vegasfranciscojunctioncityportlandseattlevancouver... and back

Mon, 13 Jun 2011 22:45:33 -0700

Almost 2 weeks ago now Adam and I embarked on a crazy 10 day adventure to visit the Seattle True Independent Film Festival and visit the great northwest, which neither of us had ever seen.

Here’s how things stack up:

- 4 states
- 2 countries
- 1 beautiful wedding
- over 2,500 miles
- 4 major US mountains
- 1 blown tire
- 1 over night stay in Oregon due to said blown tire
- 2 new tires and 2 broken tire locks
- 6 major cities
- 3 animal crossing signs - deer, elk and bear
- 2 dozen+ pit stops
- 3 new festival acceptances
- dozens of waterfalls
- several very old bridges
- many, many amazing friends along the way (THANK YOU!!)
- 1 fantastic festival

I know I’m not done with that list, but it’s late and we didn’t get a lot of sleep last night. There are TONS of pictures on our Facebook page so go check them out! I’ll be adding some to the bottom of this “not quite finished but I need to sleep or avoid me tomorrow” post. :) Goodnight my friends!

Fire!

Wed, 2 Mar 2011 19:45:30 -0800

They say when you’re being attacked to yell “Fire!” because if you yell “help” you’re less likely to actually get the help you need.

So... FIRE!!

From the end of this month through the entire month of April - WE ARE BUSY!! SD! will be appearing in 8 festivals over this time and everyone is promo-ing in awesome ways. So help a film out. Check out these sites, rate us, review us, send SD! just a little love.

How often do we ask (beg) for anything?

USC FirstLook Film Festival -
This is a huge event for us! I even made a count down on the News page. If Sudden Death! wins the viewer choice award (see, this is where you come in) we will be invited to a DGA screening with many, many lovely people who like to give newly graduating USC students jobs. Help Adam get a job. Help us make Sudden Death!: the feature. Fire.
RSVP to FirstLook

Cleveland International Film Festival -
An Oscar qualifier which always spells fun, CIFF is a great fest. Sudden Death! has 3 screenings - more then almost any other short film! The more you rate up and review our little film the more buzz worthy we make it at this fest and the more we can pack out all 3 screenings. And buzz with the Oscar’s is always a big deal.
http://www.clevelandfilm.org/festival/films/2011/sudden-death

FilmSnobbery.com Screening Series -
The guy who runs this is an incredibly hooked-up, rising star in the film fest circuit. He’s set up a great screening series just outside of NYC. Check out his site - he’s ridiculously well put together and rate SD! with lots of stars. 5 even.
http://screenings.filmsnobbery.com/2011/03/01/sudden-death/

Fallbrook Film Festival -
We’ve known some of the great people at Fallbrook for almost 5 months now when they first saw Sudden Death! We are thrilled to be a part of this fest and we’re happy to see that they’re pretty happy to have us too. Here’s a great press release from Fallbrook, no action required.
Fallbrook Film Festival new article/press release - Sudden Death!

FirstGlance Film Festival -
I have special love for this fest because it spans two of my favorite hometown cities - Philadelphia and Hollywood. Sudden Death! will be playing at FirstGlance Hollywood in April. They do a fantastic job of promo-ing their filmmakers. All you have to do here is load and watch our trailer on their site. It’s that easy. So please make their efforts worth while and click....
http://www.youtube.com/user/firstglancefilms#p/u/15/Rp_q5-Ldl2o

Buffalo Niagara Film Festival -
Although this festival is still working out some of their kinks you can check out SD! info and screening times on the site below. This is mostly for my WNY friends, and let’s be honest, you’re like family. Hoping some Houghton students, faculty and alums will make the trek north to check us out since we unfortunately won’t be there!
http://www.buffaloniagarafilmfestival.com/film_guide.html

Lake Arrowhead Film Festival -
This is a pretty fun fest with a GREAT theme this year - Music and the Magic of Movies. How perfect is that for us?! They haven’t released their schedule yet or anything fun for you to click, but rest assured, as soon as they do I’ll be posting.

