IndieWorks: November 2014 Recap

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Wednesday was the November edition of IndieWorks. We were worried the cold would keep the crowd away, but we had over 40 people in house. We screened 6 original and riveting films by talented local filmmakers, and the night was a big hit. Thank you everyone who came out to support the filmmakers and spend the evening with us. We hope you enjoyed all the films and the opportunity to network with other filmmakers and film enthusiasts!

Also, a huge thank you to Alyssa Meadows for filling in for Chris as the photographer of the night!

See the photos from the evening:

 

The films of the night:

BLISS (Directed by Hannah Leshaw)
A woman tries to intimately connect with her partner but ends up feeling more alone.

Moving On (Directed by Andrea Fumagalli)
Two girls in Brooklyn deal with the end of their relationship. Are they ready to move on?

Molly's Method (Directed By Gabriela Revilla Lugo)
Molly Mayer, famous marriage counselor, finds herself in hot water when a tryst with her patient leads to surprisingly positive results.

i Hate being Black (Directed by Kevin Craig West)
a conversation amongst buppies.

Darling Can You Answer The Door (Directed by Tomer Adorian)
A story about the nuances in a relationship between a struggling artist and the man who loves her.

A Good Fish (Directed by Nicholas Santos)
Left with nothing by their recently deceased father, two aimless brothers head home to face his funeral. 

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. 

The Silver Whiskers winner also receives $50 towards a crowdfunding campaign on SeedandSpark.com should they use the platform, and both winners received a free subscription to Bright Ideas Magazine. (If YOU would like a subscription for 40% off, feel free to sign up with promo code indieworks.) 

For the November 2014 lineup, our winning filmmakers were:
    Audience Choice Award:  "Darling Can You Answer The Door"
    Silver Whiskers Award:  "Molly's Method"

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