King Penguin Productions

We've moved!

2011-07-22T15:17:00.003-06:00

As you can see I haven't really made a post on here for about two years. LOTS has been happening, I've just been slacking. I've been wanting to build a website (yes, an ACTUAL website) for about 10 years now, and we're finally getting one put together. As of this moment, it is very much a work in progress, but going forward I will be adding blog entries there. I've actually considered going back and hitting some of the things I've done and back-dating them just to document some of the various projects we've worked on to help fill in the two year gap.

Posted is a link to the new blog where additional entries will be made. I wouldn't have even made this post, but my stat counter (that I haven't looked at in over a year) shows that a ton of people still hit this blog, so I figured I'd leave a forwarding address for any new folks that happen by.

www.marclongbrakephotography.com & www.kingpenguinproductions.com

Tea Smith promotional web videos

2009-04-06T21:13:00.003-06:00

We're starting to shoot a web series for Tea Smith, a fantastic tea store in Omaha, NE (two great locations). We shot the introductory video last Wednesday and got some great footage. It's currently being edited now so I'll post a link when the first one is done. The series is planned to be about 12 episodes and should give you all of the information that you need to understand and appreciate tea. Trust me, you'll be cooler for it!

Risen Drum videos with Matthew Tobias

2009-04-06T21:06:00.002-06:00

We're going to be shooting some promotional web videos for Risen Drums and Empty House Studio for Matt Tobias. Look for several videos coming in the next several months. The initial teaser is up on youtube right now if you want to check it out.

Omaha Film Festival 2009 – Sunday, Day 9

2009-03-02T00:07:00.000-06:00

It hasn’t completely sunk in that it’s over. It’s such a surreal experience watching something unfold over the course of the last nine days that you’ve spent twelve months planning. Each little element of the festival, from the font size and type on a poster, to the items of food at a party, to each of the films that we screen, to the number of tables in our booth, are all results of conversations and decisions that we’ve made and to see them all in action is a pretty cool feeling. Another amazing feeling is having so many incredible volunteers and staff members that are just as dedicated to this project as we are. So many things just magically happen and get done around us where we don’t have to do anything, so it’s great having people that are willing to fill in all of the gaps that we leave.

It’s such a massive undertaking to pull something like this off and we know we absolutely couldn’t do it without all of our helpers. To start with, Julie Matthews is responsible for wrangling all of the volunteers as well as a lot of the other office-type duties and I know we couldn’t run the festival without her. Plus the sixty-or so volunteers that give up their free time to spend it with us is fantastic for us, and great for the attendees and filmmakers as well. We’ve got the best group of volunteers out of any of the festivals that we’ve attended so that makes us really proud.

One of the other things I’m proud of in regards to our festival is our judging staff and our judging process. Huge thanks goes out to all of our judges in the feature film, documentary and short film categories. You guys all did an amazing job helping us break down hundreds of excellent films into what we programmed this year so thanks to all of you.

The venues were fantastic again this year as well. Thank you to Teresa at Creighton, Karli at the Omaha Community Playhouse, and Kenny and Walt at the Great Escape Theatre for all you’ve done for us over the last nine days. We couldn’t have asked for more perfect venues and have received nothing but great feedback from all of our attendees and guests about how great they were all treated at each of our venues. We’re proud to call each of them our home for OFF’09 and into the future.

As for our award winners and all of the filmmakers that submitted and attended, I want to thank each of you as well. Picking “winners” is always the most difficult thing to do at the festival, and gladly some of that decision is shared with our audiences in the form of the audience choice prizes. This years’ audience choice awards went to:
“Granny Grimm’s Sleeping Beauty” directed by Nicky Phelan – short film
“A Friend Indeed - The Bill Sackter Story” directed by Lane Wyrick – documentary
“Touching Home” directed by Logan and Noah Miller – Feature Film

A special award was given this year to the short film for best Cinematography which was a $500 certificate for Eastman/Kodak film which went to the short film:
“Valley of the Moon” directed by John Monteleone

Omaha Film Festival jury prizes were also given in six different categories to the following films:
“Agent 5: A Night in the Last Life Of” directed by Matthew Desotell - OFF the EDGE
“Varmints” directed by Marc Craste – Animated Short
“Coons” directed by Chris Cloyd – Nebraska Short
“Sugar” Alex Beh – Short Film
“Phantom Punch” directed by Robert Townsend – Feature Film
“The Providence Effect” directed by Rollin Binzer – Documentary

Due to some very generous donations and sponsors, we gave out over $14.000 worth of prizes during our awards ceremony so another huge thank you to all of our sponsors. And yes, it is frustrating having to give all of those prizes away!

Thanks to all who attended this year, it was a great event. Let’s do it again!!

Omaha Film Festival 2009 – Saturday, Day 8

2009-03-01T03:03:00.001-06:00

Seventeen screenings with films starting at 10:00am and running through 11:45pm in three theaters. That’s about 32% of the entire festival in one day. Sounds like a real treat huh? Today was actually a fantastic day. We went through ten feature films, four documentaries and 27 shorts in three short blocks and in spite of the snow and the ridiculous cold (remember it was 60 degrees out just a couple of days ago) we ended up having some pretty good crowds. The two biggest gatherings were for the special screening of “Sunshine Cleaning” (of which I only got to see about half) and the locally produced film “Grapes: the Story of an Aspiring Serial Killer.” Saturday is also the day when most of the films have their second screening so the filmmakers that were in town for their first screening typically stick around for this one too and we had some tremendous Q&A sessions today.

The crowds that surprised me the most were for the documentaries. People came out in good numbers and the Q&A’s for those are always engaging. I was also pleased with the turnout for the shorts programs. We played all of the shorts except for the Nebraska Short block and people really seem to be enjoying those.

Now with only one day left, I’m starting to feel the melancholy that comes with planning an event for a whole year and finally see it winding down and elation due to the fact that it’s winding down! Sunday will have the two remaining feature film second screenings, and then we’ll have our awards ceremony, followed by the best short film, feature film and documentary, based on the audience choices throughout the week. Gathering the ballots after every screening and tallying them up afterward, then summarizing them and presenting that award is always a fun and interesting process as we get to see what the audience’s reactions are to the films that we’ve chosen to screen.

Tomorrow’s e-mail will be the wrap up and will have all of the thank yous in it, so for today I’m signing out and looking forward to a week’s worth of sleep. And a new thank you to the mystery person that brought us the tall cans of RedBull this afternoon. We couldn’t have gotten there without you.

Omaha Film Festival 2009 – Friday, Day 7

2009-02-28T01:39:00.001-06:00

I think we can officially call this the home stretch. That is if home stretches are covered in snow and ice. Why does this happen every year during the festival? Oh, because we have the festival in Nebraska in February. Anytime anyone asks why we do this in February, I always tell them that if people can go to Park City, UT in January, then they can come to Omaha at the end of February. And why at this point in our lives people are still afraid of snow I’ll never understand. We ended up having great turnouts all evening so it was a very successful night.

Tonight was the second screening of the Nebraska Shorts and we had another great crowd. We moved the screening into the largest theater we had and I think it was a great move. Once again after the screenings we had all of the filmmakers in attendance go up for a Q&A and they all fielded a variety of interesting questions. I’ve heard a lot of feedback from this year’s group of locally produced films and most people are saying this is our strongest group of Nebraska short films so it’s good to hear that that block is getting better.

Other highlights included films with filmmakers in attendance. Lane Wyrick, director/editor of the documentary “A Friend Indeed: The Bill Sackter Story” has done a great job promoting his screenings and was in attendance for his first screening. As you would assume from the nature of his film, his Q&A was moving and gave everyone further insights into the filmmaking process and into Bill himself. Three of the promotions people for the OFF the EDGE film “Clear Lake, WI” were also in attendance in support of their film. Hearing how they were able to shoot the way they did and were able to navigate through a town and make it look like a ghost town covered in snow was an interesting conversation.

The Q&A sessions are always my favorite and the Saturday screenings will have a ton of them. We have seventeen screenings and eight of them will have filmmakers in attendance, so that should keep us on our toes.

There are still plenty of tickets available for all of the screenings and being outside won’t be any fun, so you might as well head down to the Great Escape Theater and watch some films. It’s entertaining, inexpensive, and it shows us that the community supports what we’re doing and would like us to do it all over again next year (and the ticket sales help keep the creditors at bay).

Thanks to everyone that’s come out so far. Seeing the faces of people that are entertained by the movies that we’ve chosen to screen makes all of the work (and lack of sleep) totally worth it. I’d break into song with “you are the wind beneath my wings” but no one really wants to hear me sing.

And thanks to that one special person that brought Jeremy, Jason and I a RedBull today. It went down nice and smooth and helped get us through the day.

Omaha Film Festival 2009 – Thursday, Day 6

2009-02-27T01:50:00.000-06:00

“Hey, who scheduled this thing?!” as quoted by myself and Jeremy as we looked at today’s schedule. You see, we’ve had this crazy karma or spidey sense or dumb luck that has somehow allowed us to schedule various films over the years and having the scheduling magically work out. Truth be told, we do put a lot of work into it and a lot of thought and planning goes into how we schedule things and it always seems to work fine. When we put the schedule together (typically at least a month before the festival), there are often some lingering unknowns such as what format the filmmaker will send in to screen (35mm, Beta SP, Digibeta, HDCam, DVD, BluRay) and the question as to whether or not the filmmaker will be in attendance. Somehow with all of those variables and running four films at once with various runtimes, the schedule has always worked out. Today however we were going over the schedule now that all of the “unknowns” are “knowns” and it was interesting to see that we actually had four filmmakers in attendance in four different screenings, and the end times of each of the films ended approximately 10 minutes apart. For those of you that have attended our screenings, you know that the three of us (Jeremy, Jason and myself) like to get up after each screening with the filmmaker and help facilitate the Q&A sessions. With four at once and only three of us, that was going to prove to be challenging. And as I write this, I’m not really sure how we pulled it off. I know I conducted the final Q&A with Logan, Noah and Jeremy after their film “Touching Home” but I’m not sure how the others came out. I guess props to the other guys for making it work (assuming it did).

This day has been a big red star on my calendar for about a month now because we were going to be short staffed in the projection booth and I kept hoping that it would just “work itself out” but sadly the “itself” that it “worked” meant me spending the first half of the evening upstairs making sure the films went off on time and in the proper format. As I look back on the chaos of the last twelve hours, it’s good to know that everything worked out and I assume that it was all seamless to our attendees. Granted, I didn’t do as many introductions so I’m sure a LOT of our festival goers missed seeing me!

A few of the highlights included Q&A’s with filmmakers Matt Desotell from “Agent 5: A Night in the Last Life Of,” Rollin Binzer and Tom Hurvis from “The Providence Effect,” Chris Taylor with “Food Fight,” Logan and Noah Miller from “Touching Home,” and Frank Monteleone from the short film “Valley of the Moon.” It’s always great to have filmmakers brave the Nebraska weather and come out in support of their films. We tried to help out with the sixty degree weather yesterday, but it (obviously) couldn’t hold up and we’re back to February in Nebraska.

Thanks to everyone that’s come out and supported us over the last several days. We literally plan this event for a year (we’re already making plans for oh’ten) and having decent turnouts is an awesome thing (especially for the filmmakers that travel here). Check out the website, create a screenname, rate and review some films. Guilt session over.

Omaha Film Festival 2009 – Wednesday, Day 5

2009-02-26T03:06:00.001-06:00

Commitment – com.mit.ment [kuh-MIT-muhnt]
-noun
1. the act of committing, pledging, or engaging oneself.
2. walking across a parking lot in Nebraska when it’s 60 degrees in February and staying indoors all day to run a film festival.

So yeah, the drive to the theater with the sunroof open and the windows down was pretty awesome and the fresh, spring air made it really tough to start the day inside, but the show must go on. After doing all of the usual prep-work during the day, we geared up for what we hoped to be a pretty busy evening, especially since it was our first night with four theaters.

The first film of the day was a special screening of Jeff Saxton’s “Heart of the City,” and if you know me personally, you know my involvement with that film. Being in a position, running a film festival, and having an opportunity to program Jeff’s film was a real honor and a treat for me and I was glad to have it be one of our special screenings this year. In talking to Jeff over the last couple of months I told him I wanted 100 ticket sales out of him and tonight’s crowd ended up being 189 so we were thrilled with the turnout! Seeing so many of the people that had worked on the film together again was a pretty surreal experience and a treasured moment. There were fourteen people up front after the film involved in the Q&A session and it was great to hear Jeff talk about the film again. Thanks a ton to everyone that came out and supported this particular screening.

The other two highlights of the evening were the two films with filmmakers in attendance. Ben Kempas’ documentary “Upstream Battle” had its second screening and he had a nice crowd. He’s heading out of town on Thursday so we scheduled both of his screenings early in the week, and while attendance numbers tend to be lower during the early parts of the week, he ended up attracting decent crowds in both of his screening slots. Short film block #2 had Cosmos Kiindarius’ short film “Family Recipes” in it and he had a great Q&A after the block was over. A lot of people were engaged and liked what he had to say about his film specifically, and about independent film in general. Cosmos is a well spoken and intelligent filmmaker and was able to draw the audience in and give them a behind-the-scenes look at filmmaking, which is one of the main reasons I love having a festival in the first place. And we were treated with one of my favorite festival moments this year during the ending credit sequence with an older couple who was leaving (or rather “walking out”) after his film. As he passed us, he simply said “booo” which cracked us up. I’m sure he didn’t realize that the filmmaker was standing right there with me. It is true that given the subject matter, “Family Recipes” isn’t for everybody, and that particular reaction proved it.

We’ve increased our attendance each night from Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, so hopefully we can keep that streak alive and keep growing over the last four days. One thing I’m encouraged by is our attendance at the short film blocks. Four years ago when we first started the festival, I don’t think the city of Omaha had ever seen a short film and over the years we’ve seen a steady increase in support of those blocks, so it’s great to see those films and those filmmakers getting the support they deserve. We spend so much time going over the hundreds of short films we receive, and running a short film block is a difficult thing to do because you have to switch each film and adjust the picture and volume on each one (thanks Johnathan), so when you have a great turnout it makes all of the work seem worthwhile.

After the festival we all headed out to Jake’s, a pretty cool cigar bar in Benson for our official after party. Since the place is only a nine iron away from my house, I figured it would be a good last-stop on my way home. It was a great little place and a cool opportunity to unwind.

As for us, we’re all holding up pretty well. Tomorrow we’re running four screens again and we’ve got some more filmmakers coming into town so it’s going to be a great day. By Friday though I think I’m going to offer a free ticket to the first person that brings me a large, ice cold RedBull. And if there’s a masseuse out there, stop by the booth and ask for me…we should talk.

Omaha Film Festival 2009 – Tuesday, Day 4

2009-02-25T02:49:00.001-06:00

Our first full day of in-competition films and our first day of multiple screenings. Tonight we showed our first documentary, our first OFF the EDGE film, our first short film block and three feature films. The first film to kick off the evening started us off on the right foot. With a sell out. We actually brought some folding chairs in to fill in the seating areas for wheel chair access to allow people that wanted to come in a chance to see the Nebraska Short Film block. I remember two years ago when we actually separated the NE films from the rest and showed them by themselves, and how the attendance wasn’t that strong. We actually considered for a minute about not even having a special category for local films, but last year the attendance was fantastic and this year is starting off the same way, so I’m glad we kept it in. To see the city come out and support the local filmmakers, and to have such a high percentage of cast and crew of the various films in the audience is always a pretty cool thing.

Two other highlights of the evening were the screenings of “Upstream Battle” and “Touching Home.” “Upstream Battle” is a fantastic doc about the “Native Americans fight for their fish – against an energy corporation.” Filmmaker Ben Kempas made the trip from Munich to participate in the festival and had a great Tuesday night crowd that was eager to participate in the Q&A session after the film. There were several local ties (including some interesting footage and commentary about our own Warren Buffet) that was sure to stir up some controversy, but overall the audience was very receptive.

“Touching Home” ended up being the second highest attended film of the night, after the NE Shorts and the crowd seemed to truly enjoy the film. Tears were shed and laughter was had and it was a great festival experience. The Q&A after the film with the brothers was among my favorite of all time, seeing the energy that they have between each other and their innate ability to finish each other’s thoughts and sentences with such frequency and completeness, that it made it a real treat hearing them talk.

The attendance for the evening was fantastic and it’s apparent that the community of Omaha is finally realizing what the OFF is and wanting to come out and support it. Awesome.

And I’ve got two words – hospitality suite. No more words about that, but it’s almost 3:00am right now.

Today was three screens, tomorrow will be four. It’s going to be fun!

Omaha Film Festival 2009 – Monday, Day 3

2009-02-24T08:45:00.000-06:00

The day started off with a nice leisurely morning, gently waking up without an alarm clock, knowing that we didn’t have to be at the theater until after 10:30am to start getting things set up. Wrong! I smartly scheduled an interview on Star 104.5 fm’s morning show for Jeremy and myself. We had to be there at 8:15am (which is a lot earlier than 10:30). But the interview went great and Glennboy and Glo were incredibly supportive and enthusiastic about what we were doing, so it was a no-brainer heading down there and talking about the festival.

