Official Rejection

This week’s shipment of submissions will put me past the 50 mark. That’s 50 film festival submissions. Wow. I don’t think I’ve ever submitted that much before. We’ll see if it pans out. Over the next month or so, I’ll see if I made something that gets into the big festivals. As I said before, I never really tried that hard. I finally have a movie that looks and feels like a “film festival” movie. Then again, I have received my first official rejection…which is a natural segue into:


OFFICIAL REJECTION is a DVD I got for Xmas and I’ve watched it 3 times. As I gear up for a real festival run in 2010, the gift was apropos. For anyone intending to do film festivals, I cannot recommend this enough. This documentary has a ton of good information and examples of good and bad festival experiences.



Bryan Singer (X-Men), Jenna Fisher (The Office), Lloyd Kaufman (Troma), Kevin Smith (Clerks), Chris Gore (Film Threat), and Andy Dick (Newsradio) are all interviewed, and in the 2 disc version they have extended interviews with several of them too.

It looks very possible they got the laurel leaves from the Sonnyboo downloads!

Disavowing Jurisprudence

When things move again, they move fast and mightily. On my plate already is post production on a quick green screen short I tossed together this past Thursday night. I wanted to make a commentary on the ever giant Wal-Mart and the media. I was greatly inspired by seeing a TV “news” segment that was glorifying and miraculously sponsored by a hospital during the 11:00 O’clock media coverage that used to be called journalism. This cynicism and sick sense of humor keyed off a new bit. I wrote it quick and called in some actors.

Today I shot the background plate for one section of this bit. My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ has been tinkering with IN THE TRENCHES OF AN INDIE FILM documentary relentlessly since the screening a little over a week ago. She wanted to re-order all the scenes to make it flow better, plus we really agreed with most criticism from the screening which was that the Fly-On-The-Wall B-Roll segments were too long. They cause the overall pacing to drag and people lose interest. I think these sections could be equally effective in less than half the time.

The other thing needed was more on Post Production. I short-changed the entire process in the documentary that played. It was 3 minutes of montage with a quickie voice over to cover the entirety of post. Now we took some of the existing “educational” web docs and fashioned them into the movie proper. Sections on ADR, M&E Tracks, and why & how we deleted scenes fit into the scheme. The actual “editing” process is still skipped a bit, but on a DVD I can use the WebDocs of editing as bonus features.

Speaking of which, the goal is to sell DVD’s of this documentary and DVD as an educational tool. Many people who want to get into making a feature length film can get in depth with the process and really feel what it’s like to take the plunge. Creative and practical decisions with footage make for a demonstrative movie at a budget level more people can relate to as opposed to the huge multi-million dollar productions that are beyond more people’s grasp.

The final touches and clean ups for My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™’s edit are completed and we’re about to start the encoding for DVD process later tonight. Last night I worked on the DVD art and setting up the distribution with Amazon.com. My goal of 90 minutes has been met, and we’re even 3 minutes shorter than what played barely over a week ago at the Cowtown Film Series, and that’s with 14 minutes of new material ADDED to the movie. It’s another feature I produced, and that’s a goal met.



On the downside, I reviewed footage from much earlier in the year. I had always intended to do this short film but since it relied on snow, it was incredibly difficult to put together. I gave someone a shot at D.P. and after supervising the first few shots I gave over the reins and focused on working with my 7 year old actor. I digitized the footage shortly after that and was disappointed, but didn’t feel rushed to edit this piece. As we enter winter I wanted to re-examine it after not seeing a frame for months. Looking at it now, the footage was not as bad as I remember, but it still falls very far below the standards I am setting for myself for the future.

This puts me in a quandary. I will absolutely not use a frame of this footage and if this short is to be resurrected, it will be re-shot entirely. The stars may not ever align to make this happen again, but I would rather not release anything that is below my current standard of quality. I have to tell my nephew that this piece will never be done. That is not something I look forward to, but I can’t do it. I don’t even have enough footage to cut something together just for him. I don’t blame the D.P., as it was my shoot and making sure the shots I want are there is my job, no one else’s. Let’s just say that my trust of camerapersons understanding me has gone down. I will be absolutely sure I’m getting what I want for all my projects. This is a stinging reminder of my role with the camera as a director.



I’m hoping to get a sole music cue for my new little greenscreen experiment, and I have to create some graphics, plus key in the back ground and I will have a new piece on the market by the end of the week, if not sooner. I love having a greenscreen and studio I can just walk into and shoot on next to my edit suite. I don’t want to take these things for granted and not only let them inspire my creativity, but I need to ACT on these inspirations.



I love being burned in the flames of inspiration right now. 2009 looks to be quite a kick ass year; recession be damned. This year, I defeated my enemies, drank their blood, and sang the songs of victory to the lamentation of their women and children. Next year I conquer more worthy foes and loftier goals. My banner is raised, as are my standards. Let’s just watch as it all unfolds.