Facebook and Twitter -
Yup, not a fest, but festivals (and production companies, agencies, managers...) look at these things. The more fabulous fans Sudden Death! has the more likely it is that someone will want to make the feature. And don’t we all want that?
Click and join!

IMDB -
Another non-fest. I’m on a roll. We’re always looking for a good review and what better place to do it then IMDB. Rate us, review us - we appreciate the love! The more we go “up” the more they’ll want to see SD! on the big screen!

I think that’s about it for now. Thank you for being some of the most supportive people of our lives. (Yes, our parents read this too.) We are very thankful for you every day and literally wouldn’t be in this place without you.

THANK YOU!

Love to love you, baby

Sat, 12 Feb 2011 11:17:38 -0800

In light of Valentine’s Day let’s do one of my favorite things and make a list about love. I knew you’d like that idea.

Top 10 Ways we’ve seen love for Sudden Death!

1) You actually come to our screenings. Thank you!! Thank you more for liking us after coming to our screenings. We had a woman once stand up during the Q&A and tell us that the movie sounded like a horrible idea but she came anyway and LOVED it. Glad we could win a few over to the dark side of comedy.
2) You join us on Facebook, Twitter and Tumblr. Yup, I know it sounds silly but we really appreciate it. It shows us that we’re not just wandering around the world for nothing. You actually like us enough to click that little “Like” button. It helps us promote the movie, get into festivals and hopefully get the feature made! And for that we thank you. (any Tosh fans out there?)
3) You email us the nicest stuff. We’ve gotten emails from every corner of this country and several from around the world. One person even asked if the “Dr. Horrible’s people had seen Sudden Death! first.” Thanks for boosting our already ballooning ego. And thanks for encouraging us family, friends, fans and strangers!
4) You invite us places. We’re the shy kids at the party - we need a little nudge. We’ve already been invited to several screenings all over the US. We’re happy the word is traveling so fast! And when we show up to these screenings you treat us with so much love and respect - thank you!
5) You say nice things about us. Our IMDB page exploded in the first few months of running the film festival circuit. We have several great fan reviews and just about the best critics review we could ask for. (Did we get 4 stars and an “A” grade - oh yeah) From programmers and critics to fans you all have knocked our socks off. We feel the love.
6) You give us awesome awards. This is really more for the festival programmers but THANK YOU! If you read my last post we DID end up winning the Best Comedy Short Award at Trail Dance and I’m honestly impatiently awaiting the Golden Drover to arrive at our doorstep because I think it’s just about the coolest thing I’ve ever seen. But we’ve really gotten some gorgeous awards, so unique and each one represents such an integral part of our film. Thanks for loving our film so much!
7) You want to work with us. I know, as crazy as it may seem Sudden Death! has actually gotten some of our cast and crew work. From the technical to the artistic people have asked us for contact info for our people for months. Even just last week we were contacted by a group putting on a theater production in Branson, MO looking for our lyricist. (Branson is where dreams come true.) We really do love our cast and crew!
8) You are our promo gurus. You help us get the word out about our movie and upcoming screenings by telling your friends, reposting on Facebook, retweeting on Twitter, adding us to your website, wearing our tee shirts (yes, we did buy a rather large amount of “I Heart SD” tee’s in San Diego. It works for us too...), handing out posters and postercards to your friends. THANK YOU! “Our business is word of mouth” (Family Guy) so thanks for being our mouthpiece.
9) You actually liked the movie enough to buy it. And the soundtrack! We’ve shipped SD! out all over the world. I think we’ve shipping at least a dozen to one man in particular. I have no idea how some of you have found us or even heard of Sudden Death! but we’re so happy you did! Thanks for showing us some random love at times when we’ve needed it most.
10) You’re still here. Maybe you’re all just glutton’s for punishment but you keep coming back. That’s my favorite part. You guys keep coming back for more.

So here’s my random love fest. Thank you all so much for loving Sudden Death! as much as we do. So much love went into it; I’m glad it’s coming back out too. And thanks for loving us. Maybe you don’t mean to but it’s love by association.

Hope you all have a happy Valentine’s Day. And no matter what, we’ll always be your Valentine.

