I had hoped to give a day-by-day report of the festival, but life gets in the way of writing and as the festival is now weeks past, I won’t bore you with multiple posts and sum up the best of my notes in this one.

The kids from the first night returned on the second night, and they bought friends. I was so stoked that all of them came back for Night 2! This is one reason why small film festivals like this are important; a group of kids who have spent their adolescence in multi-plexes watching Hollywood films have now discovered short films and independent films and are excited about it, excited enough to share it with friends. There were so many great people who came to the festival, and the level of support from the attendees was astounding. For $20 you could buy an all access pass that entitled you to all programs and seminars and the awards ceremony, yet many people chose to purchase tickets for individual programs so we could earn the extra money. We were giving away copies of selected movies from the 2005 festival, but many people chose to donate money for the movies, many paying $20 for them! The level of community support helped us grow substantially between the first and second years, and I can’t wait to see what next year holds.

If I thought it wouldn’t bore the PFC readers, I would write about the festival attendees that I met that made the weekend enjoyable, the elderly screenwriter that attended almost every screening and networked like crazy, and is one of the sweetest humans I have ever met, the two men that returned for every show they could, paying when they could have received media passes, the three women who did the same and who then, toward the end of the festival, were so excited about the festival itself shared with us that they are active in many of the big arts events in Orange and LA Counties and gave us a list of their resources and offered to help in any way they can next year, the kids who came for extra credit last year and returned with more friends this year, as well as all the people who attended the first year, came back this year, and picked up our conversations one year later as if no time had passed. I have the unique ability to remember faces (but rarely names), and while I tend to scare people by remembering them when they don’t remember me, it feels as if we are building a community as the people who came in remembered me from the previous year, and weren’t scared when I remembered them, too. Whoops, sorry to bore you!

I met the filmmaker that made one of my favourite films in the festival, A Cigar At The Beach. I got him set up in the Media Room and then began to gush about how much I loved his film. He was so excited! Someone close to him once mentioned that it is a “guy” film that might not appeal much to female audience members, but it is a great story about a man who, while on holiday with his family, goes to the beach to smoke a cigar and imagine different lives for himself. While he does imagine different women in some of the lives, who of us hasn’t fantasized about a different lover, joining the merchant marines (or the Peace Corps or some equivalent), a mysterious woman/man? This is one of the most powerful and beautiful short films I viewed in the selection process and I am glad to have met the filmmaker as he is as sweet and thoughtful in person as the character he has created on screen. Also, he did one thing that impressed me, although his movie wasn’t scheduled until the last day of the festival, he stopped by the festival to say hello and drop off marketing materials, and then stayed to watch other movies. I think it says a lot about a filmmaker who will come to a festival and watch the other movies that are being shown, support other filmmakers, and not just show up for their own film and leave. Of course he wasn’t the only one who did this, and it was great to get to listen to the filmmakers discuss each other’s films after each program….

Someone commented to Vince about how “nice” we all are. What a great compliment. The festival is about the filmmakers, and it is a humongous rush to know that we are creating a festival where the filmmakers can interact with the movie-goers and industry professionals, and we are doing it in an environment where everyone is having a good time and is comfortable, and it really is working the way we wanted it to. This is a direct opposite of the other BIG film festival that screens in Orange County yearly, where the festival directors are all rich people who participate for the status and the networking opportunities and not for the love of film. Twice tonight people left the theatre, once filmmaker and one aspiring screenwriter, and they thanked me by my name as the left. I was so excited about the recognition, not because I help by working the festival, but because I am recognized as a person who loves this medium as much as they do and shared this experience with them.

On Friday I picked up Richard Michaels Stefanik, who did two workshops at the festival, and proceed to have an amazing conversation with a stranger who didn’t feel like a stranger within five minutes of meeting him. He is a screenwriter and lecturer and novelist and director and producer, and an all around wonderful person. We had an interesting conversation about conservative politics in Orange County that I won’t repeat here, and another interesting conversation on marketing screenplays. He writes novels partly because he is a writer and enjoys the medium, and partly because he believes it easier to market a screenplay based on a successful novel than trying to market an unknown screenplay. One of his novels, Once in a Blue Moon, is currently in pre-production, and you can check out his webpage , I believe that he is one of the speakers at this year’s LA Screenwriters Expo, and is scheduled for multiple speaking events throughout North America during the next few months, although his web page is not currently up to date. If any of you are interested, I will be glad to find out his speaking schedule.