Tonight was our opening night film and our first day at our new venue, so we were all anxious to get in and start taking delivery of all of the things we’re going to need for the week. We had shipments of equipment coming in from a furniture rental place, Dog & Pony, North Sea Films, Lights-On, Editech and Midwest Sound and Light, so it was fun coordinating all of the gear we needed and getting it all up and running. The other main task was digging out from under the litany of boxes that had been transported from our homes to Creighton, to the Omaha Community Playhouse, and back to Creighton for the weekend panels, to finally arrive at our new home for the week. The Great Escape Stadium 16 Theatre was an absolute joy to work with on our first day and gave us everything we needed to get our booth up and running. Within about 3 hours, we had things fully functional and we were ready for business. As we worked through all of the technical needs and organized our plan for the week, people started trickling in for our special screening of “The Great Buck Howard” starring Colin Hanks, John Malkovich and Tom Hanks. As the lobby filled up, it was great to see so many familiar faces and reacquaint with people who’ve come to previous festivals. When someone new would come up to the booth and ask questions, I always like asking how they heard about the OFF, and on a few occasions tonight it was great to hear “oh, I heard you on the radio this morning” or “I’ve seen your commercials on WOWT playing all the time.” My favorite response to a person who’d never come to the festival before was “How could I avoid it, I heard about it everywhere!” So huge thanks to our official media sponsors WOWT (NBC) and The Reader, and huge thanks also to the other media outlets that are helping us by promoting the event (Star 104.5 who’ve done two interviews with us, KPTM (FOX) brought a camera out tonight, KETV (ABC) brought a camera out on Friday, and KVNO who will be interviewing all of the documentary filmmakers in a special series that’s airing all week long).

It was a real treat, once again, to have Mayor Mike Fahey get up and give our opening speech and hear him include the Omaha Film Festival among the other great annual events that happen in Omaha. He has come to each of our four festivals and has always been supportive, and for that we are truly grateful. And with that, the festival officially kicked off and the film was a complete success. Everyone seemed to truly enjoy it and we heard tons of great feedback after it was over.
One of my favorite things about the festival, and one of the things that truly makes it worthwhile investing so much time and energy into putting on an event like this, are those special moments and tonight offered one of those moments. For me it was several months in the making, but for two of this year’s filmmakers, it was years in the making. The film “Touching Home” was written and directed by twin brothers Noah and Logan Miller, and it was a story about their lives. They’ve lived pretty interesting lives and people that they’ve known have always told them that their story would make a great movie so after hearing that enough times, they were finally provoked into going to a book store and purchasing a book on screenwriting. The book that was recommended to them was Lew Hunter’s Screenwriting 434 so they purchased it, read it dozens of times and wrote their first screenplay. Then, over the next several years, they wrote 12 more. And when they were going to finally make their first movie, they decided to go back to their first script, in honor of their father, and that’s what gave us “Touching Home.” So I’ve known this story for several months and when the brothers arrived at our theater tonight, I spent some time talking to them, then casually mentioned that Lew was there in the theater and they both freaked out. I went into the theater and brought Lew out and they had an opportunity to meet him in person after years of admiring him and crediting him with basically changing their lives. To be a part of that moment and to see the excitement on their faces makes whatever happens at this years’ festival completely worth it.

The evening ended like so many festival evenings in the past. At Julio’s. They’ve taken care of us so much over the years it made sense to head there for our opening night party and it was another tremendous event. And this year, the bell only rang once. And if you don’t know what that means, I suggest you come to our Julio’s party next year!

It’s 2:00am. I have a lot of work to do before we start day four of the festival, with three screenings running six film blocks. I’m glad I don’t have an interview at 8:15am.

Omaha Film Festival 2009 – Day 2

2009-02-23T01:04:00.001-06:00

Day two of the conference is always easier than day one. Most of the people that are coming showed up the day before and got signed up and got their festival badges, and now all they have to do is show up for day two. That and everyone in attendance pretty much knows the drill, so it cuts down on announcements and directions and such.

After some second-day-setup, we were ready for panel number one. All of the people that attended day one knew they couldn’t miss the first panel which was Mauro Fiore, ASC and Neil Krepela, ASC together, discussing action movies. We figured this was an appropriate topic since just about every major action film over the last two decades had one of these two gentlemen working on it. To my amazement, they had never worked on a project before and up until about fifteen minutes before the panel, they’d never even actually met before. It was fun sitting in the green room and hearing stories though, and they were both one degree of separation through multiple people that each had worked with before. The panel, which was moderated by Ben Drickey, was fantastic. Hearing the different perspectives on how a film gets created from a Cinematographer’s standpoint and a Visual Effects Artist’s standpoint was an incredible treat, as they drew from their huge pool of work to give everyone a behind-the-scenes look at filmmaking.

Session two had a return to the stage of Andrew Robinson and Daryl Sabara, with additional actors Sean Durrie and Rachel Lien. One of the things that movie goers are interested in is how directors and actors communicate so having this discussion with writer/director Andrew and three of his actors from the film April Showers gave everyone an incredible insight into how that process works, from auditioning, to the initial collaboration, to rehearsals, and working together to create a living breathing character that appears real within the context of a film. It was a tremendous treat hearing the different perspectives of the actors who all worked on the same project with the same director, and were also able to draw on their experiences over the years working on other projects

Panel number three was with none other than the legendary Lew Hunter. Lew has been a huge supporter of us and the festival since day one and it’s an incredible honor to have him speak at our festivals. In previous years he’s talked about screenwriting, but today he gave everyone an insider’s look at the Oscars with an open forum discussion on how it works. It was a huge treat for everyone in attendance and gave everyone something to look forward to later that night.

Our final panel of the conference ended on an extremely high note with writer/director Nik Fackler, producer Dana Altman and cinematographer Sean Kirby, from the film Lovely, Still, another film that was shot locally over the last year. The film stars such heavy weights as Oscar winners Martin Landau and Ellen Burstyn and it was incredible to hear the journey of the story that started in the head of a sixteen-year-old kid, to being realized seven years later with Nik directing his first feature film. One highlight was having an opportunity to see about four minutes of the film and it certainly made everyone in the audience excited to see it. We’re all looking forward to its fall ’09 release.

Without question, all eight of our panels flew by. Each one was 90 minutes in length and each of them could have easily gone a lot longer based on the panelists’ energy and the enthusiasm of the crowds.

Now that the conference is over, we’re ready to jump full speed ahead into the film festival. Before that, I want to be sure to thank Ron Gerard for moderating six of our panels over the two days of the conference. He always brings professionalism and polish to the sessions that far exceeds expectations and makes our panelists feel comfortable and focused and keeps the audiences engaged. Thanks also to Teresa Affleck and Creighton University for once again hosting our conferences, and to Julie Matthews and all of the volunteers, without which none of this would have been possible.

So the conferences are done and it’s a Sunday night, what should we do? How about a fully catered party at the Cellar to watch the Oscars? Huge thanks to Whole Foods for catering one of the best food spreads I’ve seen in a long time, and huge thanks to the Cellar and the Glacier for hosting our Oscar event. We had a nice, intimate gathering with two projected screens and an incredible sound system for us to watch and enjoy the Oscars, and with printed ballots, we were able to pick our favorites and route for Slumdog Millionaire. We were sad that OFF’08 panelist, editor Mike Hill didn’t win in the editing category for Frost/Nixon, but it seemed to be Slumdog’s year. Congratulations to Mr. Hill for his nomination.

So that concludes the first two days of the festival. Tomorrow is our opening night with the film “The Great Buck Howard” and it should be a ton of fun. I’ve seen the film so I know it’s going to be a great time for everyone that comes out. For a complete list of films, be sure to check the website.

Omaha Film Festival 2009 – Day 1

2009-02-22T00:59:00.001-06:00

I’ve been to a lot of film festivals and so far today is the best festival experience I’ve had. The day started like any other day (too early), but waking up was easier because of the schedule for our first day.

We got underway at the conference with actor Daryl Sabara (the Spy Kids trilogy, The Polar Express, A Christmas Carol ’09) with an excellent session about his life and his acting career. It’s amazing to hear the story of a 16-year-old who’s basically had a 16 year acting career. He’s worked with so many great directors and actors and had tons of great stories to tell, and the audience was all very engaged. A great way to kick off the festival.

Panel number two was with Mauro Fiore, ASC an amazing cinematographer who’s worked on Avatar, Training Day, The Kingdom, The Island, and Tears of the Sun. He was also the gaffer on Schindler’s list and it was incredible watching some of the clips he’s worked on and listening to him explain the behind-the-scenes of how many of the shots were created. Having an opportunity to watch a film clip, then to have a Q&A with the person who shot it, is a great experience and the audience participation was very enthusiastic.

Panel number three had Visual Effects Artist Neil Krepela, whose credits include Bolt, Heat, Outbreak, E.T. and Raiders of the Lost Ark as well as a couple of Oscar nominations for Cliffhanger and 2010. He had an amazing film reel that went back 30 years and provided the audience with some phenomenal insights as to the role of a visual effects artist on a film. He showed us a powerpoint presentation of a scene from Dinosaur that broke down how the shot was previsualized and all that it took to make the completed scene, then we watched the finished product. Incredible.

The last panel of the day was with Andrew Robinson (writer/director), Jenna Edwards (producer) and April Wade (producer) of April Showers, a film shot here in Omaha last summer. Most of the people in attendance either had some experience working on the film, or had at least heard of it while it was in production, so that panel was very enthusiastic. Everyone wanted to hear more in depth about the film they’d heard so much about, and this was a great opportunity to interact directly with the three main people that put the film together.

The panels wrapped on time at 5:00pm and everyone headed over to the Omaha Community Playhouse for the reception and film screening of Shimmer 2. Ticket sales online had been brisk so we knew we were going to have a nice crowd, and did we ever. With nearly 600 people in attendance, the night was a complete success. I won’t say much about the film but it was an unbelievable night that ended with a Q&A session lasting over 30 minutes with 13 cast/crew on the stage taking questions from a packed house. How can you go wrong? Add to that a 30 minute poster/autograph session with an enthusiastic crowd and you’ve got a pretty good first day.

Omaha Film Festival – the calm before the storm

2009-02-20T18:54:00.001-06:00

Okay, there isn’t actually any “calm.” Jeremy and I ran errands non-stop today, which included three interviews, one with Glo from 104.5 fm that will air on Sunday, one with Malorie Maddox on WOWT which aired live today, and one for Mike’l Severe’s show on KETV which will air on Monday morning.

The rest of the day was a lot less sexy - hauling and moving and picking up and delivering stuff. But it all has to get done.

We’ve got our conference panelist dinner tonight so I’m looking forward to that (it’ll be my first meal of the day).

Day one will be here before we know it.

OFF'09 Filmmakers Conference

2009-02-15T01:22:00.001-06:00

Omaha Film Festival 2009 – Filmmakers Conference

What?

The fourth annual Omaha Film Festival is proud to present the 2009 Filmmakers Conference, an event that’s open to the public for anyone interested in films and learning about the filmmaking process.

When?

The conference will be held from 9:00am to 5:00pm, Saturday and Sunday, February 21st and 22nd. A Special Screening of the film Shimmer 2 will screen Saturday night at 7:30pm with a filmmakers reception party starting at 6:00pm.

Where?

Saturday and Sunday panels are at Creighton University, Hixson Lied Science building. The Saturday night special screening will be at the Omaha Community Playhouse in the main theater on 6915 Cass Street.

How?

Information for all films, events, tickets, passes, and pricing is available at www.omahafilmfestival.org

Who? (our confirmed panelists – all appearances are schedule permitting)

Daryl Sabara - A film and television actor, Sabara is perhaps best known for playing Juni Cortez in the Spy Kids trilogy. As well as starring Spy Kids, Sabara has made numerous other television and film appearances, including Halloween, Father of the Pride, The Polar Express, A Christmas Carol ’09, and Keeping Up with the Steins.

Mauro Fiore, ASC – One of the industry’s top working Cinematographers with film credits such as Avatar, Training Day, The Kingdom, The Island, and Tears of the Sun.

Neil Krepela, ASC – A two-time Oscar nominated Visual Effects Supervisor whose credits include Bolt, Heat, Outbreak, Cliffhanger, 2010 and Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Andrew Robinson - writer/director – April Showers
Jenna Edwards & April Wade – producers – April Showers

Nik Fackler – writer/director of Lovely Still
Dana Altman – producer from North Sea Films - Lovely Still

Lew Hunter – One of the most revered and beloved screenwriting instructors in the country.

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Saturday, February 21st

9:00am – 10:30am
TELL YOUR STORY - working as a professional actor in Hollywood.
Panelist – Daryl Sabara

Daryl will recount tales of growing up in front of the camera and working with directors like Robert Rodriguez, Robert Zemeckis and Bobcat Goldthwait.

10:45am – 12:15pm
BEHIND THE LENS – A cinematographer’s look at filmmaking
Panelist – Mauro Fiore, ASC

Film clips and discussions with a view from behind the lens on big budget Hollywood films.

1:30pm – 3:00pm
VISUAL EFFECTS IN HOLLYWOOD – Filmmaking through the eyes of a Visual Effects Artist
Panelist – Neil Krepela, ASC

An inside look at visual effects with an in depth look at the making of the film Dinosaur.

3:15pm – 4:45pm
SCRIPT TO SCREEN – APRIL SHOWERS - Making an independent film in Nebraska
Panelists: Andrew Robinson, Jenna Edwards, April Wade

Discussions on the process of writing the script, preproduction, casting, being on set, post production, distribution, etc. A frank look at the collaborative effort between a writer/director and the producers.

6:00pm – 7:00pm
Filmmaker Conference Special Screening reception at the Omaha Community Playhouse.

7:30pm – 9:30pm
Filmmaker Conference Special Screening of the film “Shimmer 2” with cast and crew in attendance with a special Q&A after the film.

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Sunday, February 22nd

9:00am – 10:30am
LIGHTS, CAMERA, ACTION MOVIES
Panelist – Neil Krepela

Working on the set of big budget action movies in Hollywood.

10:45am – 12:15pm
THE DIRECTOR/ACTOR RELATIONSHIP. A discussion on the creative collaboration between a director and an actor.
Panelists – Andrew Robinson, Daryl Sabara, Sean Durrie, Rachel Lien

A discussion on the process of working on April Showers with insights on auditioning, casting, developing a character, and collaborating on the overall film.

1:30pm – 3:00pm
THE OSCARS AND YOU: PICKING AND PRODDING – A discussion about the Academy Awards
Panelist – Lew Hunter

Discussions from behind-the-scenes about the Oscars from an insider.

3:15pm – 4:45pm
SCRIPT TO SCREEN – LOVELY STILL - Making an independent feature film in Nebraska.
Panelists – Nik Fackler, Dana Altman

A discussion on the process of writing the script, getting the film optioned, preproduction, casting Oscar winning actors, filming, post production and distribution.

OFF the EDGE filmmaking - show 28 - Topler|Champoux

2009-02-15T01:21:00.001-06:00

Marc and Jeremy sit down with Chris Topler Ahrens and Christian Champoux, writers and directors of the short film Richard Dooling’s Bush Pigs which will screen at the Omaha Film Festival on Tuesday, February 24th at 6:00pm, and again on Friday, February 27th at 8:30pm at the Great Escape Stadium 16 Theatre as a part of the Nebraska Short Film category.

www.myspace.com/bushpigsfilm
www.ToplerChampoux.com

They talk about the creative process, from adapting a short story to a screenplay, to casting, preproduction, filming and post production.

For more information about the festival, go to www.omahafilmfestival.org. Feel free to sign up, create a screen name and start putting your festival calendar together. It’s a great way to interact with the festival, filmmakers and other film fans.

OFF'09 Features and Documentaries

2009-02-15T01:19:00.000-06:00

Omaha, NE—The Omaha Film Festival today announces the line-up of films selected for the Narrative Feature, Documentary Feature, and OFF the Edge Feature Competitions for the 2009 Omaha Film Festival. The Omaha Film Festival sets out to deliver a fresh and innovative cinema arts experience through the exhibition of independent film and the growth of the festival's film education program. In the words of Omaha Mayor Mike Fahey, “the Omaha Film Festival is quickly becoming a staple of Omaha's developing cultural identity, and we hope it will continue to grow for many years to come.” Additionally, thirty-six short films and five out-of-competition feature films will be announced shortly. A complete list of films and show times will be available at www.omahafilmfestival.org.

The Omaha Film Festival will take place February 23rd through March 1st, 2009 in Omaha, NE. Kicking off the festival will be a two-day Filmmaking Conference on February 21st and 22nd at Creighton University and the Omaha Community Playhouse. Panelists for the conference to be announced by early February. For the 2009 Omaha Film Festival, 10 Narrative Feature Films, 6 Documentary Feature Films, and 3 OFF the Edge films were selected from over 400 entries submitted from 22 countries, and the selected films will screen from February 23rd through March 1st at the Great Escape Stadium 16 Theatres at 7440 Crown Point Avenue.

Tickets are currently available online at www.omahafilmfestival.org and available at the various venues during the festival.

