Longer Festival: More Movies, More Fun, More Decisions To Make

First of all, apologies for being a little late with this blog.  I'm trying to get it out every Monday, but we are crazy busy around here. 

For those who haven't heard, we are expanding the festival to 11 days to get in another weekend of movies and more.  That's making for a lot of advanced planning – like, when should we do the awards party?  Sunday will be the last day of the festival, so do we do Sunday Night?  Sunday Brunch?  Sunday afternoon pool party, followed by a special screening?

Any ideas?  Post them in the comments.

People often ask us how we like to have films delivered, packaged on the DVD, etc.  I generally don't care a lot except for a couple of things:

First, we need DVDs.  It's friggin' impossible to track submissions if you can't stack them in piles on the floor.  Yeah, yeah, we could do something else – but really?  Watching your movie on line means I'll probably watch on my 17" laptop with slow downloads, high compression, etc. etc.  Wouldn't you rather I watch it on my 60+" plasma TV with 5.1 surround sound?  I would!  I need the tax write-off.

And – nothing that would make us pass on your movie but – it's a good idea to NOT have your movie automatically re-start once it's over.  We screeners are often trying to collect our thoughts about your film right at that moment.  There is nothing worse than a bunch of us yelling, "NO!" to the TV when your film starts again. 

About this week's shorts screening, we saw nothing good – which is actually a shout out to a particularly brilliant film that I hope has not blown its world premiere.  You would not believe how hard it is to fight for a film that has already screened, particularly in the LA area.  When faced with two good movies, and only one open screening slot, the world premiere will get it every time.  I hate it.  You hate it.  But that's life in the festival world.  We try more than most to help you guys decide on your World Premiere, so if you have any questions, please, please, please, ask.

Trends.  We're seeing a lot of nudity this year.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not complaining.  I'd rather see natural nudity than the unnatural wrapping up in a sheet.  That always sticks out like a 555 phone number.  So nudity rocks!  Love it.  But it won't turn a bad story into a good one.  It won't make a bad film good.  It does make a bad film a little more fun to watch... but not nearly as much fun as a good movie, with or without naked people.

Okay... done giggling?

Can we retire the "This or That?" dialogue of couples meeting for the first time and falling in love? 

"Beatles or Stones?"
"Stones."
"Oh, I love you."

Stop it!  And if you think I just quoted your film verbatim, I have.  And ten others.  Stop.  Love is a valuable commodity.  Make your characters earn it.

So many times beginning writers are told, "write what you know."  It occurred to me while watching yet another movie about actors, that writers need to learn more.  Let's turn that lesson into, "write what you know that other's will find interesting."

I hope that you've found this interesting, and that you'll post some ideas about what you'd like to see during our extra days this year.