To my acolytes of Boo,
I wish you the best

Peter John Ross

Press Whore! The Unfiltered Facts

Okay, so week two of the COWTOWN FILM SERIES played out. Yes, we had a drastic increase in attendance. Over 100 people attended this week. It didn’t hurt that the Columbus Alive did a feature story and interview, as did Uweekly, the OSU print paper. See, I sent press releases about the COWTOWN FILM SERIES in early August, and then did follow ups at the very beginning of September for the Sept. 11th premiere. The early bird gets the worm, as they say.







Now, why both papers wanted to interview me, instead of the filmmakers that have movies playing escapes me, but press is press. I’m helping get attendance to THEIR movies, so it all works out. It’s not like I haven’t been pushing these filmmakers to get their own press. I’ve given pretty concise road maps since this summer on how to get these articles & interviews for themselves. So far, I think 2-3 might actually get some (or try to get) printed press on their own.



When doing short film festivals in the past, I would get angry about the apathy, but I think I’m past that. When you don’t promote, and no one shows up, I won’t be the one embarrassed. I’ll simply have that “I told you so” look and I might even skip out on the after party and not work hard to get anyone to head over to the bar. I want to align myself with winners, not losers. By this stage, the inhibitions and complete lack of ambition hardly can come as a surprise from some of the filmmakers whose work I present, especially when I do so much promotion for them already.



Since it’s predictable, I’m not sweating it. My focus & attention go to the ones who ARE way into this. Some of the directors of other movies are coming EVERY SINGLE WEEK and even some other filmmakers locally are making the Thursday night screening habitual. This makes me very happy. The number of these actors, directors, writers, etc. surprises me even more. There exists a core group of pros and semi-professionals who are looking to support each other, truly, in actions not hollow words.



One thing has been a constant in life and that is that one thing you can rely on is the unreliability of others. That’s why I take so much personal attention to press, but also presentation. Very few others have an interest in making a professional, good looking theatrical experience. I go to film festivals or meetings where the projector and DVD players are not tested, and nothing sucks the energy from the room like a group of people standing around, semi-silent, watching 3-4 people fumble with a not working projector or DVD player for 5-10 minutes. By then the momentum has been train-wrecked, and then when the movie plays, the mind-frame has been interrupted and it takes time to get back into it. It’s a Pavlovian response to the lights going down, the projector starting up…. So when the movie doesn’t actually start, you’ve set up anticipation, and then don’t pay off. It’s frustrating, at least for most people and not the best frame of mind for the voluntary suspension of disbelief that most movies rely on to be effective, especially amateur movies that stretch that suspension (or voluntary part) to its breaking point to get the ideas across.



I’m managing the COWTOWN FILM SERIES by myself. No one has contributed much to it because it doesn’t NEED much help. These kinds of events are not rocket science, nor do I have to put in more than 5-10 hours a week into it and that includes promotion. Now, the one regret I have was not getting a print shop as a sponsor. I wanted to get the flyers, postcards, and programs printed for free. As it is, I pay for the programs out of pocket. If we do another run of COWTOWN film premieres next year in early 2009, I will get not only a print shop to sponsor, but I think I can bag some TV time for free too.



I got in my JAG 35 lens adaptor. It works well, albeit I got what I paid for, but it will do what it needs to do. One problem, for me, is that the image inversion makes my life hell. The 35mm lens adaptor inverts the image upside down. So I can’t use the LCD screen, as it’s upside down and I just cannot adapt to that. I ordered a $50 7” LCD screen that I’ll mount upside down on top of the camera. It will arrive on Tuesday, so I can play with it more. So far, I’ve only tested it indoors with pop cans and minimal lights looking at a big monitor, with the camera upside down. The wrack-focus and depth of field effects are amazing. I will use this thing to powerful effect soon enough…My ASPECT HD codec can invert the image right-side up free of charge when I digitize.







The Columbus Alive interviewers asked a lot about HORRORS OF WAR. I can think of no topic I’m more sick of discussing. That makes editing on the documentary about the making of the movie, still being pushed to a back burner, even though the clock is ticking.



I have re-loaded my AVID XPRESS PRO projects and started to sort out outtakes and demonstrative footage for the documentary sections that have been half-cut and need B-Roll to finish. I knew I wanted to start the documentary, as a feature length doc that is, in a less “flashy” softer, subtle, slower open. I now know how to open the movie, which is a big step to seeing the whole project finished. The goal with the feature length version will be in trying to make it a broader, more generalized approach as to how we made an independent film, although I love the stories and little things. Those carry the most weight to me, as I’m trying to make a movie that I want to see, not necessarily one that anyone else will.



