Today I presented a clip from our film via the hearttochange.org site in my History of Documentary class and promoted the end of the semester student screenings on Friday night. We were watching the film, Crude, so it seemed most practical to screen our clip alongside an environmental film and discuss the importance of the issue.
This week I will submit the film to Greentopia FILM festival. I hope to also upload a second clip from our film, which shows the Christian element, to the website. I would like to still have things on our front page, we will just always feature the newest addition first. I plan to work with Taylor to edit the clip and Nico to give me website info, so I can complete this task regularly through the summer.
Monday, April 28, 2014
Monday, April 21, 2014
Week of April 21st
So, I am just realizing I did not post a blog entry last week. Basically, last week I worked on the powerpoint for the class presentation on our marketing, festival and distribution plan. This took some time because I realized one of the festivals I originally selected (Lunafest) had a deadline date which had already past and so I needed to find a new one to replace it. Apparently I wrote the wrong deadline down in my notebook, so that was a mistake totally on my part. I still wanted to find a festival that was aimed directly at women filmmakers, so this just took some time to browse through withoutabox. I also worked on getting our online screener functioning for all our further entries to film festivals. Taylor did most of the work here, by exporting and uploading the right size film because the first two files were way too big for the withoutabox/IMDb upload function. I found out that one of our DVD's was not playing properly, so I contacted the Student Academy Awards to follow up and they said their copy was fine. But, since we did have one problem and the cost is a little less I figured the private online screener option would be our best bet moving forward.
This week I will be submitting to the Citizen Jane film festival. At this point there is little work left because the film is complete and I am just filling out entires as festivals deadlines approach. As far as school screenings go, that is something I plan to work on arranging over the summer for next years curriculum. I have contacts at most of the schools in the area, so I plan to work with those teachers to see if they can help me get approval to show the film in their school.
I kind or want to see what happens with the festival entries before I get too far ahead of myself. I did officially get hired by Environment NC last week and I am going to be the Summer Climate Campaign Organizer for the Wilmington area and one of my roles will be organizing events to rally support for new power plant standards. One of the types of events we discussed was film screenings and I would of course work to have my film screened alongside the main feature.
This week I will be submitting to the Citizen Jane film festival. At this point there is little work left because the film is complete and I am just filling out entires as festivals deadlines approach. As far as school screenings go, that is something I plan to work on arranging over the summer for next years curriculum. I have contacts at most of the schools in the area, so I plan to work with those teachers to see if they can help me get approval to show the film in their school.
I kind or want to see what happens with the festival entries before I get too far ahead of myself. I did officially get hired by Environment NC last week and I am going to be the Summer Climate Campaign Organizer for the Wilmington area and one of my roles will be organizing events to rally support for new power plant standards. One of the types of events we discussed was film screenings and I would of course work to have my film screened alongside the main feature.
Monday, April 7, 2014
Week of April 7th
This past week I submitted our film to the first of our seven film festivals we intend to enter for the purposes of this class. More than likely we will submit to more than 7, but in order to fulfill the requirements of this class I will blog this week about the first 7 we selected and why we selected them.
The first festival is the American Conservation Film Festival. I picked this festival for a variety of reasons. It is an environmental film festival with a student category, it was free, and it is in Shepardstown, West Virginia which is not far from where I originally grew up as a little kid. I haven't been back there in about 15 years, so I would be very interested in the opportunity to go there and see how things have changed, as well as watch other environmental films.
The second festival is called Greentopia. Again, this is an environmental festival and it specializes in films which encourage audiences to make sustainable changes in their lives for the betterment of the environment (according to their website). They program mostly documentary and have a shorts category. The festival takes place in Rochester, NY and the fee is only $25, so it would be affordable to enter.
The third festival is Lunafest, which is a film festival dedicated totally to films made by women, for women, or with women in mind. This is a festival that travels nationwide and I was involved with it here in Wilmington for two years. They have a documentary category and the fee is only $20 and if selected our film would be seen by the largest of audiences because they have multiple screeenings around the country.