What I’m trying to saying is, I’m annoyed I can’t go

Wed, 26 Jan 2011 09:41:40 -0800

It’s inevitable while running your film through the festival circuit. Whether it be an issue of money, time, work or over-lapping festivals, eventually you’re going to end up missing a few. I hate missing film festivals. I know that there are things to see, people to meet and experiences only to be had at that venue, that are so unique they’re worth the trip all by themselves.

Such has been the case a lot lately. We missed the Houston Comedy Fest in December after working, re-working and over-working every option possible on the face of this great big planet to get us there. We were nominated for seven awards and won two. Now I really wish I was there!

We missed Iron Mule in NY, Valley Film Fest back in October, Jacksonville by about a week - another win (!), Secret City - our first best picture win (I’m seeing a theme....) and now, this week we’ll be missing the Trail Dance Film Festival in Oklahoma. Did I mention that we’re nominated for Best Comedy Short at this one? Such is the life of the indie-filmmaker, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I’d rather be in Oklahoma with it’s open ranges and buffalo and unusually large amounts of snow this year.... ?

In any case it can’t be changed and isn’t worth further whining. We try very hard to be as “present” as we possibly can from 100 -3,000 miles away. We’ve done web chats, chat rooms, met tons of fans via Facebook. I like to think that there are always ways to connect to our audience that are special to the people at any particular festival. Since we’re nominated at Trail Dance they asked us to put together an acceptance video just in case we win. We blew up a close-to-real-sized Golden Drover statue (TDFF’s Award - How flipping cool is this thing??!) and had Adam interact with it during the taping (while wearing a suit!). He’s pretty dang hilarious.

So friends and fans and wonderful festival runners - we are SO sorry we can’t be there with you this weekend. Have a wonderful time, take and post lots of pictures and do at least one line dance for me!

The Life of my One Year Old

Fri, 31 Dec 2010 22:51:34 -0800

Movie that is. It’s hard to believe we’ve actually, physically been running around with this thing for a year. Not that it wasn’t rattling around in our brains before that, but that it wasn’t here - practically living and breathing before that.

It’s been a wacky year... blah, blah, blah. I feel like every filmmaker says the same thing.
“It’s been magical.”
“What an amazing ride.”
“We just can’t believe how quickly it’s flown by.”

Not that it’s not true. I just hate being so cliche about it.

It really has been a wonderful year. We really are blessed. So let’s count ‘em down like only I can. I’m not even going to draw attention to it...

2010 brought Sudden Death!:

* An edited pic; recorded music, sound effects, etc.; added animation (but where...?); color corrected; added chyrons -- all with the help of some truly fantastic people, to bring you Sudden Death! -- a 20 min. short musical comedy.
* 1000 copies of the film down to around 400 today. (all in boxes in our apartment, by the way) Thousand’s of poster cards, posters, stickers and little clay men. If you’ve had the opportunity to sag one at a festival... I hope you like my late night hotel room art work.
* A blow-out, no-holds-barred swinging shin-dig Sudden Death! cast and crew premiere in July in Hollywood. Thank you for coming out and sharing it with us!
* To 25 fests, over 30 screenings and theaters in 13 states and 2 countries in under 5 months.
* 10 awards at 9 festivals with over 20 nominations.
* 3 beautiful production babies and 2 lovely weddings. :)
* SD!’s cast and crew have gone on to work on major motion pictures and television from Sony, Paramount, Lions Gate, Disney, Universal and Fox, as well as award-winning theater in Los Angeles and New York.
* The feature script for Sudden Death! It has been written by recent award-winning director Adam Hall (I had to throw that in) with 17 songs and over 40 minutes of music. It’s pretty amazing.
* We have 7 new fests to look forward to in 2011 already between January 8th and mid-April. More will surely follow.

More importantly, we’ve met some of the most amazing people on our zig-zags across the country and around the world. From LA to Japan to Europe, east coast to west, some recognizable and some the unsung heros working behind the scenes; fans and friends and co-workers - some of these people we’ve never even met. (Specifically I’m quite fond of a few in NY, West Virginia and Canada... Nevermind. I can’t narrow it down.) I love the common bond in it all. Everyone’s just trying to carve out their own niche in this insane, overwhelming, amazing bit of life. I’m not sure that we’ll ever come back this way again. And that’s sad and exciting all at the same time.