NARRATIVE FEATURE COMPETITION

A Deal is A Deal
Sad-sack London Underground driver Paul (Mackenzie Crook) has had two people commit suicide beneath his train in a week. When he learns that a third within in a month would result in a handsome pension, he goes looking. Enter depressed Tommy (veteran Colm Meaney) who agrees to a deal. Or does he?
Directed by Jonathan Gershfield. Cast: Mackenzie Crook, Colm Meaney, Imelda Staunton, Gemma Arterton

A Line in the Sand
A homeless man's personal hell is further complicated after he spends a night in jail for urinating on the Mayor's limo. Three jaded NY detectives find compassion within themselves as they piece together his tragic emotional descent into insanity. His dark secret stuns the detectives. As the details of Banzai's life slowly emerge they realize that his life is more complicated than it appears. They learn that Banzai is a fugitive with a dark past as a drug dealer. His fall from grace as an all star high school quarterback to a man on the run makes them examine their own personal beliefs of right and wrong. They judge for themselves whether Banzai is suffering in a hell far worse than imprisonment.
Directed by Jeffrey Chernov. Cast: Jon Bernthal, Bruce McGill, Mark Nassar, Charles Malik Whitfield, Elizabeth Rodriguez, John Getz

Lifelines
Writer-director Rob Margolies' debut feature bristles with smart dialogue, complex characters, and heart wrenching performances. Set against the backdrop of suburban utopia, the Bernstein family leads a dysfunctional existence. With three foul-mouthed kids (Robbie Sublett, Dreama Walker, and Jacob Kogan), a caffeine-addict mother (Jane Adams) on the brink, and a less than forthcoming father (Josh Pais), they suffer an atmosphere so heavy with collective hostility and tension it seems as if the floral-papered walls will come crashing down at any minute. Forced to the breaking point, they concede to a family therapy session, where it quickly becomes clear that what's at stake is "about a lot more than dry turkey." Repressed anger and antagonism give way to moments of self-revelation, as a patient and compassionate Dr. Livingston (Joe Morton) draws out demons and dark secrets, allowing the family to start accepting their own humanity. Brutally hilarious, warmly intimate, always honest, "Lifelines" is an impressively fresh take on the family drama.
Directed by Rob Margolies. Cast: Joe Morton, Jane Adams, Josh Pais, Jacob Kogan, Robbie Sublett, Dreama Walker

Lightbulb
Lightbulb is a serious comedy about two friends, a small-time inventor and a fast-talking salesman who deal with mishaps and failed inventions before coming up with a product that becomes a worldwide phenomenon. Lightbulb is a story about hope and persistence in the face of hard times.
Directed by Jeffrey Balsmeyer. Cast: Dallas Roberts, Jeremy Renner, Ayelet Zurer

Phantom Punch
Sonny Liston, the controversial former world heavyweight boxing champion is brought back to vivid life by actor Ving Rhames. From his discovery by a priest while serving time at the Missouri State Penitentiary to the infamous 'Phantom Punch' by Cassius Clay which effectively ended his career, the movie spans the years from 1950 to Liston's mysterious and untimely death in 1971.
Directed by Robert Townsend. Cast: Bridgette Wilson, Nicholas Turturro, Stacey Dash, Ving Rhames

Remarkable Power!
With the plug about to be pulled on his late night talk show after a fifteen year run, and his wife engaged in a steamy affair with a pro baseball star, host Jack West is desperate - to keep aflame his fading celebrity, and avenge the misdeeds of his adulterous spouse. With the clock ticking, Jack concocts the mother of all media stunts, killing two birds with one unforgettable stone on the road to redemption. The scheme entangles an eclectic collection of colorful locals navigating their way through unpredictable twists and turns. A plump private eye teams with a macabre webmistress to investigate the strange disappearance of a dead body. A glassy-eyed cheddar head falls prey to a phony get-rich-quick guru. Imperiled actors embark on a quest for a fresh corpse. Cops in costume, a peculiar special effects make-up team, porn stars with dreams of stardom, a Jewish drug lord with very large brothers, Russian mobsters and others converge in this unique roller-coaster ride of comedy, mystery, murder and mayhem through the underbelly of modern day Sodom and Gomorrah.
Directed by Brandon Beckner. Cast: Kevin Nealon, Tom Arnold, Nora Zehetner, Kip Pardue, Evan Peters, Dule Hill, Christopher Titus, Johnny Messner, Whitney Able, Bob Sapp

Say it in Russian
While vacationing in Paris, Andrew meets and falls in love with Daria, a young Russian girl. He ends up following her to Russia, a country that, much like Chicago in the 1930's, is a dangerous environment in political turmoil. Destiny takes its own course, and Andrew and Daria get involved in a hurricane of events surrounding Daria’s father, Raf, a rich Russian mafia oligarch. The cast includes Steven Brand ('The Scorpion King'), in the leading role of Andrew. Cast as Daria is actress Agata Gotova, who makes her U.S. lead role debut. Academy Award Winner Faye Dunaway plays the part of Jacqueline, the elegant Parisian matchmaker who puts the two together. Acclaimed European actor Rade Sherbedgia ('Surface') is cast as Daria's father.
Directed by Jeff Celentano. Cast: Steven Brand, Faye Dunaway, Agata Gotova, Alex Nesic

The Magistical (animated)
Once upon a time a guardian was chosen to watch over all living things. She was called the Magistical. Hoping to preserve all precious life, the Magistical created a spell. This spell granted the last of every type of creature, immortality. However, to one very evil Draken the spell would carry a very different meaning than intended. By killing all other Drakens she would become the last. Without fear of death such a beast could rule the world. Now only one baby cub stands between her and her evil ambitions. And between them stands a small, but determined, obstacle, named Foible.
Directed by John Cernak and Danny Oakley. Cast: Megan Blake, Stanley Bernstein, Ray Collins, Beth Bostic, Lee Strickland, Ashley Summerrow, Gene Johnson, Chirie Dautel, Betsy Hamilton, Derek Cernak

The Thacker Case
A controversial wrongful death suit in a small town is the backdrop to The Thacker Case. When the body of Kevin Thacker is discovered behind the police station after he is brought in for drunk driving, the stories simply don’t add up to the accidental death the police claim. His parents bring a young attorney onto the case to try to find justice for their son. Jun’s feature has a new take on the classic courtroom procedural, mixing in the gritty realism of New Hollywood with a moving family story.
Directed by Lorena David

Touching Home
Touching Home is a coming of age story about a homeless father struggling to make amends with his twin sons as they pursue professional baseball. It is a courageous and honest portrayal of a family fighting to overcome the pain of wasted years and the crushing forces of addiction.
Directed by Logan Miller and Noah Miller. Cast: Ed Harris, Noah Miller, Logan Miller, Brad Dourif, Robert Forster, Lee Meriwether, Evan Jones, Ishiah Benben, Brandon Hansen

DOCUMENTARY FEATURE COMPETITION

Karearea: the Pine Falcon
Wildlife photographer George Chance spent the 1970's following and studying the New Zealand Falcon; now some thirty years later he is suffering from ill health and going blind. Filmmaker Sandy Crichton gets ever closer to a remarkable wild population of falcons as he attempts to realize George's dream by adding movement to his photographs.
Directed by Sandy Crichton

Food Fight
Food Fight is a fascinating look at how American agricultural policy and food culture developed in the 20th century, and how the California food movement rebelled against big agribusiness to launch the local organic food movement.
Directed by Chris Taylor

The Providence Effect
The Remarkable Story of Chicago's Providence St. Mel. A school in the heart of the inner city where neighborhood kids learn to work hard and dream big. This is a school where 100% of the high school graduates are accepted to four year colleges and universities and where the elementary students read 22 points higher than the state norm.
Directed by Rollin Binzer

Upstream Battle
Native Americans fight for the survival of their fish and their culture -- against an energy corporation. Their struggle is about to trigger the largest dam removal project in history.
Directed by Ben Kempas

School Play
In this charming film, a group of fifth graders in upstate New York stages a performance of The Wizard of Oz. From the daily challenges of being a child to the realization that the end of elementary school might mean the end of youth, the film is a touching window into the lives of five ordinary and extraordinary children. With fantastic use of music, this film draws you in to the story of Joey, Jeffrey, Elizabeth, Isabel, and Nick.
Directed by Rick Velleu and Eddie Rosenstein

A Friend Indeed: The Bill Sackter Story
Abandoned in an institution for 44 years, Bill Sackter would never see his family again. Forgotten and alone, his life changed through the help and friendship of a young college student, Barry Marrow and several other caring individuals. With a harmonica, a warm cup of coffee, and an incredible embrace of life, witness Bill’s incredible transformation from neglected individual to a national hero for the disability community. An inspiring real-life documentary about hope, compassion, and the power of friendship.
Directed by Lane Wyrick

OFF THE EDGE FEATURE COMPETITION

Agent 5: A Night in the Last Life Of
A man is lost on a desolate street. He’s not sure how he got there, but he’s got a job to do. Over the long and empty nights he seeks to complete his objectives, all the while haunted by verdant images of a cowboy in the woods. Soon, this odd “agent” discovers he has outlived his use. Desotell’s strikingly shot play on film noir utilizes unique digital imagery and a stark existentialist narrative to turn a melancholy eye on modern society and relationships. Agent 5 is a piece that will stay with you long after you leave the theater.
Directed by Matthew Desotell. Cast: Ryan Burnham

Clear Lake, WI
In 1993, some residents of the small town of Clear Lake, WI fell victim to a strange and horrible disease. An influential preacher blamed the deaths on the heresy and sins of some in the town. A group of 5 former high school students revisit the desolate campus and a three day killing spree ensues.
Directed by Brian Ide. Cast: Michael Madsen, Dustin Booth, Morgan Simpson, Grinnell Morris, Shi Ne Nielson, Carla Toutz, Heather Simpson

Resurrection County
A Warning to outsiders. When traveling through Resurrection County, watch your step and mind the signs. One false move out here could be your last. When four suburbanite campers roll into the backwoods southern town of Enoch, they find that southern hospitality still exists. As long as you mind the signs. Things are not what they appear to be as a weekend camping trip turns deadly. The locals are all too happy to serve up their own brand of eye for an eye justice! A pulse pounding, take no prisoners descent into neo southern gothic horror. Resurrection County. There’s a reason things are so quiet here.
Directed by Matt Zettell. Cast: Adam Huss, Robert Miano, Rus Blackwell, Dayton Knoll, Kathryn Michelle, Dan Kruse

Interested in volunteering for the festival?
E-mail us at omahafilmfestival@gmail.com with “volunteer” in the subject line.

OFF the EDGE filmmaking - show 27 - OFF09 Features & Docs

2009-02-15T01:18:00.002-06:00

Marc and Jeremy talk about all of the features and documentaries that are in competition at the 2009 Omaha Film Festival. Be sure to check out the website at www.omahafilmfestival.org for a complete schedule of films and to purchase tickets and passes.

www.offtheedgefilmmaking.com

OFF the EDGE filmmaking - show 26 - OFF09

2009-02-15T01:18:00.001-06:00

We're back, starting fresh in the new year, and we're less than two months away from OFF'09, the fourth annual Omaha Film Festival.

Marc and Jeremy are once again joined by Jason to talk about the latest preparations being made for the festival and look forward to being able to make some film and interview announcements coming up over the next month.

Stay tuned...it's going to be a fun year.

www.offtheedgefilmmaking.com

OFF the EDGE filmmaking - show 25 - OFF09

2009-02-15T01:17:00.001-06:00

Marc and Jeremy talk behind the scenes about the upcoming Omaha Film Festival.

www.offtheedgefilmmaking.com

OFF the EDGE filmmaking - show 24 - Wild Rose Film Festival

2009-02-15T01:16:00.000-06:00

Marc travels to the sixth annual Wild Rose Independent Film Festival in Des Moines, IA with The HIT, the short film he directed and records a conversation after the screening with writer/producer Chris Zech, casting assistant Julie Matthews, and actors Lindsey Jo Clemenson and Garrett Sheeks. Marc, Chris and Julie spent two days at the festival and had a great time watching films and talking to the other filmmakers in attendance.

The HIT walked away with a Certificate of Distinctive Achievement in the Editing Category, so props to Johnnie Travis for doing a great job on the edit.

www.offtheedgefilmmaking.com

And the winner is…

2008-11-09T22:39:00.001-06:00

The Wild Rose Independent Film Festival gives out two awards in each of their nineteen categories. A Certificate of Distinctive Achievement (basically second place) and a Wild Rose Award (first place). “The HIT” was nominated in two categories, Best Short and Best Editing.

And the Certificate of Distinctive Achievement for best editing goes too….”The HIT,” directed by Marc Longbrake, edited by Johnnie Travis. What a shock. Very cool! All of the films (shorts, docs and features) were put into the category, so to get basically second place out of the entire festival for editing is a great honor. Amazing job Johnnie! Thanks a ton for all of the work that you put into this film for us. And thanks to the Wild Rose Independent Film Festival for having us this year and giving us this treasured award.

Wild Rose Independent Film Festival – Sunday 11/9 – Day 2

2008-11-09T22:38:00.000-06:00

Day two started off like every other film festival day (if you’ve read my other festival blogs, you’ll already know this). A dip in the hot tub. We then gathered for an amazing brunch buffet at our hotel with Chris (writer), Julie (casting), and Lindsey (lead actress, who make the five hour trip to come see the film.) After having my first real meal in a couple of days, and hanging out in the restaurant for a couple of hours, we headed over to the festival in anticipation of our film. Upon arrival at the theater, we were greeted by a decent crowd already gathering for our screening. Garrett (actor) made the four hour trip to see it, Lindsey’s folks and four of her high school classmates drove over an hour, Chris’ parents and wife drove over two hours, and my buddy Scott drove…well…across town.

It was a ton of fun having an enthusiastic crowd on our side before the film even started, but that puts the pressure on as well. If the film is no good, then you get the awkward “oh yeah, we loved it” while they struggle to make eye contact with you afterward. Fortunately, I think everybody truly did enjoy it, and based on the reaction of the rest of the crowd, I think it was a hit. No pun…

Our film played in a short film block with three other short films, all of which I thought were terrific, so it was a great block to be in, and I think everyone got their money’s worth.

For the Q&A I brought Chris, Julie, Lindsey and Garrett down with me and we had a chance to interact with the crowd a bit so that was a lot of fun. After the screening and Q&A, the five of us grabbed a conference room and recorded a conversation about the making of the film, as well as the screening, so be sure to look for that on a podcast in the next couple of days.

Overall, an excellent film festival experience. Thanks a ton to Kim and John Busbee for treating us great and to all of the volunteers for having everything run smoothly. Julie would like to thank the lady that poured the wine samples all weekend. The WRIFF is a great festival and I recommend it. Hopefully I can get another film to them some day.

Wild Rose Independent Film Festival – Saturday 11/8 – Day 1

2008-11-09T22:36:00.000-06:00

We blew into Des Moines for the sixth annual Wild Rose Independent Film Festival at around 12:30. It was below freezing with ridiculously icy winds at or near 100mph. Okay, I’m sure it wasn’t that bad, but the last film festival I was at (Austin) it was like 85 the whole time, so by contrast this was worse.

We started our festival journey by getting checked in, buying a couple of t-shirts, putting up some posters for our film, then we got ready for the first short film block of the day at 1:30. Five short films played and the quality of the films was excellent. Sam Holdren, writer of “The Paradigm Shift” which screened in this block was in attendance so he got up and did a Q&A afterward and everyone was enthusiastic about his film. I’d had a chance to talk to Sam a bit before the screening so I was looking forward to seeing it, and it didn’t disappoint. If you go to imdb.com and look it up, you can see a trailer.

After the short film block, we checked out the feature film “Clear Lake, WI.” There was a pretty good crowd for this psychological thriller and it was fun to watch the audience react to some of the more shocking moments in the film. Brian Ide (director) and Dustin Booth (lead actor) were in attendance and had a great Q&A after the film.

4:30 started the filmmaker’s reception where all of the filmmakers in attendance had a chance to hang out and chat, enjoy some food, and sample some wine. After that, there was a filmmaker panel which I had the privilege of sitting on. Those of you that know me well know that I can dominate a panel discussion, so you’ll all be proud to know that with seven panelists, I only spoke a few times. Yes, inside my head I had answers and comments for everything that was said, but I picked my spots and didn’t overdue it. The audience can thank me now. It was a great panel though and there were lots of interesting topics that were brought up, and ironically (or maybe not) the main topics were centered around the same things that were discussed on the panels at Austin and Estes Park. The state of independent film and the filmmakers is nothing if not fairly consistent with itself.

The last film of the evening was “Route 30” by OFF’06 alum John Putch. With its ensemble cast and quirky stylings, the biggest audience of the weekend really enjoyed the film, and everyone loved the musical number at the end as well. John was in attendance so it was great catching up with him and hearing him talk about his film and independent film in general. He was the moderator for the filmmaker’s panel and has a ton of great things to say about the state of independent film, film festivals and following your passions and dreams to create the art that you want to create.

The last event of the evening was the awards ceremony. The festival gives out thirty-eight awards in nineteen categories so it’s a pretty exciting event. I just checked the festival’s website and they haven’t posted the winners yet, so I won’t break the news here, but if you’re interested, be sure to head over to www.ariesworks.com to see all of the nominees as well as the eventual winners.

Day one was a great time. Julie and Chris made the trip with me and we enjoyed the various events together, so that made it even more special.