The fourth festival is the Asheville Cinema Festival. I picked this festival because it is here in NC and it has a student category that is only $20 to submit. It is also in early November, which would be a beautiful time to check out Asheville. This is such a progressive area I think our film would have a good chance at being programmed.
The fifth festival is the Savannah Film Festival. I picked this festival for similar reasons as the Asheville Cinema Festival. It is relatively close being in Georgia, they have a student category and because it is programmed by SCAD I feel like they might be more willing to accept a film from UNCW. This one is $30, which is the highest fee of all.
The sixth festival is Cucalorus. This is my regional pick.
The seventh is the Projecting Hope festival. This festival is my free festival pick. It takes place in Charlotte and is a Christian festival, so hopefully it could have an impact there.
The first festival is the American Conservation Film Festival. I picked this festival for a variety of reasons. It is an environmental film festival with a student category, it was free, and it is in Shepardstown, West Virginia which is not far from where I originally grew up as a little kid. I haven't been back there in about 15 years, so I would be very interested in the opportunity to go there and see how things have changed, as well as watch other environmental films.
The second festival is called Greentopia. Again, this is an environmental festival and it specializes in films which encourage audiences to make sustainable changes in their lives for the betterment of the environment (according to their website). They program mostly documentary and have a shorts category. The festival takes place in Rochester, NY and the fee is only $25, so it would be affordable to enter.
The third festival is Lunafest, which is a film festival dedicated totally to films made by women, for women, or with women in mind. This is a festival that travels nationwide and I was involved with it here in Wilmington for two years. They have a documentary category and the fee is only $20 and if selected our film would be seen by the largest of audiences because they have multiple screeenings around the country.
The fourth festival is the Asheville Cinema Festival. I picked this festival because it is here in NC and it has a student category that is only $20 to submit. It is also in early November, which would be a beautiful time to check out Asheville. This is such a progressive area I think our film would have a good chance at being programmed.
The fifth festival is the Savannah Film Festival. I picked this festival for similar reasons as the Asheville Cinema Festival. It is relatively close being in Georgia, they have a student category and because it is programmed by SCAD I feel like they might be more willing to accept a film from UNCW. This one is $30, which is the highest fee of all.
The sixth festival is Cucalorus. This is my regional pick.
The seventh is the Projecting Hope festival. This festival is my free festival pick. It takes place in Charlotte and is a Christian festival, so hopefully it could have an impact there.
Monday, March 31, 2014
Week of March 31st
So, many of the plans for last week were not executed because of miscommunications and failures to read emails and complete tasks. I am obviously a little annoyed at the way things went down, but there is no use dwelling in the past and all we can do at this point is move forward.
The most important task last week was getting the application and DVD sent to the Academy of Motion Pictures and that was completed. I received the confirmation from them on Thursday and I am looking forward to the results of that submission.
Two of the other three festivals whose submission dates we missed were not that important to me and can be replaced with other festivals. One of them, The Blue Ocean Film Festival and Conservation Summit was the one I cared the most about and so I might consider submitting to it before the late deadline. I receive updates from Withoutabox once a week with new festivals, so I know we will be able to find additional festivals to add to our list. Our other four festivals don't have dates until the summer, so I know we will be able to make those deadlines without problem.
This week we are going to get back on track by finalizing the website, selecting definite film festivals and discussing the costs. Right now I have paid for everything by myself with the help of our indiegogo funds. I hope to discuss with my crew their personal responsibility to the film with the hopes they step up and volunteer to pay for some of our expenses.
Most of the other tasks for the Marketing and Distribution Plan have been finished except for the film's postcard. I am going to wait until after Visions before I even bring this up because I feel like Nico is totally overloaded and that is why mistakes are being made. We have 5 weeks remaining in the semester and I don't think it will be a big deal if this project is put on hold considering how much we have already completed and the amount of time we have put into the film.