I love the documentaries and DVD extras for things like Peter Jackson’s THE FIGHTENERS (4 hours long) and the LORD OF THE RINGS (nearly 6 hours for each of the 3 movies, plus newer 90 minute docs for each of the 3 movies), and HEART OF DARKNESS with Francis Ford Coppola or FULL TILT BOOGIE with FROM DUSK TILL DAWN. The drama behind the camera, the camaraderie of the cast and crew, the creative process of various people in any department – THOSE are the things I like to see and hear. That’s the basis of the film to me. So it’s 50% interviews and stories, and 50% “fly on the wall” documentation to make a hybrid movie that combines my two completely different styles of filmmaking documentaries.



I’m hoping to replicate and sell DVD’s of this documentary when I’m finished. If I add the Filmmaking Tips, and other bits, it will be marketed more as a “Film School DVD” type thing, but also as the supplement disc that the movie didn’t get.



Time to get back to the grind of commercial work. “V” is NOT happy about the time I spend abroad. He’s taken to waking me up earlier and earlier trying to get his playtime with me before I head into the universe outside the walls of Rossdonia.



Peace out Amigos!

Rossifer

Origami and the Evils of Saki

I may get to go to Japan this summer. I’ve been invited to participate as an instructor in a Japanese Film Boot Camp type event. An all expenses paid trip to Japan…. Yeah, I might be interested in that. My book has made waves with the English speaking film-peeps in Japan. How cool will that be if we can get the deal ironed out? Let’s say I’m not going to be too picky in my salary demands.

Well, we’re working on the footage now for the documentary for My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ and the footage looks amazing thanks to Gil . Time to geek out on ya’ll and let’s say that choosing to shoot on the portable hard drive recorder paid off in spades. No lengthy real time digitizing of footage. I bought a firewire card for my laptop and transferred everything over to a portable USB drive and we then kept it on that drive for back up as I moved it to my main editing machine at home. Then I did the converting to the Cineform Aspect HD codec with their little stand alone program. It uprezzed the footage from 1280x720 to 1920x1080 and removed the 3:2 pulldown automatically as it conformed it to the new AVI format from M2T. The process took about 8 hours, but it was a batch process and we didn’t have to baby-sit it (except when “V” pressed the space bar to get attention).



Now we’re into the “Logging” portion of the edit. That is we went very non-linear in the storytelling and questions with out subject. We jumped around a lot and even asked clarification questions on the 2nd day from the 1st day’s shoot. Now we’re organizing every frame of footage of the interview into bins and naming the sub-clips appropriately. My Sexy Fiancé Veronica ™ has been dutifully accommodating and she’s doing the first few passes of the edits from Assembly to Fine Cut. We may consider making an hour long version of this for PBS, both regionally and possibly nationally. We’ll have a full 1080P final version by the end, so it’s possible to get it done.



One more Uncle Pete short to complete. I’ve had the backgrounds for this one since we did episode 1, but I still don’t have the free time I once had to dedicate to personal projects. Making money and giving so much of my time and skills can kill the inspirado. I just feel like the economy crashing has not bottomed out and we don’t have any idea how long this might last. The film/video business gets cut first on most company’s budgets. We have few projects on the horizon and that’s both good and bad. I can finally get back to what I WANT to do, but at the cost of financial stability. There are some big pay days coming in soon from recent gigs and I intend on paying the bills ahead. I think I’ll pay the condo fees for most of the rest of the year in one shot. I have been over paying on all the utilities lately, but I will still try to do that because it just feels like we’re waiting for the other shoe to drop.



I got the video from my appearance on INDIEFLIX , a TV show on Cox Cable in Cleveland. It was a fun show to do and the interviewers were good. I don’t really promote anything in particular, but it was cool to plug the books and the DVD’s. For anyone looking to promote their filmmaking, this show makes a nice promo piece for yourself... if you’re into that sort of thing… like getting press and your work seen by more people. Not everyone is into that, but hey who am I to judge (aside from having common sense). When I see this, I can’t focus on a single word being said because I fixate on the burly man beard I sport therein. What a dork!

Last weekend we went to the big premiere of JOHNNY WU’s THE RAPTURE at the Ohio Independent Film Festival and the reception afterwards. I had a blast as I know more people in Cleveland than I remember. Johnny throws a classy soirée and we crashed at a Motel 6 on the way home since we closed out the party at 3:30AM.



Not much else of relevance going on. The cats are doing their own thing. “V” seems to be handling our weekends away much better. Maybe he’s maturing, or maybe not. The other night he let me hold him for over 20 minutes, which is maybe an all time record. Ever since we had him snipped, he hasn’t let anyone hold him consistently for more than 2-3 minutes. Not since the young days when he would pass out on my shoulder has be been so docile and loving towards anything. He’s my pal even though he scratches the hell out of everything including our skin.

I’ve got three edit sessions tomorrow with paid clients. Very unlikely I’ll get to Uncle Pete #8. Maybe next week. So far I have very little work to do next week, but then again I didn’t have anything scheduled this week either. Is it selfish of me to hope for a temporary crash of the economy so I can get caught up on watching movies and writing scripts? I dunno…



As always,
Your faithful narrator