Tomorrow is the big day. “The HIT” makes its second festival screening!

First Step Omaha with Darcy Lueking

2008-11-04T22:54:00.000-06:00

I had a great night hanging out with Darcy Lueking and her acting class going through mock auditions. Darcy is running an acting workshop and has had several guest lecturers and I had the privilege of sitting in with her group and playing the role of Director as each of her students came in and went through the audition process. Great job by all of the actors that came in a read, and great job by Darcy in running a fantastic class.

“The HIT” to screen at the Wild Rose Independent Film Festival

2008-11-02T21:40:00.001-06:00

Our short film “The HIT” is now an official selection at the 2008 Wild Rose Independent Film Festival! We will screen with three other films as part of a short film block on Sunday, November 9th at 1:30pm at the Iowa State Historical Building in the East Village Cultural and Entertainment District in Des Moines, IA

In its sixth year, the Wild Rose Independent Film Festival has shown some tremendous films and had some excellent guest speakers including Nebraska’s own Lew Hunter at their 2007 festival. We’ve got at least a couple of carloads of people heading over so we’re looking forward to having a great time in Des Moines.

Awesome!

www.ariesworks.com

OFF the EDGE filmmaking – show 22 – Austin Film Festival wrap-up

2008-10-28T21:28:00.002-06:00

In this podcast Jeremy and I talk about some of our fun experiences at the 2008 Austin Film Festival and we have a chance to sit down with Kristen Case, Director of Marketing and Director of the Young Filmmakers Program. It's a fun show so give it a listen!

www.austinfilmfestival.com

www.offtheedgefilmmaking.com

Austin Film Festival – Monday 10/20 – Day 4

2008-10-25T22:05:00.003-06:00

I intentionally booked my flight as late in the day as possible so that I could spend as much of my Monday at the festival. What I didn’t realize was that the festival really didn’t get going until after 5:00pm on weekdays, so I had a chance to sleep in, then go out for a casual lunch and spend some time at the University of Texas. I toured their film school and even got a behind-the-scenes look and tour at the Austin City Limits. Amazing.

My flight left Austin at 5:40 and it was a pretty uneventful trip back to the Big O, arriving around 10:30pm. It makes me happy that my flight left Austin five hours after Jeremy’s and we got to Omaha at about the same time.

Thanks Austin. Excellent trip and you guys treated us great. We made a ton of contacts and brought home a stack of films. My calendar is marked for next year.

Austin Film Festival – Sunday 10/19 – Day 3

2008-10-25T22:05:00.001-06:00

Sunday morning started with the “Hair of the Dog Brunch” which was another VIP event for the filmmakers, producer badge holders, etc. Amazing food, free drinks, huge crowd. A great way to start our Sunday.

11:30am – 12:45pm – panel – Frame to Frame: Adapting Comic Books to the Screen
Beau Thorne (Max Payne), John Turman (Hulk, Rise of the Silver Surfer)

1:00pm – 2:15pm – panel - What Actors Look for in a Script
Dana Wheeler Nicholson (Friday Night Lights, Fletch, Boston Legal), Tom Skerritt (Alien, Top Gun, A River Runs Through It)

2:30pm – 3:45pm – panel – The Film Festival Circuit
James Foust (AFI-Dallas), Kelly Williams (Austin Film Festival), Chris Holland (B-Side Entertainment)

After the panels there were many more films. One highlight was heading back over to the IMAX to catch the end of “The Flyboys.” I snuck in the back and watched the end of the film so that I could hear writer/director Rocco go through his Q&A. So I’m in the very back row in the far corner of a huge IMAX and one of the audience questions was with regard to screenings and film festivals, to which Rocco responded that the director of the festival of their very first screening was in the audience, and he mentioned the Omaha Film Festival and pointed me out. I didn’t even know he saw me clear back there, so it was cool that he noticed and that he gave the OFF a little press at the AFF. Thanks Rocco!

Austin Film Festival – Saturday 10/18 – Day 2

2008-10-25T22:04:00.002-06:00

Film Festival Day 2 right? Okay, that’s certainly not the biggest event in Austin today. A little something like two of the top college football teams in the country (Missouri and Texas) also had a small event. So a town that’s already crazy was kicked up a notch. There were tons of Missouri shirts walking around and the town was electric. A part of me felt like blowing off the festival and going to the game. We got the next best thing though…we spent a bunch of time on campus before and during the game. There were tailgates and street parties for blocks surrounding the campus and we could have easily slipped in and been a part of it. So tempting. And the Sports Day crew stayed at our hotel. They have a nicer bus than the OFF does. On to the festival..

9:00 – 10:15am – panel – Dialogue: Finding the Voice
John August (Corpse Bride, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Big Fish), John Lee Hancock (The Rookie, The Alamo, Midnight in the Garden of Good and Evil)

10:45am – 12:00pm – panel – Concept to Creation
Shauna Cross (Whip It!), Kirsten Smith (10 Things I Hate About You, Legally Blonde, The House Bunny(

2:00pm – 3:15pm – panel – Titans of TV
Greg Daniels (creator of King of the Hill and The Office ), Tim Kring (creator of Heroes & Crossing Jordan), Phil Rosenthal (creator of Everybody Loves Raymond)

3:45pm – 5:00pm – panel – Action Thriller
Shane Black (Lethal Weapon, Kiss Kiss Bang Bang), Tim Kring (see above), Terry Rossio (Pirates of the Caribbean, Shreck, Aladdin, The Legend of Zorro), Beau Thorne (Max Payne), John Turman (Hulk, Rise of the Silver Surfer)

I peeked into several films, but one film I watched from start to finish was “Summerhood” starring John Cusack (or at least his voice). The film screened at the IMAX, so it was a very cool place to catch an independent film. Plus, “Top Gun” was screening there later that night and we had a meeting scheduled with someone connected to that film. So after the movie, Jeremy and I had a chance to sit and chat with Mr. Tom Skerritt for about a half hour in the green room. What an opportunity. Without question the highlight of the day and this was a pretty good day. And by the way, seeing “Top Gun” on an IMAX screen? Are you kidding me?

Austin Film Festival – Friday 10/17 – Day 1

2008-10-25T22:03:00.000-06:00

My day started off like any other. Alarm going off at 3:45am; heading toward the airport by 4:15am. Connecting flight to Dallas, then off to Austin, landing around 10:20, taking a shuttle to the Holiday Inn to drop off my luggage, then hitting the film festival running. I connected immediately with Teresa, and AFF pro of 8 years, who walked my through the registration process which went remarkably smoothly, then hooked up with Dave, Nicole and Karen, the rest of the Omaha gang that made the trip. Under some small talk under the big steer head (what was his name again?) I did a tour of the festival to see where everything was, and peaked into a few of the panels that were already in session. Jeremy landed at 11:30 and after dropping off his luggage at the hotel, came straight over and we all headed out for some local cuisine.

After a great lunch of Mexican food and AFF catalog reviewing, we all headed back to the festival to our variously chosen and planned events.

During the opening weekend, there are conferences during the day, and films during the evenings. A few films also played during the day, but in the evenings, nine theaters

3:15-4:30pm – Roundtable: Writers/Directors
Mike Akel, Greg Carter, John Lee Hancock, Jake Kasdan, Alex Smith, Andrew Smith, Robert Townsend, Boaz Yakin

The roundtables are pretty cool. You go into a big room and there are eight tables with 10 chairs around them and it’s like speed dating for writers/filmmakers. When everyone was set, the panelists (listed above) came in and each one sat at a table and 9 people had an opportunity to interact directly with the person at their table. After a specified amount of time, the panelist got up and they all rotated, so that during the hour, your table got to sit with three different people. The highlight for me was talking to Boaz Yakin (Remember the Titans, The Rookie). An extremely interesting guy that gave us some intimate details about his processes and how he made his most recent film “Death in Love” which screened at the AFF (which I had a chance to see later).

Friday evening was highlighted by the opening night VIP BBQ, attended by well over a thousand people that included all of the filmmakers in attendance as well as all of the Producer badge holders. Great event; awesome barbeque.

With so many films all day and all night, it’s tough to decide what to see, so I tend to bounce around quite a bit and catch Q&A sessions. Since we have so much access to the films that get screened, I tend to not want to sit in a theater for two hours watching something I can see at home, I’d rather schedule four Q&A sessions at various theaters, so that’s what I did. The highlight of the evening was catching the end of the film “Zero Effect” (which I’ve seen a dozen times) and listening to and meeting writer/director Jake Kasdan. Sweet.

After all of the films for the day, there was an opening night party at Ruth’s Chris. We made it to the hotel sometime after 1:00am. Almost non-stop for 24 hours. A good first day.

OFF the EDGE filmmaking – show 21 – Chris Holland – B-Side Entertainment

2008-10-21T22:56:00.000-06:00

Jeremy and I talk with Chris Holland, Manager of Festival Operations at B-Side Entertainment, and author of the new book Film Festival Secrets.

The Omaha Film Festival has been using the B-Side service for the last couple of years and we’ve loved it, and we’ve gotten loads of positive feedback from everyone who’s used it. Chris has been a fantastic resource for us as well and has really helped with all of the behind-the-scenes work on our festival website. Anyone who checks out the site during festival time, knows how great the B-Side service is.

Huge props also to Chris for the book as well. It’s a fantastic read for anyone that has a film and is interested in having someone other than their mother see it. We absolutely recommend it so log on to his website and grab a copy.

Film Festival Secrets

Slackerwood

B-Side

OFF the EDGE filmmaking

OFF the EDGE filmmaking – show 20 – Middle of Nowhere Film Festival

2008-10-13T20:38:00.000-06:00

In our latest podcast, Jeremy and I talk with Jeremy Bishop, Rhett McClure and Jake Hull, staff of the Middle of Nowhere Film Festival, right after their screening at the Joyo Theatre in Lincoln, NE. The 2008 screening marked the 10th anniversary of the festival and it was very well received by the packed house.

They screened seventeen films in their under 3 minute and under 7 minute categories and after the screenings, had an awards ceremony where prizes were given out to the top three films in each category, best actor, best actress, best sound score and audience choice.

The Omaha Film Festival, as part of our sponsorship, granted fee waivers to OFF’09 for the top three films in each of the categories, so we want to say congratulations to all of the winners.

And congratulations to the MON and NIFP staff for another successful film festival.

www.nifp.org
www.myspace.com/monnifp

www.offtheedgefilmmaking.com

OFF the EDGE filmmaking – show 19 - Film Festival Advice

2008-10-06T22:59:00.000-06:00

In this podcast, Jeremy and I give out a little advice to filmmakers on entering film festivals.

The 10/26 deadline for the Omaha Film Festival is fast approaching. There’s a special entry offer for podcast listeners so be sure to listen.

www.offtheedgefilmmaking.com

OFF the EDGE filmmaking – show 18 - Festivus Film Festival

2008-09-29T21:44:00.003-06:00

In this podcast, I hang out with Johnathan McFarlane, the director of the Festivus Film Festival which is coming up on its second year. This is a great up-and-coming festival with a lot of fun activities in and around the main event that make it a unique experience for filmmakers and attendees alike.

Their second annual film festival runs from January 8-11, 2009 with screenings at two really cool historical theatres, the Bug Theatre and the Oriental Theater.

There's still time to enter - Late deadline 10/19, WAB extended deadline 11/9 – so be sure to get your entries to them.

www.festivusfilmfestival.com

www.myspace.com/festivusfilmfestival

www.offtheedgefilmmaking.com

OFF the EDGE filmmaking – show 17 – RoomMate Productions

2008-09-22T22:21:00.001-06:00

In our latest podcast, Jeremy and I chat with Chad Bring and Eric Dwight of RoomMate Productions where we discuss their various projects, past, present and future.

Check out their work and latest info at www.roommateproductions.com

Check out Chad's new writer resource page at allpagesaside.blogspot.com

www.offtheedgefilmmaking.com

Kansas International Film Festival – Day 3 – Sunday 9/21

2008-09-21T22:18:00.000-06:00

Day three started off the way every Sunday should start. With some Jack Stack BBQ. After huge plates of food, it’s usually a good idea to get out and walk around so we headed down to downtown KC and cruised through Westport, then over to the annual Summer Arts Festival. Tons of people were out enjoying the perfect weekend weather so it was great weaving and bobbing through the throngs. After plenty of walking and viewing, we headed back to Overland Park for our last film of the weekend, “Familiar Strangers.” We’d talked to the producer Friday night at one of the VIP parties and after hearing about the filming process, we felt compelled to go check out his film. We weren’t disappointed and we were treated to a sold out and enthusiastic audience, and a great film, much in the feel of films like “Juno” and “Little Miss Sunshine.” The Q&A after the film was a lot of fun as well and it was a great way to close out our festival weekend.

One of the highlights from the weekend was the screening of “The Flyboys” on Saturday. We knew the film very well (those of you in the know, know that we world premiered it at OFF’08) so it was cool to see that they were in Kansas as well. Since we’d seen it so many times, we didn’t watch it again, but we popped in after the film we were watching and caught the Q&A with one of the producers. It was great to hear about the progress of the film over the last seven months (51 festival awards since we saw them last) and it was great catching up with him after the Q&A as well. Awesome film. If you’ve seen it you know, if you haven’t, keep an eye out for it. You won’t be disappointed.

Props again to the KIFF staff; you guys always do a fantastic job and you always have a great line-up of films. The crowds were great this year and everything ran smoothly and professionally and we were treated great as always. This was the third year in a row that we’ve attended, and we will go back every year.

Kansas International Film Festival – Day 2 – Saturday 9/20

2008-09-21T08:51:00.001-06:00

There’s no hot tub here, so we settled for the pool to start the day. Other than the creepy onlookers, it was a delightful experience and the water was nice and warm. After that the first thing on the agenda was to once again look for the best BBQ that KC has to offer. Every time we come here, we ask the locals where the best is, and every time we get a different answer. Sometimes a consensus is achieved, but that’s somewhat rare. This time we found an ad in the yellow pages and in the ad they list their “highest rated” status from 2005, 2006 and 2007 according to Zagat, so we figured it had to be good, right? So we trekked out to Oklahoma Joe’s and were surprised to find that it was actually attached to a gas station. Hmm. Well, we’d driven this far, so we had to check it out. Amazing. We all got samplers so we could try a bunch of stuff out and it was absolutely fantastic. Highly recommended, and when we got there at 11:00, we saw a steady influx of people and by noon the place was packed. I wish I had a fridge in the car, cuz we would have had a ton of leftovers.

So we got to the festival in time for the first round of screenings and caught the family drama ”The Rainbow Tribe,” a film about 6 wayward kids going away to summer camp, and their counselor who’s going through a significant issue in his life. It was a great film and the writer gave a great Q&A. We had a chance to chat with him a bit after and it sounded like it was a fun project to work on, and it was somewhat therapeutic since a lot of the story came from his personal experiences. The parents of the person that inspired the story were there in the audience, so there was certainly some emotion there.

Film number two was “The Art of Travel” which was a drama about a guy who ends up going on his honeymoon by himself due to an interesting series of events and the next two hours of the film show the main character going through a couple of years of personal and “travel” discovery. Interesting film with a ton of incredible visuals filmed around the world.

The last film I had a chance to see what “Harold” which was a comedy about a 13-year-old Jr. High kid who has male pattern baldness and the experiences that he goes through. The film stars Cuba Gooding Jr. and there were a ton of Saturday Night Live alum in the film and Colin Quinn was there in the audience and did the Q&A afterward. It was a pretty fun movie going experience and the audience responded well to it.

Pretty good day two. Day three only has a couple of films on the docket before we make the big trek back to Omaha.

Kansas International Film Festival - Day 1 - Friday 9/19

2008-09-20T08:23:00.000-06:00

Yes, the drive to Kansas City was a lot easier than the drive the Estes Park. 2 ½ hours and we’re there. Piece of cake. We left work at 11:00am and got on the road right away so we had plenty of time to check into the hotel (thanks Settle Inn) and hit the festival early to get our badges and talk to the staff. It’s nice being recognized since we’ve been here three years in a row so everything went smoothly.

Our first film of the day was “Mona” and the producer/actor Alex Lyras was in attendance and had a great Q&A after the film. The audience was one of the most intelligent audiences I’ve seen at a KIFF event and there was about 20 minutes of interesting conversation regarding the film and its influences. Fun film and fun screening.

Film number two was “Choke” which was adapted from the novel of the same name written by Chuck Palahniuk, writer of the book “Fight Club” and starring Sam Rockwell. The film is certainly not for the conservative among us, but it was an interesting watch and the audience was enthusiastic and laughed a lot. The film will get theatrical release next week so it was cool to be able to see the film before the rest of the country.

The after party was a great time as well. We ended up staying out way too late (of course) and it was a great time and a great opportunity to chat with filmmakers and have some fancy snacks.

Saturday has a full slate of films (I’ve got five selected) and I anticipate at least one BBQ stop. We’re in KC… like we’re not going to find some good BBQ.