The most important task last week was getting the application and DVD sent to the Academy of Motion Pictures and that was completed. I received the confirmation from them on Thursday and I am looking forward to the results of that submission.
Two of the other three festivals whose submission dates we missed were not that important to me and can be replaced with other festivals. One of them, The Blue Ocean Film Festival and Conservation Summit was the one I cared the most about and so I might consider submitting to it before the late deadline. I receive updates from Withoutabox once a week with new festivals, so I know we will be able to find additional festivals to add to our list. Our other four festivals don't have dates until the summer, so I know we will be able to make those deadlines without problem.
This week we are going to get back on track by finalizing the website, selecting definite film festivals and discussing the costs. Right now I have paid for everything by myself with the help of our indiegogo funds. I hope to discuss with my crew their personal responsibility to the film with the hopes they step up and volunteer to pay for some of our expenses.
Most of the other tasks for the Marketing and Distribution Plan have been finished except for the film's postcard. I am going to wait until after Visions before I even bring this up because I feel like Nico is totally overloaded and that is why mistakes are being made. We have 5 weeks remaining in the semester and I don't think it will be a big deal if this project is put on hold considering how much we have already completed and the amount of time we have put into the film.
Sunday, March 23, 2014
Week of March 24
Yay! We are officially in picture lock and are making preparations for release. As of right now Nico has a good portion of our website complete and is finishing the paperwork for the Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences. I plan to mail it off to them tomorrow!
I am securing our UNCW premier with Sandra Jackson from Lumina Theatre and I think that we will be screening it this Wednesday, March 26th before the film, A River Changes Course. I am meeting with her to see if I might be able to introduce the films or be a part of the panel discussion after the film. I am very excited and even though it is very short notice I hope to have a decent turn out of people we know to see it. I emailed the people who participated in the film and I am going to speak to Pat tomorrow about sending our a departmental email about it as well. I also plan to contact friends and others who have showed interest in our film.
Our next step will be our submissions that need to be postmarked by March 28th, which I think we have 2 or 3. I am making the DVD's and Nico is completing the paperwork. Taylor did the majority of editing, so his work is dwindling while Nico's is really just beginning. I will be doing everything possible to promote this film and guide Nico in the direction I want this film to go. I do plan to work on possible screenings at local churches and Christian schools in the area too.
I am securing our UNCW premier with Sandra Jackson from Lumina Theatre and I think that we will be screening it this Wednesday, March 26th before the film, A River Changes Course. I am meeting with her to see if I might be able to introduce the films or be a part of the panel discussion after the film. I am very excited and even though it is very short notice I hope to have a decent turn out of people we know to see it. I emailed the people who participated in the film and I am going to speak to Pat tomorrow about sending our a departmental email about it as well. I also plan to contact friends and others who have showed interest in our film.
Our next step will be our submissions that need to be postmarked by March 28th, which I think we have 2 or 3. I am making the DVD's and Nico is completing the paperwork. Taylor did the majority of editing, so his work is dwindling while Nico's is really just beginning. I will be doing everything possible to promote this film and guide Nico in the direction I want this film to go. I do plan to work on possible screenings at local churches and Christian schools in the area too.
Monday, March 17, 2014
Week of March 17th
This week we plan to wrap up our editing for picture lock. We have to mail our entry to the Academy on Monday the 24th to make sure they have it by April 1st because it is not a "postmark" deadline, it is an "on-receipt" deadline. We are going to send it priority mail through the USPS, so they should receive it within 3 days at most, but I want to be sure to give ourselves a little bit of a cushion. I'm trying to be a bit economical since I am paying for all of this out of pocket. Once submitted, we can not make changes to the film according to the Academy rules, so this will be the same version we send to all other festivals.
Taylor is currently working on color correction and finalizing the sound design, Nico is working on all the paperwork for the Academy, getting the home page of the website up, and has also begun researching other festivals. This week I am doing a few reshoots, mainly Chancellor's walk and I also am going into the Bluethenthal Nature Preserve to possibly replace one of our current sequences with a walking shot through the natural surroundings. (We have been watching some direct cinema and cinema verite over the last two weeks in 371 and I am feeling a little inspired and I thought it might be a good link to the shot of Natalie walking for thematic purposes). I am also finalizing the credits.