Friday night was packed. The first program was our “South of the…” Program, with Latin and South American themed shorts, and our “Off-Beat” program, with shorts that didn’t fit into the other programs and had more adult themes. Four of the films were local films, from Los Angeles and Orange Counties, and the local films drew large crowds of friends. After the sixth short, I asked someone to cover the front and snuck into the theater. The first movie I saw was A Terrorist Ate My Brain, a low budget zombie film that was hysterical. Sitting in the theater, I was taken back to my first short film festival, the night I fell in love with short films (I do not count the Spike and Mike festivals). The audience laughing together, whistles and applause after each short finishes, hearing groups of people supporting the films of the other filmmakers, the joy of a story told in less than 20 minutes, this is why I love short films; the audience can participate in ways they don’t seem to in other format festivals. I was walking on air after the program finished.

Things I Learned From Watching the Filmmakers

Of course, the reason that filmmakers submit their films to a festival like is to get industry exposure for their film. But, festivals are also great tools for building word of mouth for your film. And, the more people that come out to support your film, the more word of mouth you can generate, and the producers and distributers in the audience are listening to what the attendees are saying. So, some of the things that I saw the filmmakers do to generate buzz for their film include:

Using myspace and the Internet to build momentum for a movie. A great tool that you can use it to draw attention to your website, as well as let your “friends” know when your movie will be playing in their town. The makers of Pirates of the Great Salt Lake are using their myspace and their web page to draw attention to their movie. While it is easy for a local filmmaker to draw a crowd of friends and family to attend a screening, it is difficult to draw the same crowds in a city where you have no connections. The Pirates of the Great Salt Lake generated a large turnout for their showing using their myspace page as a promotional tool. First, pirates are cool and trendy right now, so pirate fans riding the” piratical wave” (a term created by the filmmakers) use myspace to search out information on pirate movies and other pirate related pages, adding themselves to the movie’s myspace friends list, allowing the filmmakers an easy tool to use bulletins, blogs and events announcements to advertise the festivals where the movie is showing. They also held a ticket giveaway on their myspace page for the festival in order to increase the number of attendees for the movie, and both these techniques worked in drawing one of the largest crowds of the festival. I was at a local outdoor shopping mall the night Pirates of the Caribbean opened, and there were large crowds of young people dressed in pirate clothing waiting in line to get tickets for the show. I think many of the kids that I saw that night attended this movie, dressed in pirate clothing and talking in pirate talk.

Promotional materials. Most film festivals, ours included, have media rooms where you can leave collateral so people can take away information regarding the movie. These materials run the gamut from DVDs of the films, postcards with the movie’s logo, and full-scale press releases. Some of my favourite materials included the matchbooks for A Cigar At The Beach and a DVD of short films from the maker of Lucid showcasing his other films. Even if you are passing out small postcards, this is a great way to keep your movie in the minds of the attendees. One of the things that is cool are the filmmakers who give us copies of their movies to give away for donations, allowing us another form of revenue.

Showing up at the festival and promoting your own film. This sounds like a no-brainer, but many of the local filmmakers didn’t attend the festival, nor did they do much promotion. While we worked our hardest to generate press and a buzz about our festival, it is still a small festival with a low profile, and the filmmakers have a responsibility to help promote their own films. This includes using your web and myspace pages to generate attendance, as well as your mailing lists. Showing up at the festival, if possible, or at least sending a representative is important. The filmmakers and their collaborators who attended this festival spent a lot of time talking with the industry professionals who attended the screenings, but spent more time talking with the attendees. What a great opportunity to promote your film while getting the chance to hear the feedback from the audience, the same audience who will add you to their myspace friends lists and blogrolls and tell all their friends about your film.