Home Sweet Home – the road less travelled

2008-09-15T23:51:00.000-06:00

A gallon of gas in Estes Park, Colorado - $4.19

All-you-can-eat Indian buffet in downtown Estes Park - $8.95

An entry pass into the Rocky Mountain National Park - $20.00

Purchasing a Nebraska shirt from former national champion Husker punter Jesse Kosch in one of the two Husker stores in Estes Park - $24.95

Meeting and hanging out with awesome filmmakers, festival directors and audience members – PRICELESS

Okay, so it’s a little cliché, but it’s a nice encapsulation of the last couple of days. We had a tremendous time at the third annual EPFF and in spite of the 9 hour drive and the fact that I have to be up and at work in about 5 hours, I’m still upbeat.

One of the many highlights of the screening of “The HIT” was having the opportunity to meet Mark and Jami, the parents of Adam O’Rourke, the lead actor in the film. They made the trip from North Platte, all the way into Estes Park to see the film, so it was awesome to see them, and to have them support the film.

It was also great talking to filmmakers and audience members after the screening and hearing all of the positive comments about the film. Huge props again to all that helped with the film and helped make it something that people enjoy watching.

The trip back home was a lot of fun. We got some pretty cool video footage and took a ton of great photos. And we stopped at a chic-fil-e! How awesome is that?!

And in a sad note… my condolences to all of the remaining family members of the 2.5 billion bugs that smashed on the front of our vehicle along interstates 76 & 80. May they rest in pieces in the various gas station squeegee receptacles that we stopped at along the way.

OFF the EDGE filmmaking – show 16 - Estes Park Film Festival

2008-09-15T23:02:00.001-06:00

I had a chance to sit down with Sean and Cliff, the directors of the Estes Park Film Festival, from their cozy office in downtown Estes Park. It was a great opportunity to unwind a bit, right after their awards ceremony.

Awesome festival…highly recommended!

www.estesparkfilm.com

www.offtheedgefilmmaking.com

Estes Park Film Festival – Day 3 – Sunday 9/14

2008-09-14T23:31:00.000-06:00

Today started like any other day. Hot tub. A dip in the pool. A relaxing drive out to the mountains where we saw Elk (from a few feet away) and snow (which was even closer). In a 20 minute drive, the temperature dropped as many degrees and we sloshed through the snow and got some amazing photos. Not your typical Nebraska scenery. Then back to town for some all you can eat Indian food. Not a bad way to start your day. The festival got started at 2:30 with a documentary (which sadly we missed) but we were able to sneak in at the end and listen to the Q&A. After hearing the filmmakers talk about their film, I’m really looking forward to getting a screener of it and checking it out for myself. After that, we left the theater and were greeted with a packed sidewalk, all anxious and ready to see the short film block at 4:30. Several of the filmmakers that I’d met over the last few days were there, and there were four filmmakers for that short block that were in attendance so it was a great opportunity for everyone to see each other’s films for the first time.

Film block #3 had eight films and the block kicked off with “The HIT.” The audience really seemed to enjoy it and laughed and gasped at all the right times. It even got two rounds of applause and a few approving nods from folks in the audience that knew who I was.

The other films in block #3 were extremely well received as well and the packed house responded enthusiastically to all of the films. After the films were over, the five of us filmmakers got on stage and did a Q&A and every film had audience questions, so the mic time was pretty evenly distributed. It’s always cool to talk to an audience of appreciative movie goers.

After the Q&A, everyone exited the theatre while the festival volunteers set up the closing night party and we were all treated to a wonderful dinner. Our good buddy Tom (see previous post) was the caterer and we had some incredible Italian food. After the meal, everyone filtered back into the theatre for the awards ceremony. All but one of the winning filmmakers were in attendance, so it was great to hear all of the acceptance speeches. I won’t publish a full list, but the winning feature was “Broken Fences,” the winning documentary was “Beauty Mark,” the winning student film was “Coons,” and the winning short was “The Quickie” (my predicted winner).

After the awards ceremony, they screened their last film of the festival, the documentary “The Listening Project.” Since we’d already seen the film (screened at OFF’08) we snuck out and I took the opportunity to do an interview with Sean and Cliff, so be sure to look for that in an upcoming OFF the EDGE filmmaking podcast. And while we were talking, I recognized the look in their eyes. I see it every year on the last day of OFF. Awesome festival fellas. Pat yourselves on the back.

Estes Park Film Festival – Day 2 – Saturday 9/13

2008-09-13T23:26:00.000-06:00

Hot tubs and swimming pools. That’s how every day should start out. After a relaxing morning at the hotel, we headed out to the huge summer arts fair that’s going on in Estes Park (not my idea, trust me). After checking all of that out and having a little breakfast, we went to our first EPFF event, which was a filmmaker’s panel. All of the filmmakers that were in town got up on stage and it gave the audience an opportunity to have a Q&A with all of them. I was on stage with 11 other filmmakers and we talked for about an hour-and-a-half and we got a ton of great questions from the audience. Fun way to start a festival day.

In addition to the Estes Park folks, over the last few months online I’ve been talking to Johnathan, the director of the Festivus Film Festival in Denver, so he came up and hung out for a few hours. We went in and watched short film block #2 then we had some fantastic sandwiches at Deleo’s Park Theater Café & Deli. If you’re ever in Estes Park, I recommend it highly. Pop in and see Tom and tell him Marc from the OFF sent you.

Be sure to check out the Festivus Film Festival as well. I really like what they’re trying to do… a little different than you typical film festival. We had a chance to do a little interview too, so keep an eye out for that on our OFF the EDGE filmmaking podcast.

There were a couple of other films that I wanted to check out too, but we had such a great time chatting with filmmakers and the festival directors, we didn’t make it in to any of the other screenings.

Very much of a successful day. Tired, but ready for another day. Day three will have the screening of “The HIT.” Sweet!

Estes Park Film Festival – Day 1 - Friday 9/12

2008-09-13T09:31:00.000-06:00

Day one has been great so far. After driving most of the day we got to the theatre right when the opening night party was starting so we got checked in and started partying. There was a great crowd and the lobby of the theatre was packed as everyone chatted and snacked on finger food and enjoyed the free wine at the open bar. I had a chance to meet Sean and Cliff, the two directors of the EPFF, as well as a handful of the filmmakers that were in attendance.

The film “Broken Fences” was the opening night film and three of the main cast as well as the writer/director and two other crew members were in attendance. The film has played at 15 film festivals across the country and has won 4 awards so it was a great way to kick off our weekend. They got up and did a great Q&A afterward and the audience seemed enthusiastic about the film.

After the film we headed over to the Holiday Inn to check in then headed back out to some of the after party spots where I had a chance to meet and hang out with several of the other filmmakers in attendance. So far, all of the filmmakers I’ve met have been from the Colorado area and/or have strong Colorado ties and many of them have attended previous EPFF’s and had nothing but great things to say about it.

Day one is in the books and I’m calling it a success.

6:00am – 11:00am - work
12:00pm – 7:00pm driving across Nebraska and Colorado
7:00pm – 8:30pm – opening night party at the historic Park Theatre in Estes Park
8:30pm – 10:00pm – “Broken Fences” opening night film
10:00pm – 12:30am – post party at a couple of different places

So, yeah, a pretty long day, and we’re ready for day number two.

OFF the EDGE filmmaking – show 15

2008-09-08T23:02:00.001-06:00

This week Marc and Jeremy talk about their upcoming film festival trips and Marc makes a big announcement: His film “Heart of the City,” written and directed by Jeff Saxton, got accepted into the Great Lakes Independent Film Festival. (Marc was a producer and the AD)

The GLIFF runs from September 25th through the 28th.

www.offtheedgefilmmaking.com

“Heart of the City” at the Great Lakes Film Festival

2008-09-07T08:44:00.001-06:00

Our first feature film “Heart of the City” is an official selection in the Great Lakes Film Festival, running from September 25th through the 28th. If you’re in the Erie, PA, go check out the film!

Huge congratulations to writer/director Jeff Saxton!

More details to come as they are available.

www.greatlakesfilmfest.com

“The HIT” screening at the PS Collective – 8/28

2008-08-28T22:56:00.001-06:00

So you work hard on a project for so long and you have no idea what people are really going to think about it. Will they get it, will they enjoy the humor, will they feel tension in the right places, will they care? I sent out a few e-mails last weekend, certainly to the cast and crew but added a handful of others who I thought might be interested and didn’t really do a ton to promote it too much. We had the PSC already rented out because we had two OFF meetings there, so I thought we could set up a screen and show the film publicly for the first time. My main goal was to give the cast and crew an opportunity to see the film that they worked on and let them know how much I appreciated working with them. Well, the word must have gotten out because it was standing room only and we were stealing chairs from the restaurant next door.

Technically the film went off without a hitch and everyone really seemed to enjoy it. We did a little Q&A afterward and got a lot of positive feedback. It makes it feel like all of the hard work was all worthwhile. Tonight felt pretty good.

Thanks tons to Craig, without whom none of this would have been possible. Thanks tons to Johnnie for taking our diamond in the rough and polishing it. Thanks a ton to the cast and crew for doing such an amazing job. I love you all. And thanks an additional ton to all those that came out and supported the film. Thanks to Julie for crossing t's and dotting i's and for making everything work behind the scenes. And mad props to Chris, my partner in crime… we got it done! Tonight was a good night.

OFF the EDGE filmmaking – show 14

2008-08-22T00:04:00.000-06:00

I just uploaded our latest podcast, so go check it out.

This week we talk about the new documentary I.O.U.S.A. We just got back from a special sneak preview at the Holland Center in Omaha which included a panel discussion after the film with Warren Buffett, CEO of Berkshire Hathaway; William Niskanen, chairman of the Cato Institute; Bill Novelli, CEO of AARP; Pete Peterson, senior chairman of The Blackstone Group and chairman of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation; and Dave Walker, president & CEO of the Peter G. Peterson Foundation and former U.S. Comptroller General, and moderated by Becky Quick, co-anchor of CNBC’s morning news show Squawk Box. The event was followed by a VIP party where a lot of excellent contacts were made. We’ll see what the future holds.

I.O.U.S.A.
www.agorafinancial.com/iousa

Roadside Attractions
www.roadsideattractions.com

Omaha Film Festival
Call for entries is ongoing for Feature films, documentaries, short films, animated films, NE shorts
www.withoutabox.com
www.omahafilmfestival.org

Estes Park Film Festival (Marc’s film “The HIT” is world premiering”)
www.estesparkfilm.com

Kansas International Film Festival
www.kansasfilm.com

Middle of Nowhere Film Festival
www.myspace.com/monnifp

Austin Film Festival
www.austinfilmfestival.com

www.offtheedgefilmmaking.com

The Artist’s Collective

2008-08-06T05:28:00.000-06:00

The first official project by the Artist’s Collective is well underway and nearing completion. Matt, Stephanie and Jessica spent the evening in the studio tracking the song and Carolyn, Barb, Lindsey and I reviewed Lindsey’s photos and worked through the final layout of the booklet. The song is amazing and the pictures are incredible. The finished product is going to be cool.

Bush Pigs – Principal Photography Day 8, Tuesday August 5

2008-08-06T05:23:00.000-06:00

That’s a wrap. Principal photography for the short film “Bush Pigs” officially came to a close with the final two pick-up shots which included an ECU of some medical records and a blue screen shot that will be a special effect in the finished film.

Probably the easiest filming day, and not just because it took less than two hours to finish. And that’s all I’ll say about that.

The edit continues to roll along masterfully and the finished product is going to be excellent. A cast and crew screening will be scheduled soon and a list of film festivals is being compiled. My goal right now, to be done with “The HIT” before Tops is done with “Bush Pigs.” The race is on…

OFF in Movie Maker Magazine

2008-07-30T21:37:00.000-06:00

printed in Movie Maker magazine - Issue 76, Volume 15 – Summer 2008, page 110
Omaha Film Festival - Hollywood’s New Testing Ground

Forget Peoria. “Will it play in Omaha?” is the question that more and more Hollywood players are asking – and they’re getting their answers at the Omaha Film Festival.

The third annual event, which roared into town February 16-24, brought a handful of Hollywood’s biggest names as it kicked off with a two-day Screenwriting/Filmmaker Conference.

The conference featured discussion panels with screenwriters Shane Black (Lethal Weapon), Jon Bokenkamp ( Perfect Stranger) and Josh Stolberg (Good Luck Chuck), editors Tom Elkins (Wanted) and Mike Hill (The Da Vinci Code) and a two-day workshop with writing gurus Jeff Kitchen and Lew Hunter.

“I think that our education initiative has set us apart from a lot of other festivals in the region, and having that component to what we do has strengthened our attraction,” notes Jason Levering, the fest’s executive director.

The excitement of the OFF’s organizers is contagious. “The people who run it are very passionate about filmmaking, and particularly filmmaking in Nebraska,” says Justin Lerner, who travelled to the event from Los Angeles and won over the crowd to take home the Audience Award for his short, The Replacement Child. “After I won the audience award, the festival staff asked to take their picture with me and have me sign some DVDs, which was surreal. Nobody had ever asked me for that, so I was a bit taken aback, but it speaks to their respect and admiration of filmmakers and artists.”

“We ourselves are filmmakers at heart,” admits Levering. “We all work on our own independent film projects and we provide a lot of support to the local filmmaking crowd. So when we set out to create the OFF back in 2005, we were determined to become a teaching festival so that aspiring filmmakers in the Midwest would have better opportunities to work on their craft right here in Omaha… And believe it or not, this is just the tip of the iceberg.” – Jennifer M. Wood

www.omahafilmfestival.org

Hacky Slacker – Principal Photography 07-27-08

2008-07-27T22:22:00.000-06:00

I got a chance to help out another short film crew today. Shaun Vetick and Jonathan Lanz from Switched at Birth Productions shot their first short film “Hacky Slacker” from 8:00am until around 6:00pm and it looked like it should turn into a nice project. Comedies are always fun in the indy film world are somewhat rare, so it was a fun set to be around and the jokes are still ringing in my head. It’s always great to work with actors that have good comedic timing and they struck gold with the performances today.

It was also great walking on to a set where I knew just about everyone. Makes for a comfortable shoot. In spite of the neighborhood bullies wreaking havoc, mowing lawns, and leaving the occasional skid mark during a take.

I got a ton of great pictures during the shoot, but the one I didn’t get was probably the most important. The huge “NO” sign posted on the door across the street. Those on set today will get a chuckle reading that… sorry to everyone else.

Switched at Birth Productions

“The HIT” to screen at the Estes Park Film Festival

2008-07-20T18:17:00.001-06:00

Our short film “The HIT” is now an official selection at the 2008 Estes Park Film Festival! The tentative screen time is on Sunday, September 14th at 4:30pm as a part of the Shorts Program #2 at the Historic Park Theatre, which is the oldest operating movie theatre west of the Mississippi.

In its third year, the Estes Park Film Festival is a great up-and-coming festival and I’ve heard nothing but great things about it so we’re thrilled to have them as our premiere festival.

Awesome!

www.estesparkfilm.com

Jessica Lindsey & Stephanie Pilypaitis live

2008-07-17T22:46:00.001-06:00

I had a chance to video these two wonderful performers this evening at the Barley Street Tavern. I’ve heard them both perform their solo and band stuff over the years, but tonight they played a full set of each other’s tunes and they played them together and it was fantastic. Too bad they didn’t start doing this together long ago. Too bad they’re both leaving town in a month. If you have a chance to see them both (individually or together) I highly recommend it, but you better do it soon…

http://www.myspace.com/stephanieponline
http://www.myspace.com/jessicalindseymusic

OFF the EDGE filmmaking – show 13

2008-07-16T23:25:00.000-06:00

Go check out our latest podcast. Jeremy and I talk about the new Batman movie, Dark Knight. We were fortunate enough to get into a prescreening at the new IMAX in Council Bluffs thanks to our buddies over at 94.1.

Awesome time, awesome film. And don't worry, there are no spoilers (even though Jeremy really wanted to).

Stay tuned for some upcoming filmmaker interviews.

www.offtheedgefilmmaking.com

Film Streams presents – Laura Dern & Alexander Payne

2008-07-13T22:47:00.001-06:00

The first annual Film Streams fundraiser was held at the beautiful Holland Center in downtown Omaha this evening and we had the honor of attending as guests. The building was packed and the crowd was enthusiastic. Rachel Jacobson came out first to a burst of applause and she was visibly moved by the attendance and the crowd reaction and she struggled to get through her introductions and thank yous and did an admirable job in the face of what I’m sure was an incredibly emotional opening. After Rachel’s intro, Todd Simon and his wife introduced the guests of honor, Laura Dern and Alexander Payne. For the next ninety minutes we were treated to numerous film clips spanning over Ms. Dern’s career interspersed with tons of great insights and a behind the scenes look at acting and the filmmaking process.

The stage setup was simple and perfect. A large oriental rug in the middle of the stage with two comfortable chairs flanking a small table made for an intimate and relaxing setting and the audience was treated with a conversation between two people that have been making films for decades. The perfect evening for an actor or a filmmaker, or quite frankly anyone who enjoys films.

Huge congratulations to Rachel and Casey for putting on a tremendous evening and thanks for mentioning the Omaha Film Festival in your intro!

