New IndieWorks Rewards!

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We're excited to announce that the wonderfully like-minded, community-focused Crowdfunding & Distribution platform SEED&SPARK has joined the IndieWorks team as an official sponsor. 

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Moving forward, every Silver Whiskers Award Winner of each month will receive $50 towards a crowdfunding campaign should they use http://www.seedandspark.com/ as their platform of choice. Also, that winner and the Audience Choice Award winner will each receive a 2015 subscription to Seed&Sparks' magazine Bright Ideas ($40 value). AND every new person in attendance from the filmmakers & audience of each night will receive 250 Sparks on the Seed&Spark site, which allows them to watch a streaming feature film for free! These perks begin with our IndieWorks - November Screening and continue for all monthly screenings moving forward!

So be sure to submit your film (on our site or on Film Freeway, if you prefer) & keep showing up to IndieWorks to #SupportIndieFilm because the perks are better than ever!

SUMMIT Visual Effects

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We've finished the post-production effects for SUMMIT! It's been a long road with this film. Post-Production for a no-budget feature is expected to take long, but we're almost at the 2 year mark! When everyone's working for almost or literally nothing, while also working at their real pays-the-bills jobs, things take a long time. I'd be lying if I said the wait hasn't been frustrating, but I'm just so grateful for the team of people sticking with this film and bringing it to completion, and of course for the audience that has been patiently awaiting it.

My biggest thank you goes out to my Assistant Director, Editor & Visual Effects tech Matt Gershowitz, who is the only person who has been living & breathing this film as much as I have since the start of production in January 2013. He had a big task on his hands with the effects, in particular, because there were a lot of little things that revealed our shooting location was not nearly as deserted as the setting within the film. For instance, our gas station was a wonderful gift, completely free to us thanks to my to-be mother-in-law's acquaintance who owned it; but it did come with its drawbacks. The biggest one being that it was on a main road. So Matt had to put his post skills to work. Check out the before and after below.

BEFORE

AFTER

Notice the billboard?  

On top of that, for daylight scenes in the back of our picture house, because of the shooting style of part of the film, we were often forced to see the space from every possible angle, which meant revealing houses in the distance. These quick shots, though easy to miss, could pull the audience completely out of the world of the film. So Matt had the somewhat tedious job of hiding them when they popped up in the final cut. As seen below. 

BEFORE

AFTER

As anyone who does effects knows, it's not an easy or quick task with a moving image. 

Now that it's all out of the way though, we're able to put the final touches on the film. The generous & talented Steven Smith is animating our title sequence for us, which is finishing final tweaks this week.

Opening Title

Opening Title

Lastly is the score and sound mix, which has been a long road in itself. Colin Harrington, our on-location sound recorder, did a great job on set, but had a lot of wind and crunchy snow to contend with. He has spent a long time cleaning up the audio to the best of his ability and my non-existent budget combined, acting as every sound department (foley, edit, mix) all himself. I'm proud of and grateful for the end product, but it still has some flaws that we're hoping to work out further before a festival premiere. He's also the score composer, and I'm just overwhelmed with excitement over what he's done with it. He really brought out and enhanced the feel of the film. 

As of right now, we're 2-3 weeks away from submitting to our first few festivals, and about two months away from our final polished cut. We have a cast & crew premiere planned for the 2 year anniversary in January, and I'm incredibly excited and anxious for that. We're hoping to release our official full-length trailer around that time as well.  I'll be sure to keep you updated as we progress further. 

In the meantime, feel free to go back and read some past updates through the Post-Production process:

Thanks for your patience & support!

-Christina 

IndieWorks: Halloween 2014 Recap

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Wednesday was the Halloween Edition of IndieWorks, and it was a fun & frightening night! With over 50 people in house, the evening was a huge success and a real testament to how much we've grown since last year, particularly because the Horror genre can be a bit of an acquired taste. We screened 8 thrilling & entertaining films by talented local filmmakers, who all brought something unique and innovative to the line-up and Q&A. Thank you everyone who came out to support the filmmakers and spend the evening with us celebrating the Halloween season. We definitely had a blast, especially because we're big Horror fans at CongestedCat & feel its often an overlooked and under-appreciated genre. We hope you enjoyed the films, as well, and the opportunity to network with other filmmakers and film enthusiasts!

See our photos from the evening:

The films of the night:

Advent (Directed by Chance Muehleck)
Anthony Czara plays other people. But when he impersonates the missing teenaged son of a dysfunctional small-town family, this bold con artist gets more than he bargained for.

Vivienne Again (Directed by Kim Garland)
A funeral home employee saves a dead woman from the killer who's closing in to complete the job.

Deal Travis In (Directed By Kim Garland)
A man trying to make his peace with the mysterious death of his daughter is offered the answers he's seeking, but at the cost of his freedom and another woman's life.

Gasmask (Directed by Pablo Bonelli)
A scavenger in a ravaged wasteland comes across an abandoned house deep in the woods. He discovers a family living there that doesn’t take kindly to strangers. After an initial confrontation, they invite him in for food, but nothing is as it seems and the dangers within that house could just be worse than the hell that the world has become.

Sophie & the Chain (Directed by Daniel Rothman)
Our story begins with a young girl named Sophie. Trapped, chained in the deepest, darkest forest, far in a distant land beyond the reaches of the sun. 

Teasers (Directed by Rafael De Leon)
It's girls night for three friends who take pride and amusement in leading guys on. However, their latest victims decide to hit back with a tease of their own: a scare that gets out of control.

Wormbug (Directed by Arlen Konopaki)
After Henry swallows a bug in his sleep, very strange things start happening to him. Realizing the bug is to blame, Henry wrestles for control of his life against the bug, who has its own sinister agenda. But to what lengths will Henry have to go to rid himself of this pest?

People in Trees (Directed by Jonah Vigil)
After Ellie Burroughs celebrates her last day of school by doing an obscene amount of MDMA, she finds herself alone in the woods with a cult.

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. The Silver Whiskers winner goes on to screen at our end of year Best of Fest event in April, while both winning filmmakers have the option to be featured in our Insider Series. 

For the Halloween 2014 lineup, our winning filmmakers were:
    Audience Choice Award:  "Gasmask"
    Silver Whiskers Award:  "Wormbug"

Check out the trailers for each below:

 

Be sure to join us for the next Edition (our final of 2014) on November 19th!