SEA SHANTY UPDATE!!

First of all - Houston Dynamo play tonight (Wednesday, March 19) in the Semi-Finals of the CONCACAF Champions Cup. Fox Soccer Channel at 6:30pm Central Time, I believe.
and…
The US National Team (the U-23 guys, our Olympic team) play Canada on Thursday night on ESPN Deportes or your favorite online watching venue. This is OLYMPIC QUALIFYING people!!
and…
Brian McBride scored perhaps the most important goal for Fulham in the English Premiere League. He is, to me at least, the greatest soccer player America has produced.

And now….Ladies and Gentlemen…the real reason I’m writing such a long blog entry at 1:00am on a school night….

X-GEN Lives On!

X-GEN was just accepted at the INDIE GRITS Film Festival in Columbia, SC. This is our 4th major festival, but since it’s been a whille, let’s review…

First, our amazing poster by the enigmatic artist known only as El Brigham (click to see the full resolution image):

Then the mind-boggling history of fun we’ve been able to have and a walk down memory lane:

1) Write The Wingnut and You! (August-Septmeber 2003)
2) Film Wingnut (October 2003)
3) Begin writing “The Surface” (ca. February 2004)
4) Wingnut selected for broadcast on “Second Cinema”
5) Start filming “The Surface” (May, 2004)
5) Wingnut selected for broadcast on UNC Public TV’s “NC Visions” (in NC, SC, and VA)
6) Continue writing “The Surface” (Summer 2004)
7) Wingnut airs on “Second Cinema” throughout July, 2004
Wingnut airs on “NC Visions” in October, 2004 and is re-broadcast occasionally for the next year!
9) More filming on “The Surface” - then change name to X-GEN. Keep filming (fall-winter 2004)
10) More filming (and some writing) on X-GEN throughout spring and early summer 2005

Let’s take a break, shall we…

11) Finish filming X-GEN (I honestly don’t remember…November, 2005?)
12) Edit throughout 2005 and early 2006. Score, effects, CG, voice over…really, you have no idea.
13) Rough draft of X-GEN shows at New Bern Director’s Conference (early 2006)
14) More editing…very painful. Two test screenings…very fun and surprising…GET ACCEPTED at the MENDOCINO FILM FESTIVAL in, uh, Mendocino, CA!!

15) Receive phone call: We’re in at the REAL TO REEL FILM FESTIVAL . The call comes just minutes before the start of the screening of…

16) X-GEN Premiere at Duke University’s Griffith Theatre. Around 250 in attendance. Killer post-premiere party. (June 3, 2006, Durham, NC)

17) More editing; Show at Mendocino (Summer, 2006); Submit to more festivals. Get into the REAL TO REEL Festival in Charlotte, NC.

18) Eventually show at the REAL TO REEL festival and win the “Best Feature” award. Sometime after that get in at the Cackalacky Festival, also in Charlotte, NC. Wingnut gets in to some cool festivals in here somewhere…it’s a bit murkey…but it ALWAYS gets a great audience reaction.

19) Show at the Cackalacky Festival in October of 2006. Display the poster of the image above around the venues…Intern Sergio sees it and says, “We just owned every other poster at this fest.” And really, we did.

20)…and then we show at some other places around NC…show to friends…and write and film The Spectre…and write, film, edit, and screen Bailey…and some other short stuff with other folks. You know, the usual filming and editing of 3 or 4 films over the course of about 6 months.

21) AND THEN…Matt Long, Hollywood branch office, submits X-GEN to more festivals…(Winter, 2007)

22) And we’re here. In April, 2008 - -almost 2 years after the premiere and 4 years after beginning writing, X-GEN is in at the INDIE GRITS festival in April in Columbia, SC.

This film cost about $6,000 to make, and we did everything ourselves (or directly recruited and supervised others to do what we could not). Every festival we’ve been to is filled with feature films that cost closer to $100,000 or more (sometimes in the millions!).

Why detail this stuff? Because we spent so much time, 2 years of our lives to make while all working full-time jobs, etc., and unbelievable amounts of effort and bloody-minded stubborness to create these films - X-GEN especially - that it would be insane not to be proud. So…proud moment taken.

Of course, the fame that attaches to all independent film has touched us all. Cristal was consumed, dangerous risks were taken, sports cars were crashed, tell-all books were published.

Up next:
Hollywood Matt and I are looking at a new feature screenplay this summer. Thriller…Noir…but, as always, with a very unique twist on the world it’s all set in.

COMMENT! Look at the bottom right of this column or do the Facebook thing.

This entry was posted on March 19, 2008 at 1:57 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.