Bush Pigs – Principal Photography Day 7, Saturday July 12

2008-07-12T21:33:00.000-06:00

Today included a series of pick-up shots. Some close-ups were needed back at the Venice Inn for the climactic restaurant scene so it only required one actor and an extremely scaled down crew. Some additional b-roll was needed at the restaurant, a couple of shots of billboards on the highway and some random incoming and outgoing flights back at the airport. With the exception of one shot that we couldn’t get today due to technical (okay, flaky) reasons, we basically have everything in the can that we need.

The remainder of the scheduled shooting day included sitting and reviewing a rough cut of the film (Tops works fast when he’s motivated), going over some of the additional rough footage, and watching people down a 24 pack of cheep beer. This filmmaking thing is rough business.

Assuming we get the details of the final shot worked out (which I believe they are now) it’s just a matter of getting it finished. The rough cut we looked at today looks fantastic and there’s a ton of great shots so I think we’re going to have a film that everyone will be extremely proud of.

I’ve given the directors props in each of my last several blogs. In this blog I give no props. Props will be held in receivership until the final green screen shot (dessert as CC puts it – four people are laughing as they read this…my apologies to everyone else). Until then…

Omaha Riverfront Jazz & Blues Festival ’08 – July 11

2008-07-11T22:59:00.000-06:00

I just got back from the opening night of the Jazz & Blues festival at the Lewis & Clark Landing, right off of the Missouri River. I’ve seen a bunch of concerts there so it’s a cool place to see an outdoor show. And by cool, I mean the awesome kind of cool, not the temperature kind of cool, because when we left, well after dark, it was still over 90 degrees. A hot night in Omaha.

There were four bands on the docket tonight: the Midwest Smooth Jazz All-Stars, Dotsero, Soul Express, and the Average White Band. But for me, there was only one band there… Soul Express. Everette Harp, one of the coolest cats to ever pick up the sax is one of the lead men and to hear him play was a tremendous treat. Dude’s got some serious sick chops. And the other considerable treat was Phil Perry. If you don’t know who that is, then you’re seriously missing out. Some say one of the hottest jazz voices through the 80s & 90s was Luther Vandross, and while I love Luther, for my money give me some Phil Perry. When he took the stage about 2/3 through the Soul Express set, we heard the biggest reaction from the crowd. Insane vocal range and smooth as silk. Incredible show.

Have you ever seen over a hundred people over the age of 50 doing the electric slide? Then you ain’t seen nothing. Totally worth the price of admission.

Props to the Midland’s Cultural and Historical Association for putting on a great festival, and thanks to Julie and FNB for the awesome tickets.

If you’re reading this before 3:00pm on July 12th and you’re in Omaha, head down to the Riverfront and check out day 2. You won’t be disappointed.

www.omahajazzandblues.com

Brad Hoshaw and the Seven Deadlies – Live at Slowdown 7/3

2008-07-04T08:26:00.001-06:00

Yes, they have a name now, which I can only assume (and hope) will continue to perform as a band. They landed the opening slot for Black Francis (Frank Black of the Pixies) at the Slowdown (one of the coolest clubs in town) and kicked off the evening at about 9:00pm, and yes, it was another fantastic night of music. The band has found a groove and performs all of Brad’s previously solo/acoustic stuff like it was written for a band. This band. Each piece fits together nicely like a puzzle and even though this was only their third show as a group, they sounded like they’ve been playing together for years. A 35 minute set cruised through a lot of the songs that Bard fans are familiar with which were all kicked up a notch by the influence of the Seven.

So Brad calls a few nights ago (much better than the hours notice I had last time) and mentions the show and asked if I could come and film it like we did their first show. After a couple of phone calls I had three hi-def cameras ready to go so we headed down to the Slowdown to capture the evening. The Slowdown staff was great to work with and after the third conversation assuring everyone that we would NOT film Frank, we were just there to capture BH&tSD, everything ran smoothly. There ended up being a great crowd and the club was the perfect place for the evening.

Props to Brad and the band and thanks for a terrific evening. Thanks also to Jason and Julie for coming out on a 4th of July eve and working the cameras.

Brad Hoshaw

Bush Pigs – Principal Photography Day 6, Monday June 30

2008-06-30T22:45:00.001-06:00

That’s a wrap. Principal Photography for “Bush Pigs” is officially over. There will be a couple of pick-up shots that will be taken over the next few weeks but the main bulk of the film is complete. Today was the big finale of the film. The huge restaurant scene with all of the extras. Due to work, I wasn’t able to get to the set until 4:00pm today and we wrapped at 8:00pm so I got in on plenty of the action. Upon my arrival it was great to see the set humming as they’d all been working all day. Things were under control and everyone was working well so I just eased into things gently.

We had a whole team of make-up artists creating masks for the final reveal of the film and we got a ton of Red Rock Micro footage in again and the images we got were stunning. Great day. And the best news of all, one of the directors is also the editor, so he’s going to start cutting it together this week. It won’t sit on the shelf near as long as my films.

Huge props to Tops and Christian for pulling off something that I honestly thought couldn’t be done. After reading the script months ago, I told them there was no way. I guess I was wrong. There will be things in this short film that you won’t typically see in short films. It was a lot of work but I think the final product will speak for itself and everyone involved should be very proud. Huge props to Skippy as well acting as the one man crew, and everyone else that worked behind and in front of the camera. Thanks for the great experience.

Bush Pigs – Principal Photography Day 5, Sunday June 29

2008-06-29T21:26:00.001-06:00

Call time 8:00am, wrap time 7:15pm. I’m getting too old for this.

Weird day. The weather was perfect. Not at all what we’re used to.

So we started the day in a parking lot, rigging car mounts and puttings SUVs on trailers. Fun stuff. It’s always a bit disconcerting putting a $10k camera rig on a car mount and tooling down the highway at 60mph, but we had a lot of safety pieces in place and the gear worked masterfully. Most of the day consisted of driving up and down a stretch of road and getting various shots and angles to and from the hero vehicle. Pretty easy day for an AD. After about seven hours of that nonsense (and more Seinfeld references than you can shake a stick at) we broke location and travelled across town to the local Terror Free Oil station for the remaining shots of the day. The best part of those shots. Dogs. Yeah, two little dogs. Wearing dresses. And diapers. You heard me. And some vomit. Why does every independent film have to have someone vomit?! Granted, it does play a pretty important role in the film (trust me, you’ll have to see it). And it only splashed on our DP once. Sweet. It’s amazing how disgusting cookies, Pringles, a granola bar and Gatorade looks when one is projectiling it out of oneself.

Long day, but a good day. And the best part of shooting today is that it’s the day before tomorrow. And tomorrow is the last day of the shoot. Let’s hear it for tomorrow. Until then…

Bush Pigs – Principal Photography Day 4, Saturday June 28

2008-06-28T23:40:00.002-06:00

It wouldn’t be a blog about “Bush Pigs” if I didn’t talk about the weather. So we had a ridiculous non-tornado rip through town and knock the power out of 26,000 homes. One of which was mine. My neighborhood looks like a warzone with felled trees and powerlines everywhere. We had a call time of 8:00am. My power went out at 5:30pm and didn’t come back on until 5:25am. Long night, but we survived.

So we had three significant scenes to shoot today and there were highlights to all three. The first two locations couldn’t have been more perfect unless they were on a backlot. The rooms we used at the Salvation Army hospital had to double for a doctor’s office in Africa, a mental institution in America, and a bathroom at a restaurant, and we were able to find excellent places to shoot all three. The acting (again) was top notch and we got a ton of great footage. Big props of the day go out to Rick for his insane make-up work (wait til you see it) and to the Red Rock Micro again for the insane images.

Excellent cast and crew day and we got a ton of great footage. Highlights: fake vomit, fake feces, fake pig face, fake Africa, fake hoof. Oh, and two dudes bathing naked dude. What a day.

And now it's 1:00am and we've got a 9:00am call. Why do I stay out so late?!

Bush Pigs – Principal Photography Day 3, Sunday June 15th

2008-06-15T18:11:00.000-06:00

The weather in Nebraska over the last month has been crazy. Day one at the airport was one of the windiest days I remember in a long time. Our original day two had to be moved because of storms and tornadoes. Today’s shoot needed a new location at the last minute due to the basement flooding at the original location. Thanks to Mike for stepping up, we were able to get a new set and the day was saved.

Our shoot was in Blair (about 30 miles north of Omaha) and due to current gas prices, we piled into the “clown car” (sorry Tops) and headed out at 7:30am (only a few people had to ride in the glove box). We ran with a really small crew so the production van and clown car were all that were needed.

Today’s action was just two actors (Lisa and Van) and one scene so it was a pretty easy day. On set by 8:00am, heading home around 12:30. The new location was perfect and most of the time spent was on setting lights and doing some set decoration. The actors were well rehearsed so it was a piece of cake.

Only three more days of shooting. We'll start up again at the end of the month. Stay tuned.

OFF at Benson Days, Saturday June 14th

2008-06-15T18:06:00.003-06:00

Thanks to all that came out to see our great line-up of past Omaha Film Festival films and thanks to all that listened to our podcast show #11. More festival news coming soon.

Omaha Film Festival
OFF the EDGE filmmaking

Bush Pigs – Principal Photography Day 2, Friday June 13th

2008-06-15T17:39:00.002-06:00

When I initially read the Topler/Champoux script for the short film “Bush Pigs” I had two major concerns. The first of which was the opening scene which takes place in a small African village; a place where relief workers and locals live together in whatever shelter they can manage. Tents are the major source of shelter and we had to somehow create what looked like a large area where people are gathered. The planning of this had been in the works for over a month but I still had my doubts they could pull it off. Those doubts were erased when I pulled onto the set at 6:00 on Friday evening. The location that we picked out ended up being perfect (and much dryer than I expected given the record amounts of rain we’ve experienced over the last month). With a dozen military pup tents, over a half dozen make-shift dome tents, and one incredible hero tent (props Frank), we had the perfect location for our action to take place.

When I arrived Frank was working his chainsaw cutting wood that would later be used in the four campfires that we would build. A lot of the wood washed up from the small creek that two days before was completely out of its banks and blocked the entrance to the area where our set was located. There was a small army of volunteers on hand that were helping move wood and creating the look of the village. I did a quick tour with the directors and Neva (set decorator) to look at all of the shots we had planned and I knew we were in great shape to have a really good looking opening sequence.

When the camera showed up we started building the crane and placing all of the lights. We needed to create a moon for our general lighting scheme so we had a huge light that we gelled and placed on our highest stand. Since we were out in the country, we had no AC power so everything had to be run off of a generator so we placed that away from the action (for sound reasons) and ran about a half mile of stingers that needed to power the entire village. Make-up was another fun project as we needed to make two of our actors look like they were almost dead. Props to our make-up gang for again doing a great job.

After the camera and lighting were all set, all we needed were Africans and nightfall. Topler had made contact with someone that found us nine Sudanese folks so Julie took the van to pick them up and when they arrived, we had the perfect set of extras to populate our village. One of my favorite comments of the evening was when one of them mentioned that our set “looked just like Darfur.” High praise indeed and I couldn’t help but smile.

As the sun set, we started lighting the fires and working through the action that we’d need when it got dark enough to shoot. By the time we were able to get our first shots, the action went pretty smoothly and we were able to get a great look. It didn’t take us long shooting all of the exteriors once everything was set and all of our extras did fantastic and we moved well from shot to shot. The tents, the fires, the lighting, the extras… very cool.

After getting all we needed outside we sent Julie and the van full of extras away and we moved inside our main tent to get the close-ups and follow the action of our two main actors, Matt Harwell and Ben Chrystak. The interior of the tent was absolutely perfect (thanks to Frank’s excellent construction and Neva’s excellent setup) and we ended up getting some of the coolest shots using the Red Rock Micro system. The performances by Matt and Ben were excellent and Robbie did a fabulous job of moving the camera. I’m really looking forward to seeing all of these shots in the film.

The last shots of the evening involved more crane work, a Jeep as a prop and one of the best actors I’ve ever worked with. That’s right, I played a small role in the film. I believe my character’s name was “Driver.” You know it’s an important role when the character doesn’t have an actual name, just their action in the script. And the good news, my character is a smoker and the main action is him lighting a cigarette. So having never smoked in my life, I spent the next hour plus lighting and smoking cigarettes. I am now the proud owner of a brand new habit. Kidding. There was a bottle of water on stand-by the whole time and every once-in-a-while I had to stop and rinse. Ugh. Fun fun.

On the call sheet:
Set call time: 6:00pm, end time 1:30am. Actual end time, 4:30am - ouch

Bush Pigs – Principal Photography Day 2

2008-06-14T03:29:00.000-06:00

It's 4:30am and we just wrapped day two of "Bush Pigs" so needless to say, I won't be blogging about it this eveni...errr... morning. I will write about our experiences tomorrow night.

Now I need to get 2 hours of sleep so I can be alert and fresh for the Omaha Film Festival screenings we are having tomorrow at Benson Days. Come out and see us and if I'm nodding off, you have my permission to nudge me (gently please).

"The HIT" update

2008-06-08T22:22:00.000-06:00

Our second festival entry is in the mail. Thanks for all the positive comments. We'll keep our fingers crossed. (thanks Jeremy)

Hopefully we'll have the film 100% completed in the next couple of weeks. Cast/crew screening soon.

Bush Pigs – Principal Photography Day 2

2008-06-08T08:48:00.002-06:00

Due to tornadoes and rain, day two has been canceled. Ain't Nebraska weather grand? Stay tuned...we'll get back on track.

Bush Pigs – Principal Photography Day 1

2008-06-07T19:37:00.000-06:00

Day one is officially in the can. We shot everything that was on the schedule and snuck in a bunch of extra shots as well, so today was a complete success. The plan was to get through three scenes which was about 5 pages and we ended up covering it all.

We shot two exteriors at Tac Air (the private airstrip across from Eppley) and given the fact that we were shooting outside at an airport and we were experiencing 40mph winds (I’m guessing) and there was sporadic cloud coverage all day, I think we did quite well. The coolest part was having access to a private jet that we were able to shoot in and around. It’s always fun seeing how the other half live. The other scenes were in the terminal and it was certainly an easier environment to control.

Hats off to Topler/Champoux Productions on putting a great cast and crew together, props to the crew for doing a bang-up job in spite of the conditions and props to the cast for giving us great performances and making it easy on us.
We’re back at it tomorrow. We’ll be shooting car interiors and exteriors all morning then shooting around the crowds at a busy gas station in the afternoon. Fun fun.

Oh, and no cake for my birthday. Oh well. I did get a nice steak dinner afterward so that was awesome (thanks j).

“The HIT” edit update

2008-06-04T20:05:00.001-06:00

Spent the afternoon/evening with the editor and got a great cut ready for submission to the Austin Film Festival (deadline tomorrow). Nothing like waiting until the last minute, huh? The film is painfully close to completion. Stay tuned…hopefully we’ll be having a cast/crew screening sometime in the next 30 days.

OFF the EDGE filmmaking – show 11

2008-06-01T17:24:00.003-06:00

This week Marc and Jeremy announce that the Call for Entries for OFF’09 is officially open. They also talk randomly about film and film festivals and announce the line-up for Benson Days which will be Saturday, June 14th. The OFF will hold feature film screenings from 10:00am until 6:00pm in the Benson Community Center at 60th & Maple.

10:00am - Freeze Out (95 min - Finalist for 2006 Audience Choice)

Noon - Expiration Date (94 min – Jury/Audience Choice Best Film - 2006)

2:00pm - Shimmer (87 min - filmed in NE, screened at the 2006 OFF)

4:00pm – Lobster Tale (95 min - Jury Best Film - 2007)

Marc also talks briefly about the feature film currently shooting in Nebraska in and around Omaha and Plattsmouth. The film April Showers was written and is being directed by Andrew Robinson, writer/director of Shimmer.
April Showers

More info on The HIT and Bush Pigs coming soon.

OFF the EDGE filmmaking

South Pacific at OCP

2008-05-22T22:10:00.001-06:00

Let me just start by saying I don’t like musicals… as a rule. Okay, now that we have that covered, I found myself once again at the Omaha Community Playhouse to see the pre-opening night showing of the Rogers & Hammerstein production of South Pacific. And yeah, it was fantastic. I’m still not a fan of musicals, but everything about this production was wonderful. It was a real treat to see my buddy Judy Radcliff playing Bloody Mary in one of the best stage performances I’ve ever seen. The rest of the cast was terrific as well and the stage setups, sound, orchestra, etc. were all top notch as usual.

The Omaha Community Playhouse is such a treasure and it’s in my neighborhood so I vow to continue to attend as often as possible. Now, if I could just get these songs out of my head, maybe I could get some sleep.

http://www.omahaplayhouse.com/

Angel Food – day 1

2008-05-17T12:37:00.003-06:00

After going to bed after 2:00am, the last thing you want to do is get up at 5:30am on a Saturday, but such is the life of a filmmaker with insomnia. So I’m working on a new project which will end up being a couple of industrials for Angel Food Ministries. It’s a great organization and has seen tremendous growth nationally so It’s great to be involved in their new media outreach.

The pieces we’ll be making will be informational and training videos so today I arrived at Trinity Church, the Omaha “drop center” and filmed the whole process of the semi arriving, the food being unloaded and broken down, then assembled in the gym for distribution. After everything was set up, the doors were open and people from the community came in with their coolers, boxes, laundry baskets, etc. to pick up the food that they had ordered. After being there for over 4 hours, I could tell that it is extremely well run and that the impact on the community is a very positive one so I’m excited to be a part of it.

