Greetings. It's been a bit... It's nice to see you. Since my last entry, I finished the short film I was working on and started submitting it to film festivals. The first festival where it was accepted, it won an award. (Pictured above... the second picture is of all of my rad friends that came out to show their support. Thanks for being the camera-guy, Omar!) The award was the 2011 Audience Award at the Bernal Heights Outdoor Film Festival in San Francisco. It felt really good to win an award voted on by the festival attendees. A lot of hard work by a lot of people went in to the project. Therefore, this entry was written by an award winning filmmaker. Please don't look me in the eye or speak until spoken to next time you see me.
I've got the same short submitted to a few other festivals and am waiting to hear back now. The film festival process is incredibly interesting, fun, nerve-wracking, expensive, rewarding, etc... This go round with the Bernal Festival was the first screening where I invited friends and family to attend, which was great... but then a few days before it hit me. Oh shit! Everyone is going to see my short. While I'm standing next to them. I was more nervous than I thought. It wasn't just friends but folks in general. It's hard to show your project to a room full of people after you've watched it 5,000 times on your computer at home and have lost all perspective on it. Thankfully, everything worked out great, and the short played really well to the audience. However, I was glad I had a beer or two before the screening.
Once the festival was over, I was ready to jump in to another one. Navigating the submission process is new to me, as this is the first project that I've completed where I've been proud enough of it to send it out. Some festivals don't accept submissions if they have previously been online or if it premiered somewhere else or they want a disc not an online submission or they want an online submission and a disc... A learning process. So I got an withoutabox account which led me to an imdb page (I've got an imdb page!! Crazy...) and I was off and running. Even though I felt incredibly poseurish doing it, I also got business cards made up to hand out while networking at film festivals. That seemed more professional than tearing out a page from my moleskin and scribbling my contact info on it.
While waiting, I am also editing an unfinished short from film school. I want to be able to do something with that project as well, but if it looks like a step backwards creatively, I will probably pitch it and reshoot it as I am in love with the script. I've also begun writing another short film and really can't wait to get back on set. I miss filming.
Things I have been digging as of late: Drive (the movie & the soundtrack), Moneyball (the movie but loved the book as well), Wilco: The Whole Love, & Dr. Who
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