Kelsey Ep.10 "Making Things Work"

In the season finale, Kelsey's relationship with Joanne heats up as the events of the past few months come to a head for her and her friends at their local bar.

 

In the season finale, Kelsey's relationship with Joanne heats up as the events of the past few months come to a head for her and her friends at their local bar. 9th Episode: https://vimeo.com/83597154

"House Near The End of The Street" Screened & Other Fest News

This past weekend, our Contest Submission "House Near The End of the Street," which ended up making the Top 10 Finalists in said contest, screened at the Macabre Faire Film Festival. It was like a mini Comic Con with hundreds of Horror Fans in attendance. Christina & Ryan had a blast meeting the audience and hearing their positive feedback on the short. 

The film also screened at the NJ HorrorFest last year. Unfortunately, we could not attend that one. But we hear it was received well. 

 

We will not be submitting the film to the any additional festivals. So feel free to watch it on our site at any time. Like this short and "Come Here Often?," our other short "S.K.A." will not be screening at any future festivals after making Official Selection at the 2013 Dark Comedy Festival, 2013 Faux Film Festival, 2013 Laugh or Die Fest & being invited to screen at the 2013 Katra Film Series

You can also watch the film on our site:

 

Our main festival submissions/screenings for the new year will predominately be focused on Summit, but also on Christina's new short "Juice It," "Ryan's upcoming short "Fed Up," and a few other short films we have slated for production over the summer. As always, we'll keep you updated. 

IndieWorks: January Recap

This Wednesday, we held our first IndieWorks for 2014. The lineup was fantastic and we had a great time with everyone who joined us for the night (especially with the extreme cold weather NYC was pushing through that day).

The awards go to...

At the end of the evening, we announced our winning filmmakers for both Audience Choice Award & Silver Whiskers Award. The Audience Choice Award is voted upon by all those in attendance, and the Silver Whiskers is judged by the CongestedCat Team based on a system rating 8 categories of Story, Dialogue/Writing, Direction, Acting, Cinematography, Sound, Editing, and Production Value. It goes on to screen at our end of the year Best of Fest event.

For the January 2014 lineup, our winning filmmakers were:
    Audience Choice Award:  "Harry Grows Up" Directed by Mark Nickelsburg.
    Silver Whiskers Award:  "La Solitaria" Written & Directed by Nelson Isava.

Oh, we have a monthy Newsletter!

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"Kelsey" First Season Screening

Tuesday evening, we screened all 10 episodes of the first season of "Kelsey" back-to-back at the People's Lounge (our IndieWorks space, as well as a prominent shooting location on the web series). The night was hosted by the wonderful Dana Piccoli, writer for AfterEllen.com.

We were worried that no one would show up in the 5 degree chill but there were about 35-40 people, not including cast & crew! It was such a fun night. The audience really responded to the show. Lots of laughs and positive reactions. We know for a fact that there were at least two people there who had never seen the series before and definitely walked away as fans.

Click through the photos of the night:

 

After the screening, Dana called Christina, Kelsey and Nichole up to the stage to have a little Q&A with her. We unfortunately did not get a chance to record it. But we'll paraphrase what was asked and answered.

Dana first asked Kelsey: "the show is named after you and I’m sure we are all curious….how much of Kelsey is drawn from your own experience?"

Kelsey responded saying that, unfortunately, the first three episodes did happen to her. But after that point, we take creative license. She talked about how telling Christina the "Suckface" story led to the creation of the series. She also spoke a little about wanting to showcase a real person, saying that she's not a stereotype and that, although the series is a comedy, having realism was an important factor for her and pulling from her own experience affected that. 

Dana then asked Christina: "CongestedCat has done mainly short films so far, why go the web series route with Kelsey?"

Christina spoke about how she had been watching web series' for a while and noticed how they were really gaining traction in terms of audiences and attention. She felt like it'd be a great move for the company to gain a following. But more than that, the creative appeal of getting to build characters and revisit them again and again sounded like a lot of fun. She and Kelsey both love TV and the idea that audiences fall in love with characters and want more of them. She wanted to give that to an audience and connect with people that way; and when Kelsey told her the ridiculous but hilarious "Suckface" story, it seemed like the perfect opportunity.

Dana then turned her attention over to Nichole and said, "Nichole! Welcome to lesbian icon status! How does it feel to be adored by lesbians across the country (and Canada)? What has been the response by fans?"

Nichole said it's been great and such an honor. She told a story about how a woman in Germany tweeted that she could die happy because Nichole had retweeted her tweet about the series.

Dana responded by congratulating her on reaching international lesbian icon status! She then asked, "as a very experienced improver, were you able to put those skills to work in Kelsey?"

Nichole complimented Kelsey's writing and mentioned how much fun her lines were to perform. But also talked about how Christina would sometimes hold cut at the end of the scripted material to let them do a little improv to see what fun came out of it.

The Q&A went on for just a little bit after that. We can actually show it to you because the lovely Elizabeth Effy Yanes, a fan in the audience, decided to record the end of the Q&A and was nice enough to send it to us. Thank you to her!

 

We just want to thank everyone who braved the cold and came out to support the series. And we really want to thank Dana. She was so much fun and such a great host. We loved what she had to say about the show and truly appreciate her support over on AfterEllen.

Be sure to tune in on blip.tv on Tuesday for the season one finale. And don't worry, we've got more updates and fun stuff, like blooper reels, coming your way after the season ends!