More to come as more happens.

www.angelfoodministries.com

Brad Hoshaw – Live at the Waiting Room 5/7

2008-05-17T12:37:00.001-06:00

In case you’re wondering, Brad Hoshaw is one of the coolest cats I know. As most of you here in Omaha SHOULD know, he’s a singer/songwriter that’s been more recently known for his solo acoustic stuff. I’ve known him for over 8 years and back in the day I knew him as a band-guy, but with fickle musicians and everyone being so busy all the time, I’m sure it’s difficult to maintain band status without hitting the big time, so I think he’s resigned himself to relying on solely himself to get an opportunity play his music in front of people.

So when he was given the opportunity to perform as an opener for American Music Club, he started putting the feelers out to see if he could put together a band. And put together a band he did. He ended up pulling some of the hottest local musicians together from all walks of musical life and blended them perfectly with the songs that we’re used to hearing him play solo. A 33 minute set on a Wednesday evening in downtown Benson and it was shear magic.

So how does King Penguin Productions fit into all this? Well, late that afternoon Brad called and reminded me about the show, then casually mentioned that it would be great to bring a couple of cameras down and video tape the whole affair. Sadly with only a few hours of time to prepare, I was only able to get one camera so the whole this is very static, but it was great to have the opportunity to capture the evening.

Here’s the band: Jason Ferguson – Mandolin, Scott Gaeta – Drums, Matt Whipkey - El Guitar/Harmonica, Brad Hoshaw - Ac Guitar/Vocals, Liz Webb - Backgd Vocals, Adam Hawkins - Backgd Vocals, Craig Balderston - Upright Bass, Karl Houfek – Keys, John Klemmensen – Trumpet

http://www.myspace.com/bradhoshaw

OFF'09 coming soon (well, in like 9 months)

2008-05-04T21:54:00.001-06:00

Planning is well underway for OFF'09. We had three fantastic meetings on Saturday and there are so many exciting things in the works. Stay tuned as details become available.

Our call for entries will be up soon.

OFF the EDGE filmmaking – show 9

2008-04-26T22:10:00.000-06:00

This week Marc and Jeremy talk randomly about some film festivals.

Austin Film Festival
www.austinfilmfestival.com

Estes Park Film Festival
www.estesparkfilm.com

Kansas International Film Festival
www.kansasfilm.com

KC Jubilee Film Festival
www.kcjubilee.org

Middle of Nowhere Film Festival
www.myspace.com/monnifp

www.offtheedgefilmmaking.com

OFF the EDGE filmmaking – show 9

2008-04-20T18:58:00.000-06:00

In our first remote interview, Marc talks to Rocco DeVilliers, writer/director of the film "The Flyboys" during the closing night party of the 2008 Omaha Film Festival after he won the Jury Prize and Audience Choice Awards. It was a very large and very loud party, so we found the quietest place we could to do the interview. I'll let you figure out where we decided to do it.

Check out information about Rocco's film at www.theflyboysmovie.com

Remember to check back at www.omahafilmfestival.org for updates on upcoming events.

www.offtheedgefilmmaking.com

OFF the EDGE filmmaking – show 8

2008-04-15T20:42:00.001-06:00

Okay, we’ve taken a month off and now it’s time to start posting some OFF the EDGE filmmaking podcasts again. Sunday night we had a very special guest in studio, none other than the third leg of the OFF tripod, Jason Levering. This is certainly our loosest show and we had a lot of fun recording it. Check it out.

www.offtheedgefilmmaking.com

Blue Man Group – awe and wonder

2008-03-30T23:39:00.000-06:00

The Omaha Film Festival attends the Blue Man Group, live in concert in Omaha. That’s right Jeremy, Jason and I just got back from one of the coolest things I’ve ever seen/heard. If you’ve seen them, you know what I’m talking about. If you haven’t, it’s a must. Oh, did I mention that we were in the second row, right in the middle? It’s one thing to be that close to a concert or show, but to be literally ten feet away from the spectacle that is BMG is really something to behold. And given their proclivity to pulling people from the audience and otherwise getting the crowd involved, I attempted to not maintain eye contact on the several times when they looked directly at me from the stage. The girl directly in front of me got pulled up after they all came down and went through her purse looking for a credit card. A gal four seats over went up at the end to read from a book introducing the band. And a guy 7 seats over had the camera-down-the-throat treatment (you’d have to see the show to understand – nasty).

Oh, did I also mention going back stage and hanging out with the Blue Men afterward? Yeah, they’re just a creepy in person. I got their “autograph.” And a picture. And I might have nightmares tonight.

What a trip. I’m ready to go again right now. Thanks Jeremy. Merry Christmas.

“Bush Pigs” auditions

2008-03-30T23:36:00.001-06:00

Auditions for the new Topler/Champoux film “Bush Pigs” went great today. Often when you do an open cattle call for talent, invariably you get a handful of people that quite frankly aren’t very good, but today was certainly the exception. It seemed that everyone that came in and read did a tremendous job. Tops and Christian were both happy with the talent that they saw and most of the film can be cast with the actors that came out. Props to all for taking time out of their Sunday and auditioning. Props also to Fernando for filming and to Julie, Bryan, Tim, Jolynn and Tory for all of their help. Preproduction is officially underway.

Topler/Champoux

Felix Freeze – Poems of a Souldier

2008-03-29T23:25:00.001-06:00

You like poetry? Spoken word? Comedy? Then you shoulda come out tonight. The Loft at the Mill in Lincoln was blowing up all night. DJ Romeo was keeping everyone on the edge of their seats with some serious beats and mixes and MC Ercell Watson pulled people out of their seats with his comedy and crowd work. Special guests McEvoy and Echo Poetico were amazing as always and everything set up perfectly for the guest of honor, Felix Izel Freeze to come out and kill for an hour. He gave a great performance as he poured his heart and soul into each piece and gave the crowd a lot to ponder as he wove stories of his life and loves into poetry and song.

Awesome night, awesome performances. And now, on to the editing.

Huge thanks to my crew (Skippy/Jason/Julie/Bryan) for coming out and helping put together an awesome five camera shoot.

OFF the EDGE filmmaking – show 7

2008-03-05T19:30:00.001-06:00

We’re up to seven shows in our podcast. If you haven’t heard any of them, what’s your excuse?! Show six gives a preview of the special screenings we had at OFF’08. Show seven is a wrap-up of the festival. Check it out.

www.offtheedgefilmmaking.com

Omaha Film Festival 2008 – Sunday, Day 7

2008-02-26T23:21:00.000-06:00

The last day of the festival. We made it. The day started with encore presentations of the two excellent films “Jetsam” and “Placebo.” The “Placebo” screening was a lot of fun and everyone responded well to the film and the Q&A session with filmmakers Keith and Faith, despite the fact that Keith was extremely sick and was essentially a zombie for the entire festival. Why can’t we live in a warmer climate?!

After the screenings, we had our third annual awards ceremony. The attendance was great and the ceremony was a lot of fun. This year for the first time we brought in “professionals” to emcee the event. On air personalities Brian Mastre and Rachel Pierce from WOWT (NBC) hosted the event and brought a professionalism that we don’t typically have ourselves (thanks guys). I think the crowd enjoyed the event and it was great to see the audience respond to some of the announcements.

The winners were:
Screenplay Awards
Short Length Screenplay – “Zaid’s Cup” by Kimberly Coleman
Feature Length Screenplay – “The Third Realm” by Nino Del Pesco
Nebraska Screenplay – “This Old Porch” by Jim Christensen

Jury Prizes
Feature Film – “The Flyboys” directed by Rocco DeVilliers
Documentary – “The Listening Project” directed by Dominic Howes, Joel Weber
OFF the EDGE – “The Wretched” directed by Daniel B. Iske
Short Film – “Validation” directed by Kurt Kuenne
Animated Short Film – “Ark” directed by Grzegorz Jonkajtys
Nebraska Short Film – “Temper Espresso” directed by John Albrecht

Audience Choice Prizes
Feature Film – “The Flyboys” directed by Rocco DeVilliers
Documentary – “Strongest Ever” produced by Ben Crane, Christopher Lavigne, Colleen Evanson, Jacqueline Willemsen
Short Film – “The Replacement Child” directed by Justin Lerner

After the ceremony, we had encore screenings of “The Flyboys” as the audience choice feature film, “The Replacement Child” as the audience choice short film and “Strongest Ever” the audience choice documentary.

And then, we rested. Okay, not really, instead we went out to Heidelberg’s for our closing night party and I ended up staying there until after the Oscars. I set a camera up and we did a few interviews as well as a couple of interesting audio-only interviews that will show up on the podcast. Fun night and a great way to wrap up an incredible week.

Thanks so much to everyone that attended the festival this year. We had so many of our All Access pass holders attending so many films. Much love and respect to those that “get it” and understand that the only way to keep something like this going is to continue to support it. The more people that attend our events, the better experience it is for the filmmakers that travel to get here and it certainly makes all of the hard work in putting on such an event feel worth while.

Additional huge thanks to Julie Matthews and all of the volunteers for keeping the festival running smoothly. Jeremy, Jason and I didn’t have to worry about that part of the festival because we knew it would run smoothly with their involvement. So many of the volunteers put in so many hours over the last several weeks and their contribution absolutely did not go unnoticed, and we got tons of compliments on how smoothly things ran. Thanks so much.

Another huge thanks goes to the projectionists. Knowing that the booth was running smoothly allows J, J, and I the ability to participate in the social aspects of the festival that are so important for attendees and filmmakers. Thanks go Jonathan, Dave, Steve, Shaun, Aaron, Ben, Chris, Eric, and Ken.

We absolutely can’t do the festival without those two groups of people. Okay, more thank yous to come over the next few days. Right now I should sleep.

Omaha Film Festival 2008 – Saturday, Day 6

2008-02-26T23:18:00.000-06:00

For the entire festival, we will have 60 screenings. 20 of them happened today. Yes, that’s 1/3 of the festival in one day. Four screens, open to close. Seven feature films, four documentaries, three short blocks, two special screenings and all four OFF the EDGE films. Of the twenty screenings, nine of them had filmmakers in attendance. Sweet. It’s a good thing I got lots of sleep last night.

So as not to cause everyone reading this to fall asleep, I won’t go through the entire day, I’ll just list the filmmakers and their films that were in attendance. At 11:30am in short film block #2, writer/director Adem Weldon came in support of his short film “Some Apologies” and helped us generate a decent sized crowd. At noon the encore screening of Derek Baker’s “Ulterior Motives” generated a great second crowd. Producers Colleen Evanson and Jacqueline Willemsen joined Becca Swanson for an increcible Q&A session after the second screening of the documentary “Strongest Ever.” Director of the film “The Listening Project” Dominic Howes and on screen interviewer Hahn participated in an extremely moving and powerful Q&A session after the second screening of their documentary. “The Living Wake” had a very fun Q&A session with producer Chadwick Clough in attendance and gave us a lot of interesting behind-the-scenes info on this fantastic narrative film. Writer/director Rocco DeVilliers was in attendance for his second screening of “The Flyboys” and the film played to a much bigger audience the second time and everyone was once again moved and loved this film. The Nebraska Shorts block had another huge crowd and had most of the filmmakers in attendance for another rousing Q&A. Doug Lantz, director of the documentary “From the 50 Yard Line” remained in town for his second screening and treated the crowd of band folks (I didn’t use the word “geeks” here) to a great look at the filming process. Short film block 3 had Jeff Hoferer, writer/director of the excellent and hilarious short film “Finding Emo” and Justin Lerner, writer/director of the incredibly shot and touching “The Replacement Child” in attendance and the audience responded extremely well to both films, as well as the rest of the short film block. The last film of the day that had filmmakers in attendance was the second screening of “The Wretched” and it gave us our biggest audience of the day. Another rousing screening and another great Q&A session to round out the day.

For reviews of each of these films as well as info about all of the films that we screened, be sure to check out www.omahafilmfestival.org and if you haven’t already done so, be sure to create a screen name and review the films that you saw.

Sunday is the last day. Raise a toast to Sunday. Unless you were in the private party at the hospitality suite, in which case you were raising a toast to just about everything.

Omaha Film Festival 2008 – Friday, Day 5

2008-02-26T23:17:00.001-06:00

The weekend is upon us and the crowds are getting bigger. We showed four feature films, two documentaries, a short film block, and went fully into OFF the EDGE with the remaining three films in that category. Of the ten screenings we held, four of them had filmmakers in attendance so we had some great Q&A sessions.

One of the cool things about this years’ festival versus previous years, was the attendance at the short film blocks. Much more time goes into creating these blocks, starting with receiving, viewing, judging and finally programming all of them, plus the work that goes into screening them with the various formats, aspect ratios, audio levels, etc. These make for a lot more work than almost all of the rest of the festival films combined (huge props to JL this year in the booth!) That being said, attendance this year for all of these short blocks really helps make it all worth while. In the short film block 1 which screened tonight, we had two of the filmmakers in attendance, Kurt Kuenne from LA with his film “Validation” and Jason Beresford, all the way from the UK, with his film “Double Act.” The Q&A sessions are always more fun when there are filmmakers there and both of these guys were interesting and engaging and made the film block a lot more fun.

Luke Eberl, writer/director/editor of the film “Choose Connor” was also in attendance and drew a nice crowd. It was cool for me to see a young filmmaker that put together a pretty impressive film in his first significant effort. I know he’s got a serious future in the film world so it’s good to be a part of his first festival run.

The film “Placebo” played to a decent audience and had filmmakers Keith and Faith Feighan in attendance to do a Q&A. Keith and Faith are OFF’06 alumnus, so it was great to have them back to Omaha with their next film (hopefully we will see them in two more years?!)

The biggest crowd, not surprisingly, was for “The Wretched,” the locally produced OFF the EDGE film. The entire cast and crew were there and it was very much a circus-like atmosphere. The Q&A session was a ton of fun as well and the whole front of the theater had everyone involved answering questions.

Great night and another late night. Conventional wisdom dictates that since Saturday will be our busiest day (literally 1/3 of the entire festival plays that day) that we would be home and in bed early. Well, we haven’t used any conventional wisdom yet, so why would we start now. Thanks to the Regency Lodge for the hospitality suite. Sorry to the other residents around us that didn’t really plan on staying awake until 3:00am every night.

Omaha Film Festival 2008 – Thursday, day 4

2008-02-22T13:01:00.001-06:00

Day four is in the books, and what a day four it was. We screened three feature films, two documentaries, three short film block and had our inaugural screening of an OFF the EDGE film.

Every evening after the festival (insert chuckle here – it’s actually much later than “evening”) I put together a director’s list that Jeremy, Jason, Julie and I carry around with us at all times that indicates all of the start and end time of every film, and highlights which films have filmmakers in town so that we can coordinate Q&A sessions. After putting the Thursday list together we knew we were up against it. It seemed every fifteen minutes had a film starting or stopping and of the nine screenings, six of them had a filmmaker in attendance so we were spread pretty thin. As a rule I prefer to have all three directors doing an introduction talk before each film and where possible, having all three of us available for the Q&A. Well, as everyone knows that was there, most films had just one of us, and not always for the whole time. It’s always fun participating in a Q&A or giving an intro talk, only to have your ear on fire listening to all of the chatter on the walkie because 50 other things that need immediate attention are happening. All that being said, day four was a huge success.

I’ll start with the biggest crowd of the festival so far. Derek Baker brought in a sold out crowd to the premiere of “Ulterior Motives” and it was very much a party like atmosphere. The second biggest crowd of the festival (also a sell out) was the Nebraska shorts block, which ended at 7:34pm and we had a huge Q&A with all of the directors. So the whole time we’re doing the Q&A, I’m hearing “we’re filling up out here” from the lobby walkie and “we need more volunteers to control this crowd” on the other walkies. At one point I had to pull Derek and Sho out of the NE block to escort them to their feature. Timing is everything. It was fantastic to see such enthusiastic crowds in both theaters and it was an honor and a privilege to be able to provide screens for the local filmmakers.

So I mentioned nine screenings and six filmmakers. So far I’ve only talked about two. It was a huge treat to talk to Alex and Mikiko from the short documentary block “Movement.” I remember watching that film six months ago and remembered how moving it was, so it was incredibly cool to be sitting there six months later listening to Alex talking about the process of making the film and how it’s affected his life. Awesome.

Another cool Q&A was with Doug Lantz, director of the documentary “From the 50 Yard Line.” Those band folks sure do stick together and they always have a passionate group of followers. The feature film “The Flyboys” had director Rocco DeVilliers and two of his producers in attendance and the crowd was very enthusiastic about that film. Look for this one in theaters soon as it seems like a no-brainer for a theatrical release. The last director Q&A of the night was with Shawn Linden, writer/director of the film “Nobody” which kicked off our first ever OFF the EDGE category for horror and experimental films. Everyone had their thinking caps on for that one and it was a very cool conversation about how the film was put together and what it all meant. Each of these films has a second screening over the next few days to be sure to come and check them out and talk to the directors!

