Doin' Time Is Here

We are getting close to the final deadline for submissions, which means it's getting real, folks.  For those who have submitted, that means the waiting is going to get more and more intense. Sorry, there's not much we can do about that.

For us, it means it's time to actually do all of the things we said we'd like to do. … okay, maybe not ALL of the things we'd like to do, but most of them.

For me, one of the new things I'd like to start this year is an alumni store during the festival. This would be a place where alumni can come back and sell their DVDs, books, streaming movies, etc. to an appreciative audience. We can have filmmakers signing their DVDs, posters, etc. Maybe bring back some cast members who have gone on to do well – and we have a lot of those – to sign DVDs from their early years.

So if you're an alumni with something to sell, get in touch, let's make this happen!

We started last night's screening session with a drama that got unintentional laughs. That's always a bad sign. The entire movie was in passive voice. That is to say, the characters talked to each other about things that we would have rather seen. This structure also meant the character objectives were not active or immediate, and their obstacles were non-existent, which makes for an extremely boring movie, no matter how hard the actors emoted.

We had a music video where the song was okay – not great, but not horrible – the video portion was pretty good – not great, but had some good moments. The problem was, the visual images had absolutely nothing to do the song. Add that to the just okay-ness of the song and images, and it died the death of a thousand cuts.

In another short, some filmmaker decided that an actor's performance needed to be enhanced with jump cuts, which is a shame.  I would bet dollars to doughnuts that the monologue worked just fine without the jerkiness of the hip-editing style. The story had built up to the big monologue, and done so in an okay fashion – but again, just okay. Once we became overly aware of the filmmaker behind the scenes with the jump cuts, the rest of the problems in the film magnified.

We saw two good short docs both set in the mid-sixties. If it works out, they might just end up in the same screening block.

I'm told there was a comedy from AFI that screened in the other room. I can't wait to see it, if for no other reason than to stay up-to-date on my challenge.

Finally, we had a terrific animated short that reminded me that I need to call my Dad… in a good way. Nice job.

Thanks for reading.