So cliche’s abound. It really has been a fabulous year. I’m happy and blessed (and maddened and exhausted) with this whole lovely process. And to talk about it like it’s over is - well, quite ridiculous actually. Sudden Death! will still be trucking on at least through 2011. So stick with me. I’ll try to be less sappy in the New Year. I can’t make any promises though.

Happy New Year everyone! Hope it’s filled with love and blessings and lessons and hope and great expectations. It’s going to be a great year.

Who are you and what state am I in?

Thu, 18 Nov 2010 21:13:51 -0800

I’m pretty sure I’m somewhere over Kentucky at the moment. I’m also pretty sure that as Adam reads this over my shoulder he’ll correct me.

Nope, he’s watching Batman.

We’re almost half way through this crazy trip that began in October with the Savannah Film Festival (not to mention the week leading up to it with the Hollywood and NewFilmmakers LA festivals) and will end in Las Vegas at the Nevada Film Festival in early December. Adam and I have bounced up and down the east coast like a pinball for the past two and a half weeks. If you ever had any doubt... check my previous blogs. It’s hard to keep everything straight in our own minds, no less for anyone else. Sometimes the days, states and miles seem to blend together into something gelatinous.
So since I love lists, let’s do a quick tally:
* 2 1/2 weeks
* 9 states
* 3 hotels
* 4 flights
* 1 rental car
* 14 different types of random wild animals seen on the side of the road
* 1 townhouse (Thank you, Steph!)
* 1 new mom and dad’s house
* 1 awesome theme park
* 4 film festivals (plus one fabulous fest in LA - Thanks, Valley Film Fest!)
* 5 different theaters
* over 6,000 miles by land and by air
* over 500 first-time viewers of Sudden Death!

While we’ve been out running around we were accepted to 2 new film festivals, had 3 new nominations and one WIN for Best Student Film at the Nevada Film Festival! To even type the word “ending” is funny to me because I don’t ever see it ending, nor do I want to! It’s been a wonderful, exciting, adventurous, exhausting trip and I wouldn’t trade it for anything in the world. I don’t think anything will ever beat this experience. Just hope we grab grab it with both hands and hold on for dear life. And take lots of pictures.

Georgia state of mind - Savannah Film Festival

Mon, 1 Nov 2010 06:30:24 -0700

I realize that the festival isn’t over yet, and it’s quite possible that I’ll either be eating my words or sticking my foot in my mouth, but I couldn’t help but write about how absolutely smitten I am with this town and this festival.

After a harrowing trip east (doesn’t it always seem to be a “harrowing trip” anywhere?) we arrived Savannah. So late in the evening and still so humid - and I loved it! Glad to see that my east coast preferences still thrive. We were immediately greeted by these lovely banners and a slew of SFF volunteers still at the airport working away. Yesterday we were told that they have over 400 volunteers working the festival. I think most of the festival directors reading this right now are drooling while simultaneously dialing SFF to “get their secret.”

And beyond simply being an extremely well run festival, the town is just beautiful. This is my first trip to Savannah and I already feel like we’re old friends. I’m sure they won’t like the comparisons, but it feels like a New England town draped in Southern charm and hanging moss. I am in love.

We have been so blessed with Sudden Death! No only with an amazing idea, fantastic music, the very best cast, crew, friends, family, fans and donors (we could be here all day) - but a film that people seem to really love and connect with that has taken us around the country to see things I never thought I’d see.

Sudden Death! screens tomorrow at 9:30A. Guess we’ll be over our jet lag by then! We still have many more screenings in the coming weeks so please check out our Festivals page and come see us. Like my girlfriend Kristina said, “I used [it] to find out the schedule for your life.” Come to a fest and share this fun part of our life with us!

Hatched!

Fri, 1 Oct 2010 10:24:48 -0700

It’s taken a little while to get this blog up. Mainly because we decided to drive to Montana for HATCHfest and frankly car rides are not conducive to blogging.

