We Had Plans is screening at the Queens World Film Festival on March 17th at 9:30pm. It's St. Patrick's Day for most people, but has always been my mom's birthday for me, which is quite fitting because we're in a screening block about motherhood, screening with a feature titled "As Good As You." Kelsey & I will be at the screening talking about the film in a Q&A. We'll let you know how it goes.
-Christina
In honor of Summit finally being available on Vimeo on Demand & VHX, here's a list of reasons why you should buy the film (other than maybe the compelling story or your general interest in indie & horror films):
My team & I spent over 3 years working on it, during ridiculously long hours, in extreme weather conditions, on no pay, just to bring the film to fruition. That kind of hard work & dedication deserve an audience.
It was the biggest learning experience for me as a filmmaker, and if you've been following my career thus far and particularly the trials & tribulations of making Summit, you can't miss the final product. If you're an indie filmmaker who hasn't made a feature yet in particular, I think it's a great opportunity to learn from my mistakes.
It's not all about me; there's a lot of talent all over that screen that I cannot take credit for & deserves attention in its own right.
Although it's hard for me to avoid only seeing the flaws, it's a project I'm proud of and one I really want to share with you. I don't think it's a bad 80 minutes of your time; and if you do enjoy it, there's some cool special features you can watch with both creative and technical behind the scenes information.
Not only would you get to finally watch the film I've been talking about for 4 years and support the work of the people whose literal blood, sweat & tears went into making it, but you'd also be helping me earn back the over $6,000 (via credit cards & loans) I personally put into the film; and you'd be supporting the sustainability of indie film as not just art, but an actual profitable career.
Thanks for the support!
-Christina
Today's the day we've been waiting for! It's the 3-year anniversary of the start of principal photography of Summit and the day we finally get to share the finished film with the world! It's now for rent and purchase on Vimeo on Demand & VHX! Watch it now & then tell your friends. Help make our team's hard work worth it by getting this film in front of indie film and genre fans! Thank you!
Today was the final festival screening for Summit, and it was a nice ending to its run. I was there with my mom, like in Rhode Island, but two of my cousins were able to attend as well. The venue and overall vibe was a lot like Scare-A-Con, but less busy. This was actually the first time where I didn't sit through the film. I stepped out after the first few minutes because I had to upload it 2 days ago for its VOD release & I just could not sit through it again. But I was able to hear through the door periodically; and hanging outside the room led to other filmmakers coming over to chat with me, which was cool. I also met some wonderful female filmmakers through a panel I spoke in, which included horror icon Eileen Dietz. As for the actual screening, the screen was small, similar to Scare-A-Con, but the sound was better & the picture quality was more solid than at Manhattan. There were only maybe 5 to 8 strangers in the room but they seemed to really enjoy the film based on their comments & questions during the Q&A. Also, a few actors came up to me expressing interest in working with me after seeing it. The biggest and loveliest surprise was that my high school photo/video teacher, Mr Krywe, who I had not seen in almost 10 years, showed up to see the film. He had with him the "feature" screenplay I wrote when I was 16 and he asked me to sign it. It was truly wonderful seeing him again and hearing that he uses my drive & work ethic back in high school as an example for his current students. He was the first person to introduce me to the technical aspects of filmmaking & I'm really grateful to have had him as a teacher. He asked me to come speak to his class (which has now become much more decked out than when I was there) and I'm really looking forward to doing so. I can feel that a few unexpected opportunities may have come out of today.
We did not win any awards this time around; however, I'm proud to have been nominated as 1 of 5 films in 4 categories (including the most prestigious of Best Feature & Best Director) out of 30 features. And I'm just glad the audience seemed to enjoy the film.
Here are some photos from the day. (I'll add professional shots when the festival releases them.)
And here's a quick moment from the panel.
Summit will FINALLY be released for rent or purchase tomorrow on Vimeo on Demand & VHX! Please support both this film & us in making our next one by renting or buying it as soon as you can! Thank you!
