Our FIRST OFFICIAL Scholarship benefit screening was held in Waco on Saturday (01/31/09) benefitting the Fellowship of Christian Athletes and the Six Man, Texas Scholarship Fund. The screening was held at at the WISD Playhouse Theater at 201 N. Jack Kultgen Expressway in Waco at 12:30 pm the Saturday before Super-Bowl Sunday. It was a little reality check before the hype of the Super bowl and we had a full house. We raised over $1,000 for both worthy causes.

Lots of folks attended to show their support for the Six Man community. There were tee shirts for sale as well and I got a cool one and some free cake! We also gave away a DVD or two of the film. And we were honored to have the Legendary Dave Campbell in attendance to say a few words of introduction. It was great fun, keep your eyes peeled for the next benefit screening!!

YOU CAN HELP - WE have a great opportunity for a distribution offer but you only have until this Thursday to go to www.indie-fest.com/SFFF to register and vote for Six Man, Texas as your favorite documentary in the Santa Fe Film Festival's online competition. So get with it kids. If you want to help us get distribution and eventually be able to buy a DVD of the film Six Man, Texas now is the time. You have until Thursday (12/4) at midnight to register and vote. Appreciate the help - ALAN

WOW - People's Choice Award at the Rockport Film Festival!!

We are grateful and very happy to have been presented the People's Choice award at the Rockport Film Festival. We had a great turnout for our final festival screening of 2008 and are now looking to distribution. Stay tuned for distribution details or see our website (sixmantexas.com) for details.

After a bit of a dry spell, we learned that we will finally be screening "Six Man, Texas" in our hometown of Austin, Texas. From the latest Press Release:

"AUSTIN, TEXAS - September 24th, 2008 - The 'poignant and haunting' documentary Six Man, Texas will celebrate it's Austin Premiere at the upcoming Austin Film Festival. Screenings are scheduled for 5:30 pm Sunday, October 19th at the Alamo Drafthouse LakeCreek and at 7 pm Thursday, October 23rd at the Arbor Theater. The film captures the struggle of rural communities to keep their small schools open and to keep playing their unique six-man version of football. A team of Austin Filmmakers, created by the collaboration of NEVERTOOLATE Films and Visual Vagos, spent over 7 years chronicling small Texas towns and a heart-wrenching Cinderella championship season.

'We are excited to be screening during the prestigious Austin Film Festival,' said Alan Barber, producer and director of Six Man, Texas. 'We know Austin's diverse and vital film community will connect with our story, and we feel like we are finally coming home.' "

As we sent our acceptance confirmation and information to the Austin Film Festival we were notified that we had also been accepted to the Rockport Film Festival in early November. Couple that with a few 'invites to submit - fee waived' from other festivals and it feels like a fall roll for our little film. Additionally, we will be working through a rep to get our film in front of acquisition execs at the American Film Market in LA during November.

Soooo - will we make the playoffs? Check our website for additional screenings and stay tuned!

OUR next Premiere of the film will be at the Gloria Film Festival (http://www.gloriafilmfest.org/) on August 2nd at 4:30 pm. We are so happy to have a second premiere within a few months of the World Premiere at AFI Dallas. Go to the Gloria Film Festival website and check it out or make a comment if you have seen the film. AND, if you are anywhere in the Salt Lake City area that weekend PLEEEEEZE attend the screening and cheer loudly!!

A PRIMER - "How to have fun AND find your audience"

Sometimes it is the smallest of coincidences, sometimes big breaks, sometimes who you know, sometimes a network right under your nose and sometimes it is a hot day in August. Hell, it is always a hot day in August in Texas.

One hot Friday evening in August 2005, on the opening weekend of football season, my film team and I jumped from High School stadium to High School stadium in Austin to ask fans attending their local games if they had heard of Six Man Football. Our intention was to create an opening sequence for the film "Six Man, Texas", showing how most football fans had not heard of Six Man football even in Texas, where Six Man is bigger than anywhere else. We also knew UT was opening their season on Saturday so we met early the next morning to catch a few UT tailgaters before the crowds hit.

We drove to the guards near the stadium and talked them into letting us park illegally for a few hours and interview the early tailgate crowds as they were setting up for the game that day. After a few hours of filming and paperwork we were ready to wrap it and find some lunch. But we decided to ask one last group as we lugged the gear back to the truck. When we asked if they had ever heard of Six Man one of them yelled, "Hey Ken, come talk to these guys, they wanna know about Six Man!"

