Any Given Sunday

There will be joy in Hollywood tonight.

And where there is joy, there is disappointment. 

But where there are winners, there are only losers in the minds of those who choose to see themselves that way.

I'm talking, of course, about tonight's award ceremony for Dances With Films year 16.  We give awards because a few, special mentions might help the winners promote their work, without hurting those terrific films that do not win. 

So the films that do not win, do not lose. 

This year's films were so diverse that choosing a winner for the Grand Jury was close to impossible.  Every film had a champion.  Each had multiple reasons why it deserved to take home the wire man.  Each elimination ripped a piece of the judges' hearts.

So when the winners are announced tonight, whether your name is called or not, let there be joy in your heart.  Joy for your accomplishments.  Joy for the newfound friends' accomplishments.  Joy for being a Dances With Films alumni of year 16.

Congratulations to all.

It's In All Of Us

It's in our DNA.  It defines us.  It separates us for the rest of the Animal Kingdom.  No, not our opposable thumbs, or our ability to make tools.  It is our need to share stories.

From cave paintings, to the theatrical Festivals of Dionysus, to the Guttenberg press, to Hollywood and the internet, we as a species have a primal need to share our stories.  Some tell them, some listen, a symbiotic relationship between artist and audience.

It is in our DNA.

This year's filmmakers have the same drive to share their stories as the cave painters of prehistoric France, as Socrates and Euripides.  They have struggled to get words on paper as much as the early authors of the Middle Ages, and have fought as hard as Mary Pickford, Charles Chaplin, D. W. Griffith, or Stephen Spielberg to bring those words to life on the screen.  Sure, the tools of storytelling have changed over the years, but not the drive.

On Friday, Timothy and Patrick Chapman pit familial DNA against artist DNA in Phin.  In Waking, Skyler Caleb and Ben Shelton question reality, Fate and Destiny in the form of a love story of dreams.  Zak Forsman pumps us full of adrenalin and fulfills our secret desires to be a bad-assed anti-hero when things get Downand Dangerous.  Then for some late night fun, Jeffrey Schoettlin and Robert Taleghany look at just how stupid love can make a man in American Idiots.

Love, sex, and emotional confusion go hand-in-hand, so are often the focus of our need to share stories.  On Saturday, Michael Doneger and Michael David Lynch tackle the pain of life on the rebound as they tells us about This Thing With Sarah.  Tom Glynn explores our relationships with our cars.  In Automotive, the car in question belongs to a man confused by love, and trapped in a life of crime.  Then, what Saturday night would be complete without a midnight movie of blood, screams, and dreams of an eternal life of youth and beauty?  We've told scary stories around campfires for centuries – now we tell them in horror movies.  In Chastity Bites, Lotti Pharriss Knowles takes this genre to a new level – with intelligent, hilarious, dialogue, a flawless cast and tons of fun.

We bring out our Sunday best with two entirely different styles of indie film.  Cement Suitcase will charm you with J. Rick  Castañeda's script and Dwayne Bartholomew's performance of life's every day struggles in small town America.  Drew Thomas's Channeling shows us the danger of exploitation of our real-life stories, while filling our need for for fast-action, emotional insight, and sic-fi adventure.

Monday night brings Ryan James Russell's Reach., which dives into two of humanities deepest enigmas, love and death, while Chioke Nassor wonders just what our impact on the world is, and if they'll miss us when we're gone, in How To Follow Strangers.

Tuesday, we get to re-live adolescence through the wonderfully stylized eyes of Dan Lee in MurtRamirez Wants To Kick My Ass.  Later, we jump back into the complex adult world as Sam Hancock, Dan Mayer and Matt McKay – together with a standout performance by Alanna Ubach – delve into the limits of acceptance in Us.

Livia De Paolis and Sarah Nerboso also wonder about this human obsession of sharing ourselves – from groups online, to individuals in our lives – in their modern family  drama, Emoticon ;).  Later, David F. Morgan and Cora Benesh tell the story of a generation lost in over and under achievement in City Baby. 