-Christina
CORRECTION: I found out later that we won Best Sound. I appreciate the recognition, but it's an odd win. I would say sound is our most overt weakness due to environmental circumstances & lack of budget. It's actually quite cringeworthy at times, if I'm being honest. However, maybe they appreciated the choices in the sound design. In any case, I'm grateful to Colin Harrington, who did 100% of the hands on work by himself, both during production and in post.
This was originally written for our Seed&Spark supporters, but it applies to all our followers & supporters.
Happy New Year! It's been a while since our last update because, in addition to the holidays (which we hope were wonderful for you), we've been completing the festival run of Summit, which included winning some awards & getting some reviews (read more about that here!) and experiencing some changes at IndieWorks, our monthly screening series (read more about that here). However, we're back to thinking about the shorts and wanted to send you an update! We have a couple more local screenings of both films coming up this year, and then we have plans to put them publicly on Vimeo & YouTube in the late Spring. Summit is premiering online for rent on January 18th and we want to give that some time to attract views before we release the shorts. But no fear, they will be available to share with the public soon enough.
We've been talking a lot recently about our motives to make the shorts. Initially, they sprung from a personal place for Kelsey, as we've discussed; and our decision to crowdfund them came out of a desire to make films the right way, where all our crew & cast (especially those who volunteered their time & skills in the past) would be paid. And we're really proud that we got a chance to do that. (Thanks to you!) However, here we are again, a year & a half later, itching to tell stories that we not only feel we're creatively equipped to tell but also feel an audience wants to watch. Yet, we don't have the funds to move forward. We shot two no-budget projects last year, my short titled "Hello" and our pilot, "Two Gays & a Girl." We're really excited about and proud of both, but we did it again asking people to volunteer (ourselves including, which not too many people think about) and we want 2016 to be different. This update isn't a pre-crowdfunding campaign launch appeal, don't worry. It's really just something we want to share; where we are and how we're feeling. We have 2 shorts and 2 web series we want to shoot this year. We also want to get our feature off the ground. We have an audience, including you and the people we gained through Summit & 'Kelsey,' but no profits from our work to put towards new projects. So, that's what we're working on this year, sustainability. The first step is definitely releasing Summit on VOD and working towards getting slow but steady rentals (we know you'll help spread the word). We're hoping that can go towards funding the shorts we want to do this year, at least. Some filmmakers think shorts are just a means to getting to features. We don't see them that way. At the end of the day, it's about storytelling. And if we have a story we want to tell that makes the most sense as a short, then that's how we're going to tell it. We also know that shorter content, especially new media serialized content, is how we initially gained an online following; so we want to be able to roll out short-form content regularly to keep that audience paying attention and wanting more from us (sustainability). There is, though, as mentioned, a feature we do want to make, as well. It's an exciting venture. But we want it to be more polished than our previous work, while still having the fresh creativity & innovation that we believe we bring to all our work. We want to have the production value that general audiences expect without sacrificing creative integrity to have that. I suppose we're looking to combine our no-budget skills & approach with an actual budget, if that makes sense. But we know that where we currently are, sustainability isn't around the corner to that degree. We need to hustle and find funding in uncharted territory (and possibly some crowdfunding mixed in there, but much later on). So we've been using the festival run of these 2 shorts (and Summit & 'Kelsey') to try to meet people who have skills and connections that we don't, who can get us to the next level we want to be on. Kelsey & I feel that we need a producer (or production company) who likes our work and understands our vision but brings more of an industry mind to the table and has access to funding sources and opportunities that we don't. So I'd say that's a big part of our 2016 journey, looking for that person to collaborate with. However, regardless, we plan to keep creating and being creative, and sharing our work with you. We're so grateful for you all and the fact that you've helped us get where we are; and we hope you're proud to be part of our journey and our team, and that you'll stay with us on this ride.
-Christina & Kelsey
