the point where Kleiber and I were just laughing out loud.

The Awards
And thus comes the lowest point of the festival. First they present Christopher Reeve with the Lifetime Achievement Award. Sounds great, but...they person presenting the award has never met Christopher Reeve and the person accepting it has never met Christopher Reeve, so it felt incredibly pointless. As for the awards themselves, they were just plain silly. The festival had a bunch of actors from one of the entry films as the presenters, but they were presenting the awards to, yep you guessed it, their own films. That would be like Jack Nicholson presenting the actor for Best Actor to...Jack Nichsolson. Kinda shady. On top of that they presented the Best Film of the Festival as the very FIRST award. Kinda takes the wind outta the sails when you know what the best picture is already, so who really cares about the other awards? Some awards only had ONE nominee, so why even announce it?

On top of the goofy presentations, 90% of the award winners WEREN'T EVEN THERE. So we basically sat for a few hours and watched people present awards to nobody.

There were two types of awards, Judges (decided by the festival staff) and Jury (decided by festival attendees.) But when we talked to some of the festival staff they said that the Jury records were all messed up and most of the films directors were taking a bunch of the feedback scores, giving themselves perfects, and stuffing the ballot boxes. We weren't about to stoop as low.

Lastly, a final critique. If you have filmmakers paying $300 for a plane ticket, hundreds on hotels, & hundreds more on advertising, and you have festival goers paying $250 for a ticket, then you do NOT have a CASH BAR at the awards gala. That is a big old festival no no. Needless to say that most people were out of that gala by 9:00 when it was scheduled to go until 1:00 am.

Closing Comments
Great weekend, had a blast even if we didn't bring home any awards. Curt (the actor who plays Fandango) and his girlfriend Kelly were great hosts, even if they do have all three volumes of Married with Children on DVD. Keep ya updated on festival submissions. Right now we're in the running for a festival to take place early in 2006 in Anchorage, Alaska.

Hollywoodland Here We Come

We've officially been accepted into our very first film festival!

It's the FAIF Film Festival in Hollywood, CA at Mann's Chinese Theater (the theater with all the celebrity handprints.) It's kinda crazy that the very first festival we get into is at the most famous theater in the freakin' country. Blasto will be screening on Thursday, October 13th at 1:00 pm. There will be an awards ceremony the following night. I would love to see someone come back with SOME kind of award. What would be hilarious would be if some random Blasto actor wins an award. Hopefully Kleiber will win something and he can stop complaining about how bad his acting is.

It's interesting to read the titles of the other movies playing the fest:
the Gnat and the Lion
bubbles & pick
hello earthlings

anna and the soldier

duck duck goose

us air marshalls

the patron
gone postal
to be an israeli woman
Malfunkshun
Insomnia ManiaC

and then of course there's Captain Blasto. I don't know about you, but I'm downright captivated by Bubbles & Pick and To Be An Israeli Woman. Bubbles & Pick sounds like some sort of PBS kids shoe about a Sea Lion and Penguin (or maybe a Seahorse and Swordfish) and their wacky underwater adventures. US Air Marshalls makes me imagine Tommy Lee Jones chasing Wesley Snipes with a rocket pack. Gotta wonder what all the other directors think of a title like Captain Blasto.