A Sagacious Conscript

Today I was the guest speaker at the Upper Arlington High School’s film class. The teacher invited me to speak to the kids and do a demo. I made up a DVD of things to show and went on in.

Last week I had issued a press release about getting ACCIDENTAL ART into the Beverly Hills Shorts Film Festival and one of the newspapers sent out a reporter to follow me to the class and do the interview right after. Then a photographer came up to our studio to do some pictures for the article.

I showed the trailer for HORRORS OF WAR, and then claimed “This is a movie that will never win an Oscar ™”. Next I showed one of the webdocs on ADR. I passed around the DVD covers from around the world.

I was asked about my opinion of the future of cinema and I said that 3D will make a huge dent in things because AVATAR made so much money. Studio execs that are no inherently creative people see AVATAR in 3D = $$$, so expect a lot more movies to go spectacle and 3D in the hopes of generating more money and less soul. I also think YouTube, Cable TV channels, Internet, Video on Demand, and multimedia are merging into one single entity at some point. How to make money at it is a largely undiscovered realm so far.

I like teaching. I enjoy sharing what I know. So many of my peers view it as creating competition or something they would never do for free without being paid, but I do it because I love it.

Why do I get invited to do these things? What makes me the focal point of such requests? Why would someone want me to talk about filmmaking to kids?

I have no idea. If you are reading this and you feel I do not warrant such requests, then let the schools know and let them know why you would be more qualified or at the least why you feel I am NOT qualified. I didn’t solicit these kinds of speaking events. They fall into my lap and I do think I have something to offer, but it’s neither better or worse than anyone else.

Gooey Karmic Goodness

Sometimes I do things that some might consider generous. I put together film festivals, or I offer a place to edit, or I loan out some gear that might help someone else. Most of the time, these kinds of favors are not directly repaid, but I am not expecting them to be. I throw it out to Karma to see if the universe will pay it back in some way. Sometimes it does…

I cast a net into the world. I needed a dub to HDCAM, the rare and expensive Sony High Definition tape format. Very few places in Columbus have this $60,000 deck. The ones that do want to charge a very high rate to dub to it (about $250 for a 6 minute short… kind pricey).

When I screen ACCIDENTAL ART in Beverly Hills at the Film Festival, I want it to look it’s best, but cost to return analysis says $250 is too much, but I really feel it is important to put a best foot forward on this. So I checked with Bryan Michael Block, actor extraordinaire, but also connected to the higher end of commercial production around town. He pointed me to Ben Bays who did the Horsemen short, and he was able to help me out. I showed his AIDAN 5 project at Cowtown and he was more than willing to give back a little by helping a brother out on price.



I am so grateful for the return of support and help. Doing things for other people often turns to regret when those people aren’t there for you, but then on occasion with something as important as this, it comes back when you need it the most. These guys are classy and cool and I appreciate this more than I can ever type.

Then there are those who feel they can take advantage of your generosity. This is a misunderstanding, mostly on their part. There are people who walk all over me and I continue to offer them help. They feel that I am either stupid, ignorant, or that they have successfully pulled the wool over my eyes. This isn’t true. What they don’t grasp is that I am a good person, regardless of how many times they take advantage of me. I know what they really are like, I’m not stupid. I am generous regardless of what kind of selfish bastards they are. It’s not about them; it’s about doing good things no matter what.

Although I do have my limits…

Big congrats to ACCIDENTAL ART D.P. GREG SABO of SABOSTUDIOS for his camera work making it on national television with this week’s episode of UNDERCOVER BOSS on CBS. That rocks so much. A local guy getting his work on network television is a score. Rock on Greg!

Here is a trailer for ACCIDENTAL ART. I’m not at all a fan of trailers for a short. Seems kinda silly to me, but they wanted it for this film festival, so I made this.

Accidental Art TEASER TRAILER from Peter John Ross on Vimeo.

A Postponement of Scintillation

Time glides by a little too fast these days. It’s already March. I’m barely over 2 weeks away from the big show in Beverly Hills. I’m behind on my preparations. I have much to do. I have plans within plans, all whittling away at the future. We’ll see what can be done.

One of the cool things about a Film Festival Strategy is the FREE INVITE. I had not dared hope to think I’d be in that boat, but already, 2 new invites for submission to other film festivals have come (and have subsequently been mailed out). Once you’re in at a few choice festivals, if a programmer from another festival sees it, they will invite your movie to play at their festival, and usually waive the entry fees. That’s how a lot of movies rack up the big time laurel leaves on their DVD boxes and websites.



I’m hoping now for more invitations because Film Festival Entry Fees have increased from about $25 for shorts 10 years ago to $50 each. That’s kinda pricy, if you ask me. I’ve been curbing my paid film festivals in the last few weeks, gearing up for the trip and other financial concerns. I might even sell my beloved Canon HV20. I don’t use it the way I intended. My standards are too high for what it does and even for BEHIND THE SCENES, I’m wanting a different quality. I love the 24P and 1080, but realistically, I’m shooting things with a higher standard, not this, so away the HV20 must go, my most beloved little camcorder.



I have several reformat, reinstalls of software going on for both work and personal. At least once a year I recommend cleaning off the hard drives with a fresh install of the Operating System and a re-install of the software that you use the most. Having a lot of junk on the machine slows down the processing and with video editing, processing is EVERYTHING. I like a smooth, easy to use Video Editing Computer, not a sluggish, unhappy, crashing-with-the-blue-screen-of-death type machine, even if that means pre-emptive format-reinstalls.

Have a good one everyone, Happy March

- PJR