That is how we met Ken Capps, self-proclaimed Six Man aficionado and University of Texas booster par excellence. Ken proceeded to reveal many wonderful stories about his experiences watching Six Man while the camera rolled. That weekend I reviewed the footage, cut a rough together and took it to my editor, Mike Scannell, to review. We later included my opening sequence in the first cut of the film, but by December of that year mine was dropped in favor of Mike Scannell's much more visually compelling assembly of shots. Except for the Ken Capps sequence. Mike had fallen in love with Ken's enthusiasm and by the summer of 2007, as we approached a final cut of the film, Mike found a spot for a small piece of the Ken interview.

Fast forward to Spring of 2008. After our fantastic World Premiere experience at AFI Dallas Ken inquired about a Private Screening at his Sports-themed Party Room built behind his house in one of the Old Dallas neighborhoods just North of the Inwood theater. He wanted to invite friends who missed the film, some sports-writers and press folks. So we decided to call it a Private Press Screening and Ken was off to the races organizing what would become, as Mike calls it, our best screening ever.

From an invitation for a few friends and press folks the list grew until there was simply not enough room to hold everyone. So Ken installed ANOTHER SCREEN on the deck to hold the overflow. June 14th arrived and the crowd grew and grew until time to screen. It was by far the most involved crowd and the most fun, a diverse group of sports fans, friends of Ken's, press and players. Mix that with great BBQ, lots of drinks and snacks and you have a recipe for a great screening. We even had the Mai-Tai boat from Trader Vic's in Dallas to add to the drink options and ambience. Ken also found some shorts to warm up the crowd, a group of spots about Six Man in Texas done by his friend Tammie Kleinmann. The shorts were great pieces, beautifully done and informative. We were honored to have them screen before the film.

There was a LOT of interest in our film after the screening and I am still following-up on opportunities to get the word out and move toward distribution. The lesson here? Find someone like Ken Capps for your film project, inspire them and let them run with the ball. You will have a much better time AND it will help you discover your true audience. Thank you Ken, and thank you to everyone who attended!

OUR WORLD PREMIERE at AFI Dallas was a great experience. Not only did we have two packed screenings (the first one completely sold out) but we were treated wonderfully by everyone in Dallas from the volunteers to the staff to other fans and filmmakers we met. We made some contacts that might be helpful for the film and are starting to follow up on those. We did as much shameless promotion as possible for Six Man, Texas and ended up getting rid of almost all of our posters (100) and postcards (500). We also had a great time throwing out footballs during both Q&As (got rid of 100 of those) and met with a lot of people who drove many miles from surrounding Six Man communities to Dallas just for our premiere. Thanks so much to everyone from Six Man communities who attended. All in all it was a wonderful time!

And I cannot say enough about AFI Dallas, it is well-run and quite professional with very helpful and friendly volunteers. Target and Victory Park have gone out of their way to support a festival whose stature and importance can only grow in the festival community. I believe AFI Dallas will take its place alongside SXSW and Austin Film Festival as the best of Texas.

As I said, we're gushing.......

NOW we have the exact dates and times for the WORLD Premiere of Six Man, Texas. If you want to attend either screening you MUST go to afidallas.com and buy TX for the Premiere online. Otherwise it will sell out and you will not get in. Dates & Times:

The Magnolia (A Landmark Theater)
3699 McKinney Ave, Dallas - (214) 764-9106
"Six Man, Texas" - Saturday, March 29th at 3:15 pm
at the Magnolia 4

AMC NorthPark 15
8687 N. Central Expressway
Dallas, TX 75225
Phone: 214-360-4262
"Six Man, Texas" - Saturday, April 5th at 1:15 pm
at Northpark 7

Get your TX while they last - ALAN

Six Man, Texas will have it's WORLD PREMIERE at the AFI Dallas Film Festival March 27th thru April 6th. Exact dates and times will be posted on our website sixmantexas.com soon. PLEASE make plans to attend the Premiere!!

Click on the link to see the Austin American Statesman story that made the FRONT PAGE of the Christmas Issue of the paper. To read the story go to the STATESMAN