One of our newest shorts "We Had Plans," has been accepted to the 19th NYC PictureStart Film Festival! This is a festival that accepted only 7% of films submitted this year! We'll be screening on June 2nd at 7pm. Tickets are $10 online, $12 at the door. RSVP to the screening here.
Short Films
Queens World Film Festival "Juice It" Recap
Friday night was the "Juice It" screening at the Queens World Film Festival; and what a night it was! In a 400 seat theater, over half the seats were full with an enthusiastic audience - many connected to filmmakers there, some just attending for a night of indie film.
"Juice it" screened 1st of the 6 films, and it really opened the night up. People were LAUGHING, like really laughing all throughout, especially through the ending. The room was a roar at a certain dirty line (in reference to a pretzel) for anyone who's seen it before. I've grown accustomed to that being the biggest laugh at screenings, which is fun & refreshing. Clearly people are not expecting that at all.
After the screening, audience members were raving about the film. I got such wonderful & insightful comments. Also, people were all over Ricardo & his performance! It was very exciting. I tweeted some quotes about the film from people here & here. I was also interviewed by a reporter from the Queens Courier, so hopefully that'll come out this week. Afterwards, we went to a local bar & hung out with some friends and a few audience members turned fans. It was a great night. And, overall, it was lovely being part of this particular festival where the people who run it are so clearly sincere in their support of local filmmakers and trying to create a sense of community between us. I enjoyed how interactive they made the build up to the screening and will surely submit future films shot in Queens. Until then, I'm excited to see the film in front of an audience again on May 11th at the DAMN! Film Series.
BTS of New Short "Hello"
in Short Films
Last Saturday, I shot a new short film titled Hello. For the past two years, I was an Instructor for a mobile workshop, which I've written about in the past, so I'd spent about one week out of every month in a hotel room. I'd always let my imagination run away with me and occasionally convince myself that maybe my room was haunted. At a workshop in January, during the second to last night in my room, I couldn't sleep (as usual) and also couldn't get the melody from the opening sequence of "Up" out of my head (as I've seen it about 35 times, using it as a teaching tool in the workshop), so I got inspired to write a short screenplay. I ended up writing a 5 page quirky comedy about a haunted hotel room from the ghost's perspective.
Everyone who read it really enjoyed it, as did I, so I figured why not make it. It's short & sweet, and I knew it'd be fairly easy to shoot.
I wrote the script with two of my favorite actors in mind: Lauren A. Kennedy & Ricardo Manigat. Anyone who's been following my work will surely recognize them. So, I got them on board; Peter Westervelt, my wonderfully creative & resourceful DP, was game, Matt Gershowitz, my AD/Editor & right hand man, was excited to get back to a fun small-scale project after our long two years of Summit, and Rashida Bolden, our makeup artist for our last two shorts, was gracious enough to offer her talent & services to the spooky-funny project. We rounded out our low-key team with co-founder Chris Carroll taking on-set photos & an additional actor Maylin Castro, who hung out with us for a quick scene. A big thank you goes out to all of them for helping bring this production together.
Also thanks to generous local film friends Steven Smith & Michael DiBiasio - because of their equipment loans, I only had to rent one piece of equipment, a Zeiss zoom lens. As for the location, I rented the cheapest room I could find near my apartment (to have as a homebase if needed) and we shot the film kind of guerrilla style in the sketchiest & sleaziest motel I've ever been in, filled with drugs & prostitution for sure, between 2pm and 2am (though it quickly became 3am thanks to daylight savings time). Thankfully, we survived the icky motel unscathed and pulled the film off without a hitch! Our only setbacks were getting a late start, so having to change one day scene to a night scene, and my monitor not working. Otherwise though, it was smooth. Luckily, sound is not an issue for this film because there was some serious noise going on in the halls, which actually worked in our favor because the questionable activities of the other guests allowed us to fly under the securities' radar & shoot the film sans disruption or confrontation. I'm so excited about what we accomplished with this short short & cannot wait to dive into Post.
Below are BTS photos from the shoot:
And here are some shots from the Raw footage:
With Fogal Stocking
Without Fogal Stocking
We shot on a BlackMagic Pocket.
A film we screened at IndieWorks a few months back used a stocking over their lens to give their footage more of an old film (stock) feel because it was a period piece. This inspired me to want to do that for this film and create a motif where the stocking would only be on the lens anytime we're seeing events through the perspective of the ghost in the film. Maybe you can see the subtle difference in the screenshots above, though it's easier to see in the moving footage. Peter found this article and executed the look perfectly. We're both really happy with the end result and will definitely do it again should a project come along that's suitable (which I'm sure will because I spent $65 on those stockings & that's enough to get me thinking creatively for an opportunity to use up both legs).
That's it - the story of shooting "Hello." I'll keep you updated on post-production over the next few months!
-Christina
Juice It: Queens World Film Festival Official Selection
'Juice It' has been accepted to the 2015 Queens World Film Festival! This is especially exciting because the film was shot in Queens. It will screen March 20th at 1pm at The Secret Theater, with the possibility of winning awards and an encore screening at the Museum of the Moving Image. Feel free to check out the QWFF site & the list of all the accepted films.
We can't wait to share this short with another audience!
FirstGlance Contest Results
Juice It came in 3rd place out of 16 films in FirstGlance Film Festival's Contest. Thanks everyone who voted & supported! We hope you enjoyed the film! We'll let you know when it's back online for viewing.
