The Riverside Saginaw Film Festival and my documentary short!
Posted 06-30-2008 at 08:17 PM by spinner
Thursday:
I got back from my film screening somewhere around 1:30pm. The screening started at 11:00am today. I resigned myself last week to not having anyone show up to this screening. Everyone I know works and I don't know one musician who doesn't have a day job. So, even though my friends from the band wanted to be at the screening, they all had to work. I could hardly fault anyone because of it. It was cool, my mother was there to see it, she was excited.
When I got there I saw friends of mine standing outside and I stopped for a few minutes to chat then went in. There were more people at Pit & Balcony Theater than I expected to be there considering it was a work day. I assumed that these were the filmmakers, but all filmmakers were asked to come to the front and take a bow. There were only 3 of us, so there were more people to see these short films than I thought I was going to be there.
Just before the film started, we were all given a ballot page and asked to vote for one film in 3 categories: narrative, experimental and documentary. Mine was the only documentary of the nine films in the showcase, six narratives, 2 experimental and my doc. The next showcase would not be until Saturday. That showcase had two documentaries and I would be up against those as well so I hoped I would be able to go. I had made plans to go to the Carnival Of Chaos in Stanton Michigan to see if I could drum up some more business. The Carnival Of Chaos is a 3 day metal music festival and I was thinking that maybe some of those bands could use a documentary as well.
I was calm right until my film ran. I saw my first shot of my documentary and all of a sudden I was nervous and kind of fidgety throughout the airing. What was great though, was that the documentary seemed to be well received by those who saw it. I was pretty happy about that. A couple of girls got up and left right after my film was over, but they made a point to tell me that they liked it before they left. Very cool.
Friday:
I had two workshops to attend. The first one was on filmmaking on a micro-budget. I was interesting, but I was hoping to find out more about finding funding, convincing people to give you money, maybe the best things to do when writing a proposal because whether you are looking for grants or investors, you still need to write an effective proposal. The workshop for the most part talked about actors and the Screen Actors Guild. Well, there were some interesting things there, but alot of what was discussed in the 'micro-budget' area were things that I had researched, but I did appreciate the speakers. One of the speakers was a woman named Chase Masterson. She has been an actor in Hollywood for quite a while and most people would remember her as Leta, the Dabo girl on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Anyway, it was an interesting workshop, but for filmmakers at the level we are at, not too practical. A micro budget to them was $200,000 dollars. Do you have any idea how many films I could make with that as an independent? I think that maybe I should begin saying I am a 'guerilla filmmaker'. Guerilla filmmaking is an actual term that basically means that you get your film made in whatever fashion you can. You figure out how to build a crane, not buy a crane, you make camera lights, not purchase an expensive light kit. If you don't have help, you do it yourself and you do this until you have the money to get the better things and improve your equipment and find help.
I also attended a documentary film workshop, which sadly I was the only attendee. The good news was that the workshop became very informal and I talked with the filmmaker about what projects he had worked on what worked, what didn't and found that he was about where I am in filmmaking. This was cool because the one thing about Michigan filmmakers is that none of us know each other. This is something that is going to have to change if we are going to be a part of the Michigan filmmaking boom that we feel is about to happen.
The bad thing was this: one of the filmmakers movies could not be shown. There was a problem with the equipment or the DVD itself, but for whatever reason, there were so many digital hits that after three tries they had to give up on showing it. For a filmmaker, especially a new filmmaker, that is a disaster. It is every bit as important for your film to be shown as it is to win something when you are at this level.
I know what it is like to not have your film shown because of technical stuff so I know how he felt. I sat with the guy and we talked about our projects while they tried to fix the DVD player and the computer, but to no avail. I felt bad for him because I have had the same thing happen to me. Its a terrible let down to have things not work for your film.
Sunday:
We got to the award ceremony just before the awards were announced. There was the Audience Prize and the Jury Prize which is a jury of your peers. Then they screened the winners so that people could see them a second time which was cool.
A friend of mine, Maggie Patton (Media Hero) won a Jury Award for her film "Shooters: Get The Picture". She was there this afternoon and I was glad to see her. I had forgotten how good her film was and how much I liked the camera shots in it. Especially when I was thinking that some of my camera work was a bit shakier than I remembered when I was editing the project. But I know how to fix that and will be working on that asap.....
And how did I do in the Riverside Saginaw Film Festival short film contest?
How does Jury Selection Best Documentary Film grab you!
My intent is to always do better than the last project I did. I am looking forward to the project I am working on now. I think my shots are alittle better and I have some interesting video opportunities on tape and I look forward to the post production work I'll have to do for it.