But I’m here now to say quite earnestly that I left a piece of my heart in Bozeman, Montana. This film festival experience is so unique, so vastly different from anything we’ve experienced before or are likely to experience again, that to even attempt to describe it would be an injustice. So here I go…

From the very beginning fest coordinator Rosalind made us feel welcomed and taken care of. I swear this woman could take on the world and likely will. She’s a powerhouse. As only five films are accepted into the festival each year you feel a sense of family and friendship immediately. Combined with the other media areas – featured musician, journalist, architect, etc. you also grab a piece of the larger picture. Festival director Yarrow has a love and dedication not only to the arts but to creativity and the cultivation of that creativity through any means necessary. And he means it! (No one was harmed in the making of this festival or this blog.)

Besides this strong feeling of community, the HATCH crew strongly incorporates a mentorship aspect throughout the fest. One of my biggest blessings on this trip was watching the HATCHlings (yes, overly sweet and oh-so fitting) connect individually with mentors. They almost seemed drawn to each other like a homing beacon. I LOVE the mentorship model. To pour back into the creative community you’re a part of just makes it stronger, more unique and more interesting. And honestly I appreciate the encouragement.

Sudden Death! also walked away with the Most Innovative Filmmaker Award. I believe when it was announced the gentleman presenting the award commented that he had wondered after our screening, “Why didn’t I think of that?” We are very thankful and humbled to receive such a meaningful award from such an innovative community. I hated to see our time there end.

It was a fantastic week. We saw and experienced things I may never have the chance to do again – visiting with the best of friends who brought their absolutely adorable, not quite 1 year old little boy across the state to visit us (THANK YOU!), driving through California, Nevada, Arizona, Utah, Idaho, Wyoming and Montana… and back again, exploring Yellowstone and spotting deer, buffalo, elk, grizzly bears, hot springs, seeing the Grand Tetons for the first time, eating a buffalo burger, learning well how to drive, eat and look for directions all at the same time… but let’s not scare our parents. It was truly an amazing trip. If you ever have the good fortune of attending either as a HATCHling or a mentor GO! It’s a blessing and experience you’ll never forget.

Photo credit to Yarrow Kraner (Thank you!)
Check out what HATCH has going on at: http://hatchfest.org

Atlantic Film Festival

Thu, 23 Sep 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Our first international festival! And it’s in Halifax, Nova Scotia! How gorgeous is that? This is another festival that, unfortunately due to the crazy costs of flights to head all over the world, we’ve had to forego. I feel very much a part of this one though. The festival programming director, Mark, has been positively amazing to us. He’s kept me in the loop about everything going on up there - ad campaigns, audience responses to Sudden Death! and opportunities for us to uniquely connect with the audience in Halifax, which is always something I’m concerned about. I’m sure you’ve noticed our ramped up efforts to include AFF in our online presence.

Well apparently we did something right. Sudden Death! was honored at the festival by being selected to play during the Best of Fest closing time slots. In short, SD! was chosen as the Best of Fest International Short Film. It was incredible to receive the email! We couldn’t be more excited. Now we really wish we could have gotten there!

Thanks to everyone in Halifax, the entire Atlantic Film Festival team and particularly Mark for showing us so much love from so far away. Your fest will surely go down as one of our favorites from afar.

In lieu of film festival

Wed, 25 Aug 2010 00:00:00 -0700

Well we’ve only been home for a few days but we’re still feeling the effects of our trip east. Unfortunately this has lead us to cancel our trip to New Mexico for the Albuquerque Film Festival. We’re both really disappointed - this is going to be a great festival! It’s being held at the Hard Rock in town (who wouldn’t love that?), they’ve been promo-ing the festival all across the state and being only our second fest and fairly close to home we really wanted to be there.

So we’ve decided to get a little creative. Just because we can’t physically be there doesn’t mean we can’t have great memories of the festival. Below I present to you a pictorial tour of what our trip to Albuquerque probably would have looked like...

Adam and Melanie on their way to the Albuquerque Film Festival

Adam and Melanie arrive at the Hard Rock Cafe for AFF2010

The crowd at the first screening of Sudden Death! - August 26th

The word spreads and more people show up at the 2nd screening of Sudden Death! - August 27th

People are standing in the aisles! The crowd goes crazy for SD! during our final screening at AFF - Aug. 28th

AFF Closing Ceremonies