About the Movies I Saw

I have already mentioned A Cigar At The Beach, and how much I loved this film. It took the award for Best Cinematography, and it was a well deserved award as the movie was as beautiful as it was interesting.

Looking for My Brother. The after-effects of Argentina’s “Dirty War” are explored in the story of a girl who witnesses a political assassination while looking for her brother. The movie opens beautifully on the Argentinean pampas, with voice over explaining the importance of the pampas to the Argentinean people and soul. The movie then moves into Buenos Aires, where, the narrarator is revealed to be a politician on his way to a speech. The entire movie flows in this way, effortlessly from scene to scene, and the editing and the story progression are perfect. The girl is brought in by the police as a witness, and as the interrogation proceeds, she is forced to come to terms of the effect of the war on her family, and the interrogator is forced to come to terms with his participation in the war. The background story, told through their flashbacks, shows that she is not as naive as she may appear, and only through her quick thinking is she able to preserve her freedom and potentially her family’s honour. An almost perfect short, the only flaw in the movie is Danielle Hartnett, whose acting is not up to the same standards as the rest of the stellar cast. But, this does not take away from the beauty, power, and message of the movie. This is a must see movie if it plays at a festival near you.

30 Seconds. An absolutely hilarious movie about a college student who hears in his Human Sexuality class that people think about sex every 30 seconds, and the effects it has on the rest of his day. The whole premise of the film is that he thinks about sex every 30 seconds, and when the clock starts ticking you know that something hilarious is going to happen next. I watched this at home, and laughed so hard at the final scene of the movie that I scared my cat and he ran out of the room. Another must see if this plays at a festival near you.

A Terrorist Ate My Brain. Disclaimer, I love funny horror movies, and I like humourous zombie films, so, of course I loved this film. The acting is average, the special effects and production are definitely low budget, and this was one of the funniest movies in the festival. Terrorists have found a way to transmit a virus through iPods that turns people into zombies. I don’t want to say more about the movie as it is a short and in one sentence I can give away the entire plot, but it is refreshing to see terrorism and our current political situation here in the US dealt with using humour without racism, nationalism, or religious dogma. It sounds like a lame premise for a movie, but it really works, and is really hilarious. I have a screening copy of this movie, and this is one of the movies that every guest in my home will be forced to watch.

As an aside, the villain of A Terrorist Ate My Brain is G-hoddie – rhymes with Jihadi, a terrorist rapper. The actor that portrayed this character now has created the G-hoddie web page. Read the About Us page to see how the actor is now using the character as a tool to spread religious tolerance and gender equality, not a bad goal for a bad rapper.

Pretty Kitty. A cat torments his human companion by silence and passivity. Everyone I know loved this movie, and I mean LOVED this film, but I have a problem watching blood or violence, even if it is funny, unless zombies are involved. That said, I want to trade my evil cat for the sweet cat in this film.

Lucid. An interesting short about a man tortured by visions. It was interesting to see that Justin Israel, the filmmaker, is influenced by many of the same Japanese films that I love, and took elements of some of my favourites and pulled them together in this film. The link for the movie is for SomethingDirectory.com, a site for filmmakers to show their films online. You will also find “how to be emo” on this site, the newest Internet phenomena. This movie was emailed to me the week before the festival, and the writer and I had a great discussion about the fact that his movie has gone “viral”; it is being sent around the Internet and posted on youtube and googlevideo, et al. I didn’t enjoy it as much as last year’s big Internet hit “Emo Farm”, but if you like emo or like to make fun of emo, this is a well made movie (with a great animated history of the music), and is well acted and funny in parts.

A Fairy Tale. A sweet, funny movie, this played in our All Ages program. A story of a tooth fairy at the end of his fairy probationary period and the trials he endures as he tries to capture his first tooth. The lead actor, Chairman Barnes, is superb, a rare comedic actor who can make you laugh with a twitch of his mouth or a look at the camera. The film is shot in muted shades that are usually associated with for horror films, yet help drive the story as we all know the tooth fairy works in the dark. This is one of those films that children and adults will love as it is both smart and funny at the same time, while not trying to hard like many Hollywood movies try to do to impress the entire family. Only after the festival did I learn this is a student film, and I can’t wait to see what Robert Warzecha, the filmmaker, does next.