Julio’s had us back again after the screenings and a lot of people took advantage of the OFF specials. I think I only heard the bell ring about five times, so I’m considering it a good night. And the after party was one of our best yet. As fun as it was, I don’t think getting home after 4:00am should be a habit. It’s a good thing the festival is only a week during the year. If anyone has more Red Bull, please bring it by the booth, I think I’ll need it.

Everyone that reads this, please be sure to come out Friday and Saturday. We have a lot of filmmakers that have traveled a long way to see us and to share their films with us, so let’s do everything we can to give them good crowds. Check out www.omahafilmfestival.org and pick out a few films to see. Our Mini Pass goes into effect today so it’s a great and inexpensive way to see a lot of films over the next few days so take advantage!

Also, if you’re coming tonight to see “The Wretched” or if you saw locally produced films “Imitation Life” or “Ulterior Motives” and want more information about the filmmakers and to hear some behind the scenes info on those films, check out the podcasts that Jeremy and I did with them at www.OFFtheEDGEfilmmaking.com. You won’t be disappointed. Okay, you might be, but do it anyway. It’ll make Jeremy happy.

Omaha Film Festival 2008 – Wednesday, day 3

2008-02-21T04:48:00.000-06:00

Day three had four feature films, two documentaries and our first full slate of short films, running in two separate blocks. It was a great day that started with a full moon and ended with none at all. Pretty cool.

My favorite part of film festivals is usually the directors’ Q&A sessions and we were treated to three of them today, one after the incredible documentary “the Listening Project,” one after our short block #1 (two directors in town), and one after the short/feature combo “Wake Up Filmmaker” and “Imitation Life.” I had a chance to listen in to all three of these for a little while and it was great to see the crowds reacting favorably to the films and the people that made them. The biggest crowd of the festival so far was at the screenings of “Wake Up Filmmaker” and “Imitation Life,” so we’re glad to be giving local filmmakers a showcase as part of the festival. Hopefully those folks enjoyed the film and will come back out and support some of the other films we’re screening.

It was my latest night out of the theater and I had the good fortune of being able to go to not one, but two parties afterward, which put me home about three hours later than I had anticipated. There’s really not much point in sleeping anymore this week though so I’ll see everyone out there tomorrow night too.

A special thank you goes to the fine folks at Red Bull for coming out and passing out some cans. I’m not sure if you’re supposed to drink two of them as fast as I did and my heart might have raced a bit faster than it should have, but when you’re in survival mode, anything can happen.

Omaha Film Festival 2008 – Tuesday, day 2

2008-02-20T01:15:00.000-06:00

Today we screened five feature films, two full length documentaries and one block of short documentaries. The crowds were moderate in size, and there were a lot of attendees that had been to several of our events over the last few days, so it’s great to see so many repeat faces coming out and supporting the festival.

For me, the day started pretty early and had me basically sequestered up in the projection booth helping setup the various media decks and projectors and going through all of the films for the day. You would think that only screening eleven films on four screens would be easy enough, but due to a lot of varying mitigating circumstances, it took most of the day and we finally had everything setup and ready to go just before we started screening the films. Fortunately things ended up working out just fine (they always seem to) and all of our screenings went off great, on time, and without a hitch. Not bad for our first day with four screens.

The highlight of the evening was the documentary “Strongest Ever” featuring Becca Swanson, the strongest woman in the world, who happens to be from Omaha. The documentary made by some New York film students was entered into our general competition and our judges loved it enough to give it a screening. Becca was gracious enough to attend the screening and got up afterward to do a very enjoyable 30 minute Q&A. Before the film started, I asked the crowd how many people in the audience knew Becca, and every hand in the place was raised, except for one, so they were quickly introduced and we started the film. This was our biggest crowd of the day so we were happy that the word got out about this terrific documentary. We will have an encore screening of the film at noon on Saturday and Becca will be attending that screening as well, so if you missed it tonight, be sure to check it out then.

The rest of the films for the evening were all fantastic as well, and why wouldn’t they be, since we culled them from over 400 entries. Be sure to check out the website to see how people are rating what they saw. Hopefully people are putting some good reviews up.

Wednesday is going to be the first of our four Nebraska feature film nights, so we’ll see how that goes.

Omaha Film Festival 2008 – Monday, Day 1

2008-02-19T03:49:00.001-06:00

Jeremy’s been trying to land a particular film for a long time. The opportunity to screen a film that almost nobody in the world has seen before, and giving that opportunity to the OFF crowd months before a film gets its theatrical release is very satisfying. We do a great job of finding independent features, docs and shorts for the festival, but often it takes as much if not more work finding special screening films that will fit in with our program, and that will hopefully get some good theatrical buzz in the future. We screened “Half Nelson” at one of our Summer Film Series events over a month before it got theatrical release and it went on to win several Independent Spirit Awards and got Ryan Gosling an Oscar nomination. And the people of Omaha had a chance to see the film before most of the rest of the world. So back to Jeremy. He’d been working with new distributor Overture Films to get the new Charlize Theron film “Sleepwalking” and through persistence (and if you know Jeremy, you know how painful that can be) he was able to land the film.

So after an entire day setting up the OFF booth at the Westwood Cinema 8, we gathered our crowd to hear Mayor Mike Fahey give our festival introduction speech (with news crews rolling) and we kicked off the festival with a bang.

After the film, we all headed to the Pizza Shoppe Collective to enjoy lots of pizza, beverages, a fantastic live performance by Thousand Houses, and the opportunity to hang out more with Shane Black.

I couldn’t have asked for a better few days. The fact that I’ve slept about 8 hours total is actually worth it. And we’re just getting started. If you’re reading this and are any where near Omaha, we’ve got a tremendous week coming up and we’ve got a lot of the filmmakers coming so check out the website and put your schedule together. And if you see me, nudge me because I’m probably about to fall asleep.

Screenwriting/Filmmaking Conferences – Sunday, Day 2

2008-02-19T03:48:00.000-06:00

Day two started much the same as day one, with Jeff Kitchen talking about “constructing a script with sequence, proposition, and plot” and again, the morning session was filled with tons of fantastic information on screenwriting (I know, I have no excuses now, I need to start writing).

The second morning session was with none other than OFF friend Lew Hunter who delighted the crowd with his insights and wit and wisdom. Great session.

The afternoon sessions were “a conversation with” Jon Bokenkamp and Josh Stolberg in individual one-on-one talks (with the second “one” being the audience) discussing everything filmmaking. So many interesting stories were told, I almost wish I had them recorded. Wait, I do. Sometime after the festival, I look forward to relistening to them all and maybe getting more out of them, in a much less stressful environment (and if you were there, you know where the stress came from).

The last session concluded our time at Creighton and what a time it was. The remaining item on the agenda for the weekend was our closing night party at the Omaha Community Playhouse (incredible) and a screening of “Kiss Kiss, Bang Bang” (even more incredibler) with none other than writer/director Shane Black in attendance (yes I will say incredible-ist here). The catered in affair was perfect; everything you could hope to have. Great food, lots of drinks, a very full room and lots of great conversations (and not all just about film). The screen and the sound system at the OCP were absolutely perfect for the film and the audience of around 200 (many of which were seeing the film for the first time) were delighted with the action. Shane went up after the film and treated the crowd to a 45 minute Q&A and Jeremy, Jason and I couldn’t help but be proud and satisfied at the weekend that we’d put together. Fast forward to later in the evening with Josh and Shane and a few close friends at the Cheesecake Factory and you’ve got the make’ns of a pretty good weekend.

Now, on to the festival!

Screenwriting/Filmmaking Conferences – Saturday, Day 1

2008-02-19T03:47:00.000-06:00

Plan, plan, plan, plan. Almost a full year in the making, the time is upon us to actually execute. We’re so excited about what we’ve put together this year. I keep using the quote, “we’ve put together a festival that WE would want to attend.” After day one I can’t imagine a better time. First off, I want to say that having the conferences at Creighton University in their theater-style classrooms is amazing with the comfort, cool look and available technology, we had everything we could have possibly wanted (thanks Teresa!)

So day one started with Jeff Kitchen, published screenwriting instructor, and he gave some fantastic instruction through two morning sessions “create gripping dramatic action with dilemma” and “plot and character development with the 36 dramatic situations and enneagram.” A perfect opportunity to come in to a morning session and really learn some excellent concepts for writers.

The first of the two afternoon sessions was a panel entitled “life as a Hollywood writer” and included panelists Jon Bokenkamp (writer: Taking Lives, Perfect Stranger, etc.) and Josh Stolberg (writer: Good Luck Chuck, Passion of the Ark which later became Even Almight, etc.). Ron Gerard moderated as the audience enjoyed an hour-and-a-half of entertaining, behind-the-scenes stories about Hollywood, writing, artistic vision, and passion.

The second afternoon session gave us an opportunity to get an insiders’ look into “editing and post production” with editors Tom Elkins (White Noise 2, My Bloody Valentine) and Academy Award winner Mike Hill (Apollo 13, Backdraft, Ransom, A Beautiful Mind, Cinderella Man, The Da Vinci Code). What a tremendous opportunity to hear so many stories about these huge films. The discussion was filled with film clips and lots of great stories.

An amazing day one that was capped off by a private party at the Nomad in two of their cabanas. If you’ve ever been there, you know how cool that is and what a great way to end the evening.

More tomorrow.

OFF the EDGE filmmaking - show 4

2008-02-11T06:26:00.000-06:00

Show 4 is now posted at www.offtheedgefilmmaking.com. In this episode Jeremy and I sit down with Mark Booker, writer/director of the feature film "Imitation Life" which will be screened at the Omaha Film Festival. Give it a listen!

OFF the EDGE filmmaking - show #3

2008-02-06T23:24:00.000-06:00

Show #3 is now posted at www.offtheedgefilmmaking.com. In this episode, I sit down with Derek Baker, producer/writer of the feature film "Ulterior Motives" which will debut at the Omaha Film Festival. Give it a listen!

OFF the EDGE filmmaking – a podcast

2008-02-03T22:33:00.000-06:00

Jeremy and I were guests on a local (Omaha) podcast a couple of days ago and the show just got posted today so if you’re interested in hearing some ‘behind the scenes’ info about OFF’08 or if you just love the sounds of our voices, feel free to check out the show.

Don’t know what a podcast is? Okay, it’s basically like a radio show, but instead of being broadcast across the airwaves, it’s listenable and/or downloadable on the internet. You can go right to the website and listen on your computer, or you can download an mp3 and listen on your mobile mp3 device, or you can subscribe via itunes.

So, please take a few minutes and check out Worlds of Wayne and listen to or download the show. We told Wayne we would break his previous record of listens so help us out.

And something interesting gets revealed for the first time on his show. Jeremy and I have started our own podcast! So, after you’ve listed to Worlds of Wayne, come over to OFF the EDGE filmmaking and check out our show. Our first show is a simple introduction that tells what we’ll be doing, and in the second show we talk about all of the feature films and documentaries that will be screened at the 2008 Omaha Film Festival. I think it’s interesting and fun, but I’ll let you be the judge.

Let us know what you think. And even if you don’t feel like listening, click on the link and download it anyway, just so it looks like people are listening. We don’t actually have to BE loved, as long as we FEEL loved, right? We have a couple of exciting interviews coming up in the next week-or-so, so I’ll send out more e-mails letting you know about those. And just so you know, we’re just starting this out and it’s all new to us. We promise we’ll get better!

of poets n’things

2008-02-03T00:01:00.000-06:00

Spent a great evening Friday night in Lincoln with two poets that have contracted out to King Penguin Productions to work on their upcoming shows. Dominique and Oscar from Echo Poetico have a fantastic show coming up on Friday, February 8th at 6:00pm at the Lied Center in Lincoln. It’s a free event so everyone that can should absolutely come out and witness the beauty of slam poetry and Andean music. Awesome, moving, thought provoking, entertaining, mind broadening. I highly recommend it. We will be doing a four camera hi-def shoot and will put a promotional DVD together with the footage we collect.

After hanging out with Dom and Oscar, we met up with Felix Freeze to go over details for his upcoming show on March 29th. We’re doing a four camera hi-def shoot for him as well at a different venue so we had a chance to check out the location and talk about what needs to be done over the next couple of months. After that, we took the opportunity to hang out and record some behind the scenes footage for his upcoming DVD. I’m usually pretty happy with my interviewing skills but I literally asked like three or four questions total and got an hour of footage. Felix has a lot to say. Needless to say I’m really looking forward to his show as well. Over the next two months we’re going to get together and record a lot more footage so the finished DVD will be packed with a lot of cool stuff.

Two great poets, two great shows. Anyone in Lincoln has to come out. You won’t be disappointed. And if you absolutely can’t make it out, feel free to purchase the DVDs when they’re available (insert shameless plug here)!

“Billy the Kid” a documentary by Jennifer Venditti

2008-01-13T01:23:00.001-06:00

I had a chance to head down to Film Streams tonight to check out the award winning documentary “Billy the Kid” by first time director Jennifer Venditti.

As published in Filmmaker Magazine:
Filmmaker highly recommends Jennifer Venditti’s doc Billy the Kid, which opens through IFC Films this week. Here is Venditti telling our own Nick Dawson about finding the subject of her film while she was casting Carter Smith’s short Bugcrush at a Maine high school. She spotted Billy sitting alone at the lunchroom: “I walked over there, he opened his mouth and I was like, “My God, this kid is amazing! Why is the whole school not sitting at his table?” All the kids were like, “Oh, he's so weird. He's dangerous, he freaks out.” And then the teachers would all say things like, “Oh, he's really complicated, he has emotional disabilities.” I started to think, "No one's going to tell me about what he has or what he is," and I didn't care anymore: I wanted to understand the world through his experience.”
- - -
And the film does just that. It’s a day-in-the-life documentary following Billy in his routine, interacting with school classmates, his family, and the local townsfolk, and giving us a look at the world through his unique set of eyes.

The biggest treat was the fact that Jennifer Venditti was in attendance and gave a Q&A after the film. There were over a hundred people in the audience and Jennifer fielded questions for over a half hour and you could tell the viewers were enthusiastic about the film and the subject matter. I also had a chance to chat with her for a while after the theater cleared out and you could see the passion she has for her craft, so look for her to do great things in the future.

“Billy the Kid” plays through 1/17 at Film Streams so if you haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, be sure to head down.

Omaha Film Festival press release

2008-01-10T21:41:00.000-06:00

The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron

2008-01-08T23:37:00.000-06:00

Had a pretty cool evening tonight. A new small group of local artists started meeting tonight and we’ll get together every other week. We’re going through the book The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron and the purpose of the group is to encourage each other and help hold each other accountable through our various artistic endeavors. One of my major goals as we go through this group is to hopefully force at least one of the five feature film screenplays that are in my head out and onto paper. If I have a group of people that I have to answer to on a bimonthly basis, hopefully that will be enough to help ‘guilt’ me into working through that process. Wish me luck.

Viral Video - coming soon

2008-01-06T22:39:00.001-06:00

I had a chance to work with a couple of actors that I’ve known for a while but haven’t had a chance to work yet. Long time friend Greg Scott had a few small projects he wanted to film and asked for help casting, and when he gave me the scripts, I immediately had two actors in mind, so I called Cortney Franks and Mark Booker and they were both happy to sign on to the project. I can’t really talk much about what we shot now, but the word will be getting out soon so keep your eyes open. They were small projects, but they were big fun and Cortney and Mark were both fantastic. I’ve never really shot comedy work before so it was fun to get together with a script and after a few takes have the actors go off the script and improv the scenes. And yes, there were a few blown takes because the crew was laughing too hard. All in all a great night of filming and hopefully some nice clips to be coming out soon.

“Bridezillas” – day 2

2007-12-23T00:48:00.000-06:00

That’s a wrap. Hurry up and wait has never been truer than on this project. And my opinion of reality TV hasn’t changed. What’s interesting is that shooting reality TV is very much like shooting a documentary. You log tons and tons of footage that will eventually be broken down into a short amount of time. I don’t envy documentary editors. I don’t envy reality TV editors. What I find interesting in both is with the footage you end up with, you can cut together a million different shows to tell whatever story you choose. You can make the good guy look like a bad guy, you can make the bad guy look like the good guy. You hold the marionette strings and you pick shots to tell whatever story you choose. No social commentary or judgment on my part, just an interesting observation. Being of a narrative mind though, I like to have my story first, then go out and make the actors perform it.

I was thinking that if a camera followed me everywhere for a day, someone could edit the footage down to make me look any way they want. I could look cool, giving, selfish, clumsy, mean, helpful, smooth, frustrated, etc. The emotions a person shows on a daily basis runs the gamut, we just have the luxury of not showing all of our sides to everyone all of the time. And that’s a good thing. At least from my perspective. There are plenty of people out there that think I’m the sweetest guy. And there are plenty that know otherwise.

The moral of the story – if someone is filming your life, the one person you need to be nice to is your editor.

“Bridezillas” – day 1

2007-12-21T23:08:00.001-06:00

That’s right, for two days this week I’m actually working in reality TV. I never thought I’d see the day. Day one was pretty eventful. Of course, that’s the point, to capture the “events” that happen. It’s certainly an interesting process seeing the best ways to capture (and sometimes push along) the drama as it unfolds in a very chaotic time for someone who’s about to be married. I’m not really sure how much I’m allowed to write so I’ll just leave it at that. Day two is tomorrow. Wish us luck.