It's only paranoia if you're wrong.  Friday, Eddy Salazar, Peter Kenneth Jones and Monty Miranda do what Shakespeare did in The Scottish Tragedy – as The Insomniac explores a life without sleep.  What happens to our minds when we don't dream?  Whatever it is, it isn't pretty.  Joe Eddy then takes a good hard look at family, friends, foes, and immigration laws in Coyote.  Then Jono Oliver wonders exactly what is Home?

On our first Second Friday (kind of like Second Breakfast),  Steve Chong Finds Out That Suicide Is A Bad Idea, as Owen Hornstein III unravels a drama in the isolation of a lake-house.  Odin Ozdil uses the 2008 housing crash to see how world economic forces effect our everyday lives  in California Winter, while J.C. Schroder takes the apocalypse even further in Forever's End.  Midnight is once again turned on its head when Will Prescott's imaginary friends get a job Feeding Mr. Baldwin.

Since Comedia del Arte or the 1500's we've seen love stories about gambling over amorous conquests, but what happens in modern times when The Bet is between grandfather and grandson?  That's the story Annie J. Dahlgren, Christina Eliason and Finola Hughes tell us Saturday afternoon.  Paul Osborne then wonders how far an otherwise moral, upstanding, person will go when things start to unravel around him, just for asking a friend for a not-so-simple Favor.  Tamas Harangi feels the pangs of injustice, and explores the pros and cons of vigilantism in The Advocate, while Bernie Van De Yacht and Brett Donowho wonder exactly what is Salvation?  But who really cares about such weighty issues when there are boobs, booze, and buds at midnight, in Scott Donnelly, Erik Lindsay and Greg Garthe's Last Call?

Sunday afternoon, we look behind the walls of prejudice to find out the truth of matters in the purgatory between freedom and incarceration, via James Brannon and Richard Friedman's Halfway To Hell.  Brian Jun and Jack Sanderson turn us back to the observation of this year's festival, storytelling is in our DNA – when She Loves Me Not looks into a famous author's inability to tell another story, while his assistant can't get the world to listen to her first one.  Then put your dancing shoes on, and fill your glasses for the rock & rollingest good times of Lance Lindahl's Hay Days.  And finally, Blu de Goyler and David Mun plunge us into the oldest story of all time, in the House of Good and Evil.

Like DNA, each of these films – and the shorts and documentaries too numerous to mention here –  are unique, yet they have so much in common.  They are the creation of their mothers and fathers – our filmmakers – and yet, they now take on a life of their own.  A life we hope you will all enjoy.

On The Care And Feeding of a Midnight Movie

It occurs to me that many of the DVD/Download generation might not understand exactly what makes a midnight movie so special.  They weren't even born before – though, some might have been conceived during – The Rocky Horror Picture Show.  To them, a midnight movie is what one falls asleep on while drooling on the couch.

But not at Dances With Films!  We like to do The Time Warp, complete with pelvic thrust, back to an era of Eraserhead, John Waters, and all those who love the creatures of the night.  From Beasts, Blood and Boobs, to Booze & Boobs comedies, the Dances With Films midnight movies have an outrageous reputation.  So, for the uninitiated, here are some ground rules for the care and feeding of a good midnight movie.

First, sobriety is not required.  We would go so far as to say not recommended, but we don't want to get in trouble with Mothers Against Everything.  Seriously, do make sure you have cab fare, because the subway stops running around midnight – and you know your designated driver is going to cave when someone hands him or her a flask under the seats.

Re: drinking – keep in mind that you're going to be in a dark room watching bright images bounce around on a giant screen.  (And yes, I did mean to say "bounce" after mentioning boobs twice already).  If you're the type who is prone to motion sickness while under the influence – bring a leak-proof bag.  None of the DWF volunteers wants to clean up after you, and we will make jokes about how you can't handle your liquor.

During regular hours, silence is appreciated.  Not so after midnight.  While it would still be rude to loudly talk to your friends about what a rotten guy your boyfriend is for not bringing a sick bag and vomiting all over your best slutty outfit, yelling at the screen to warn the hot chick in panties and a T-shirt not to go into the basement of a clearly haunted house is perfectly acceptable behavior.  Please, though, try to keep your comments short, loud, and funny.  No one wants to hear you babble incessantly through the entire film.