GWG, Girl With Gun. A girl that everyone believes is an ordinary working woman is actually “The Nightingale”, an assassin who helps the innocent. Sounds lame, and it could have been, but I LOVED this movie. How many times have you viewed a movie that was a tongue-in-cheek spoof on another film or genre, and, for any number of reasons, it didn’t work. This one works. A send-up of Charlie’s Angels, the traditional double-agent movie, and pretty much every martial arts movie made the onset of digital photography, the filmmaker is obviously a fan of all of these genres and has created a good tribute to his favorite movies without crossing the line into winking at the audience or drawing obvious attention to its influences. This movie is appearing at any number of film and comic book festivals and, and will be playing at the FAIF Film Festival in Los Angeles on October 7.

The Movies That I Didn’t See That I Wish I Had?

Alleyball. I watched 15 minutes of this film before the festival, and wasn’t impressed. But, it won the Best Feature Film award and the Audience Choice award, and the feedback I heard from all of the people that saw this movie was great. The actors are all recognizable faces from various American television programs, even if they aren’t household names. When discussing independent film, one of the biggest criticisms I hear is that the quality of acting is usually lacking. What I heard many times about this movie is that the actors were all perfect and that the relationships between them were so real because they really seemed as if they were real life friends, even though most of the actors didn’t know each other before the production. Because of all the great things I heard about this film, I can’t wait to see it.

Buffet: All You Can Eat Las Vegas. A documentary about Las Vegas buffets. Another movie that viewers were raving about. After this film screened I helped to put food out in the green room for the filmmakers, and they were not hungry as this movie really killed everyone’s appetites. Interesting that a movie about mass food consumption could cause such a physical reaction amongst the viewers.

The Mamtsotsi Bird. A South African short film about a man who calls upon the Mamtsotsi Bird, a malevolent mythological creature called upon to do evil deeds on earth. This is on the must see list as I love a good horror movie, and I love to see how horror translates across cultures. South Africa does not have a big presence in the film world (even after Tsotsi brought notice to South African cinema this year), adding to my interest in this film.

The Trouble With Dee Dee. Another movie that people raved about. An independent film starring many recognizable faces from movies and television, about an eccentric socialite and her misadventures. The only complaint I heard about this movie was about the casting, but not the acting, and the premise of this movie is something that is original and new. Lisa Ann Walter won the award for Best Actress for this film. This film is currently on the festival circuit, but sounds as if it will be picked up for distribution sometime soon.

Moongirl. This movie drew a crowd due to the fact it was directed/created by Henry Selik, the director of the animated versions of James and the Giant Peach and The Nightmare Before Christmas (both in collaboration with Tim Burton). A trailer of this has been available on his web page for some time, and many people attended the 12:00 noon Saturday program specifically to see this film. That a film can draw so many people at such a difficult time slot is a sign to me that I really need to see this, even if I am generally not interested in animated films.

Me Room Matey and Pirates of the Great Salt Lake. I mention these two films together as we showed them in the same program. Me Room Matey is about a man who admits to his roommate that he lives an “alternative” lifestyle as a real-life pirate. This short film is supposed to be hilarious, and I met the filmmakers of this film, two students at the film school next to my home, and they are wonderful and funny and I really want to support them and this film

Pirates of the Great Salt Lake is about two men who believe they are pirates and travel the Great Salt Lake looking for treasure. Another movie I had no big interest in until the screening, where they drew the largest crowds of any of the movies playing and the crowd was nuts for this film. Like Alleyball, this film was widely praised by everyone who saw the film, and because of that I am now very interested. E.R. Nelson won the award for Best Director for this film.

I wish I could write in detail about the workshops, but as I was busy working I didn’t get a chance to attend any of them. Hopefully next year I will be able to do so!

The 2007 SoCal Independent Film Festival will be held Sept. 5-9 in Huntington Beach. Call for entry deadlines and dates will be announced soon, and we are looking for sponsors, volunteers, filmmakers and supporters! You can visit our homepage for more details!