We did make quite a few changes on Saturday based on the classes feedback, but we have decided to keep the flood animation as it is. We are all ok with the look of it, this was my direction to Whitney and I think it fits my vision. I know you do not agree, but I have to go with my gut on this. We did fix the analogy animation, correcting the timing of the doctors and smoothing out the beginning and end transitions into and out of the animation. We also worked on enhancing the graphs and the second translation of the Greek visual. The one other thing we are still going to work on this week as a complete crew is the vox pop section. In the past only Taylor and I worked on this, so we hope with Nico's help we can perfect the goal of this section, which is audience identification through pathos. This is what I intended, as well as the translation of the love of nature/the earth, so hopefully we will be able to execute that better this time.
Taylor is currently working on color correction and finalizing the sound design, Nico is working on all the paperwork for the Academy, getting the home page of the website up, and has also begun researching other festivals. This week I am doing a few reshoots, mainly Chancellor's walk and I also am going into the Bluethenthal Nature Preserve to possibly replace one of our current sequences with a walking shot through the natural surroundings. (We have been watching some direct cinema and cinema verite over the last two weeks in 371 and I am feeling a little inspired and I thought it might be a good link to the shot of Natalie walking for thematic purposes). I am also finalizing the credits.
We did make quite a few changes on Saturday based on the classes feedback, but we have decided to keep the flood animation as it is. We are all ok with the look of it, this was my direction to Whitney and I think it fits my vision. I know you do not agree, but I have to go with my gut on this. We did fix the analogy animation, correcting the timing of the doctors and smoothing out the beginning and end transitions into and out of the animation. We also worked on enhancing the graphs and the second translation of the Greek visual. The one other thing we are still going to work on this week as a complete crew is the vox pop section. In the past only Taylor and I worked on this, so we hope with Nico's help we can perfect the goal of this section, which is audience identification through pathos. This is what I intended, as well as the translation of the love of nature/the earth, so hopefully we will be able to execute that better this time.
Monday, March 10, 2014
Week of March 10th
This week we screened our rough cut for the class and received a significant amount of feedback, some we are going to try to incorporate and some we are not. We will edit again on Saturday and I am going to contact Whitney to see if she might be available to come into the edit lab to work along side us, so we can describe the changes we are looking for her to make while we are right there over her shoulder with the hopes we don't have to scrap the flood animation completely. As far as the analogy animation goes, Taylor thinks there is a way for us to fix the timing on our own without the need for Whitney to work on it. Also, we are going to do some re-arranging and replacing of b-roll for the purposes of making it more artistic. We have a lot to work with, so we are going to try some new things out to try to introduce some visual metaphors. We also plan to re-cut the vox pop section because the intention was for audiences to identify with one of the types presented (older white male, middle aged white male, middle aged white woman, younger white woman, minority student, shopper, boater, runner, coffee drinker, etc) and we don't want them to seem un-relatable or scripted. They all made comments about why they loved the environment, so we are going to see if we can express that. We also discussed the feedback about making it "darker" and we all agreed that is not the direction we want to take this film. We are trying to break that stereotype of environmental films with a different approach.
I am taking a copy of the rough cut to Jamie Russell from the Office of Student Involvement and Engagement tomorrow, she is sharing with Sandra Jackson from Lumina to see if we can find a good fit for it to open with another film planned for sometime in April. This would be our first screening and a way to show it to fellow students.
I am taking a copy of the rough cut to Jamie Russell from the Office of Student Involvement and Engagement tomorrow, she is sharing with Sandra Jackson from Lumina to see if we can find a good fit for it to open with another film planned for sometime in April. This would be our first screening and a way to show it to fellow students.
Subscribe to:
Comments (Atom)