But for now, Yay! I won best documentary film at the Riverside Saginaw Film Festival!
-- spinner
I got back from my film screening somewhere around 1:30pm. The screening started at 11:00am today. I resigned myself last week to not having anyone show up to this screening. Everyone I know works and I don't know one musician who doesn't have a day job. So, even though my friends from the band wanted to be at the screening, they all had to work. I could hardly fault anyone because of it. It was cool, my mother was there to see it, she was excited.
When I got there I saw friends of mine standing outside and I stopped for a few minutes to chat then went in. There were more people at Pit & Balcony Theater than I expected to be there considering it was a work day. I assumed that these were the filmmakers, but all filmmakers were asked to come to the front and take a bow. There were only 3 of us, so there were more people to see these short films than I thought I was going to be there.
Just before the film started, we were all given a ballot page and asked to vote for one film in 3 categories: narrative, experimental and documentary. Mine was the only documentary of the nine films in the showcase, six narratives, 2 experimental and my doc. The next showcase would not be until Saturday. That showcase had two documentaries and I would be up against those as well so I hoped I would be able to go. I had made plans to go to the Carnival Of Chaos in Stanton Michigan to see if I could drum up some more business. The Carnival Of Chaos is a 3 day metal music festival and I was thinking that maybe some of those bands could use a documentary as well.
I was calm right until my film ran. I saw my first shot of my documentary and all of a sudden I was nervous and kind of fidgety throughout the airing. What was great though, was that the documentary seemed to be well received by those who saw it. I was pretty happy about that. A couple of girls got up and left right after my film was over, but they made a point to tell me that they liked it before they left. Very cool.
Friday:
I had two workshops to attend. The first one was on filmmaking on a micro-budget. I was interesting, but I was hoping to find out more about finding funding, convincing people to give you money, maybe the best things to do when writing a proposal because whether you are looking for grants or investors, you still need to write an effective proposal. The workshop for the most part talked about actors and the Screen Actors Guild. Well, there were some interesting things there, but alot of what was discussed in the 'micro-budget' area were things that I had researched, but I did appreciate the speakers. One of the speakers was a woman named Chase Masterson. She has been an actor in Hollywood for quite a while and most people would remember her as Leta, the Dabo girl on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine.
Anyway, it was an interesting workshop, but for filmmakers at the level we are at, not too practical. A micro budget to them was $200,000 dollars. Do you have any idea how many films I could make with that as an independent? I think that maybe I should begin saying I am a 'guerilla filmmaker'. Guerilla filmmaking is an actual term that basically means that you get your film made in whatever fashion you can. You figure out how to build a crane, not buy a crane, you make camera lights, not purchase an expensive light kit. If you don't have help, you do it yourself and you do this until you have the money to get the better things and improve your equipment and find help.
I also attended a documentary film workshop, which sadly I was the only attendee. The good news was that the workshop became very informal and I talked with the filmmaker about what projects he had worked on what worked, what didn't and found that he was about where I am in filmmaking. This was cool because the one thing about Michigan filmmakers is that none of us know each other. This is something that is going to have to change if we are going to be a part of the Michigan filmmaking boom that we feel is about to happen.
The bad thing was this: one of the filmmakers movies could not be shown. There was a problem with the equipment or the DVD itself, but for whatever reason, there were so many digital hits that after three tries they had to give up on showing it. For a filmmaker, especially a new filmmaker, that is a disaster. It is every bit as important for your film to be shown as it is to win something when you are at this level.
I know what it is like to not have your film shown because of technical stuff so I know how he felt. I sat with the guy and we talked about our projects while they tried to fix the DVD player and the computer, but to no avail. I felt bad for him because I have had the same thing happen to me. Its a terrible let down to have things not work for your film.
Sunday:
We got to the award ceremony just before the awards were announced. There was the Audience Prize and the Jury Prize which is a jury of your peers. Then they screened the winners so that people could see them a second time which was cool.
A friend of mine, Maggie Patton (Media Hero) won a Jury Award for her film "Shooters: Get The Picture". She was there this afternoon and I was glad to see her. I had forgotten how good her film was and how much I liked the camera shots in it. Especially when I was thinking that some of my camera work was a bit shakier than I remembered when I was editing the project. But I know how to fix that and will be working on that asap.....
And how did I do in the Riverside Saginaw Film Festival short film contest?
How does Jury Selection Best Documentary Film grab you!
My intent is to always do better than the last project I did. I am looking forward to the project I am working on now. I think my shots are alittle better and I have some interesting video opportunities on tape and I look forward to the post production work I'll have to do for it.
But for now, Yay! I won best documentary film at the Riverside Saginaw Film Festival!
-- spinner
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