If someone is babbling incessantly through the entire film, you'll be considered a buzz-killing dweeb if you go get the manager to have the not-so-comical idiot removed.  Instead, you should make even louder comments about the person's questionable parentage, or how their beer belly and body order are disturbing everyone's enjoyment of the film.  For example:  "Shut up, you fat, smelly, drunken bastard!  No one paid to hear you run your mouth all night!"

If you are not the person who is talking incessantly – and let's hope you're not – nor the person who shouted him or her down, then it's your job to cheer on the person who did.  Bullies can't stand it when the whole playground turns against them.

This brings me to another important point of etiquette for the midnight movie.  Violence is considered the lowest of the low when it comes to bad behavior.  Most midnight movie goers are geeks, freaks, and the occasional hot cheerleader looking to spice up her boring middleclass existence.  None of them are interested in fighting, so if you are –  remember – a crowd of people running away from you screaming, won't give you the same kind of rush you get from pounding your flesh into another man's body repeatedly until you both become too exhausted to carry on, and collapse arm-in-arm in a heap of spent manhood.
 

Finally, the most important rule of any midnight movie: The Screen Is Sacred! 

Sure, go ahead and pour a bucket of popcorn on your friend's head, that'll clean up easily – but don't ever, EVER, throw anything toward the screen!  That is our altar of worship, and it's really friggin' expensive.  If you fuck it up, the midnight movie experience will be dead to all of us – and it will be on your head!  Do you really want to be remembered as the douche bag who ruined it for everyone else?

No?  I didn't think so.

So... Don't fight.  Don't mess up the theatre.  Do have more fun than should be legal.  Obey the Golden Rule, and I'll see you at the Q & A.

Grief

Just real quick...

We're getting some push back from filmmakers who were upset that this year's slate was published on Indiewire before we got out our pass letters.  For the most part, I don't think the people who have an issue with that are readers of this blog.  If they were, they'd know how that sort of thing works.

Every year we have to balance PR needs with human needs like sleep.  We can only get so much done within the span of our waking hours.  The final schedule doesn't solidify until the last minute - often after press announcements like Indiewire's, so pass letters can't go out until everything is confirmed.

So does it hurt to see a schedule posted without your name on it - especially when you were so close to being in the festival that you could taste it?  Absolutely.

Is the pain of rejection something you have to get used to in this business?

What do you think?

Also, if you're in the LA area and you didn't get into the festival, that doesn't mean you can't be a part of it.  We have panels that are open to the public, in addition to coming to see and cheer on your fellows who did get in.  I promise you, they've been where you are, and will appreciate all you've been through.

They'd better!  If they don't, we'll kick their asses!

Busy Much?

Okay, I can't let Zak Forsman and the Down And Dangerous folks down and not post an update, but the truth is, there isn't a lot to say right now.  While this is the busiest time of year for us, little of it has anything to do with filmmaking, choosing films, or any of that other fun-but-painful process.  

It's all roll-up-your-selves kind of stuff.  You know what I'm talking about.  The real sweat that those people who always say, "what you should do," but don't do themselves, don't know about.  It's "oh, crap!" time; as in, "Oh, crap, if I don't do this right now, it won't get done."

Michael has busted his behind to get the website updated with the schedule, ticket info, and movie pages.  Now it's onto the program, poster, and all things graphical!  Leslee has been coordinating with our party planners and panel providers to finalize what have been nothing but general discussions for almost a year now.  And, of course, there's press, press, press.

And, believe it or not, we're still watching movies.  Not all of every movie that got into the festival has been seen by everyone on the team, so between now and opening it's a mad scramble to make sure everyone gets to see them before the fest begins. 

Why?  Buzz, of course!

That, and we're way to busy during the festival to actually sit and watch a movie!

So that's what we're up to.  What are you filmmakers doing with your time?

Why Buy An Ad In The Program?

First, a little bit of business.  Quentin Tarantino often quotes, "Don't ask for permission, ask for forgiveness."  It's all fine and good to live by that Machiavellian principal, but you must be ready to suffer the consequences if forgiveness is not forthcoming.  We had a film lie to us about their world premiere status.  Is the premiere status so important to us as to without forgiveness?  No.  We understand filmmakers have tough choices to make in their festival journey.  We've programmed films that have premiered at other places –  even though we'd wished they started with us.

It's the lie that requires penance before the forgiveness may come.

That's a fancy way of saying another slot just opened up for a lucky short filmmaker, and a perfect example of why we say, it's not over 'til it's over.  Pass letters will start trickling out this week, but among them will be one or two invitations.

For those who are in the festival, keep an eye on this blog for advice between now and opening night.  For those who aren't in, stick around.  The advice applies to you as well on your run at other venues.

Programs in film festivals are as different as the festivals themselves.  Some are throwaway newsprint intended to get you to a movie you might like, and little more.  Others, like ours, are beautifully printed keepsakes.  Some cost money. We think that's crazy. Why charge your audience money for your best form of advertising?  We give them away for free.

That's a tough combination – a free program that is expensive to make.  To help pay for your piece of memorabilia, we sell ads.  We sell them to corporate sponsors. We sell them to small indie companies, and we sell them to you, the filmmakers.

So should you, or should you not buy an ad?  There's a festival that shall remain nameless, but whose initials are The New York International Film and Video Festival (at least it was, I think it may be defunct now).  They were famous for calling filmmakers who had taken the deal on their buy-in fest to pressure them into buying an ad in the program.  I had the chance to be on the receiving side of one of those calls, and let me tell you, they are hilarious!

"We screwed up! We're about to go to press with the program, and we don't have a front cover!  That means we need to give you a great deal on this one-time only opportunity to have distributors see your film's key art..." blah, blah, blah.  All with an emphasis on the distributors who will be flocking to the festival, see my ad on the cover and rush right out to buy my movie.

I said no for so long that I finally had to remind the sales person that she started the conversation with "we're about to go to press," and hadn't she better move along with that? 

When the festival came around, there must have been fifty movie posters plastered on the cover, each no bigger than your pinky fingernail; each representing the hopes and dreams of someone who probably spent their last dime on what they believed was their chance to get an edge.  That's the wrong reason to sell an ad, and the wrong reason to buy one.

Distributors are not going to buy your movie because they see an ad in the program.  Some audience member might see your ad, then flip to the summary, and if they find it interesting and have the time, they may come to the movie.  Great, but is that enough of a reason to spend money on a full page ad? Or even a little business card sized one?  I don't know.  That's your judgment call.

Here are some reasons I can think of to buy an ad:

1. Thank your investors.  Investors are the most important part of indie filmmaking. Treat them like the gold they gave you. They probably figured you were never going to pay them back – or even that you'd ever make a "real" movie – so a warm, public thank you might be all they need to feel good about what they've done.  And, oh boy, are they about to be surprised when they see what incredible things you've created with their little green pieces of paper.
2. Thank your Cast & Crew.  Investors give money, cast & crew give time, and we know what time is, right?
   
3. Help support the festival.  Our "no stars" policy makes it hard to win over sponsors that don't understand what we do.  Unlike a destination festival that can go to the local business community with numbers and stats, we have to find sponsors that want to get into the uber-indie world.  To be cool before it's cool.  To win a demographic before they are one.  Ads in the program help us do that.
4. Some reason you have in mind that I don't.  After all, you're a creative type, right?  You're bound to have an angle none of us have thought of.  So let's see what you've got.

See you all May 30^th!

Written On The Subway Walls

Some of you may have heard that our filmmaker's orientation meeting for year 16 is coming up this Friday.  That does not mean that 100% of the slots have been chosen.  There are always one or two issues that haven't settled out.

Still, if you haven't heard from us, the big beautiful woman might not have sung yet, but she's getting her spear and magic helmet.  We do send out the best pass letters in the circuit.  Little comfort, I know, but hopefully shows the respect we have for every filmmaker.

About the orientation meeting.  It is not required, but if you're in Los Angeles it is highly recommended.  It's also a lot of fun to meet your fellow ... what?  Classmates?  It's worth a half day off from work, but not a plane ticket.

For those who are out of town, we are working on streaming it online.  Hopefully the insanity of all of us babbling in Douglas Fairbanks' old gym will translate to a worthwhile experience on the digital screen. 

Speaking of the gym, dress for the weather.  No guarantees on air-conditioning or heat.

That's it for now.  Some of you I'll see on Friday.  Others, good luck!