There has been a little bit of movement on the film.  After premiering at the Ashland Film Festival in April, it's been pretty quiet. Recently the film has been accepted into three more festivals, two as official selections where the film can compete for the various prizes, and one as a showcase where it will simply be shown, which is better than nothing. None of the festivals have announced their selections, so I don't feel like I can say anything at this time. All are smaller festivals that you most likely haven't heard of; all I got to enter for free; and all I found on Myspace... so that shows where the film's likely audience is going to come from.

I've been taking a break from the film lately, trying not to think about it too much, and not entering any other festivals. I got sort of burned out on it, obsessing about it, letting it take over my life. I'll get back to it soon; I do need to make a push towards getting some kind of distribution, whether that be an indie DVD label or I go out on my own remains to be seen. First I plan on doing some re-editing. I rushed towards finishing it in time for the Sundance deadline and the film suffers a little for it. No major reconstruction, just some trimming and maybe a little more story in some places. I'll likely have to re-cut the opening, because I probably won't be able to afford putting out a DVD with the Guster song in place. But I hope not.

In the meanwhile I've completed a couple of short projects made for a Heinz 57 contest on YouTube. The first one is a weird idea I had, something I knew I could shoot and edit quickly, and after watching a lot of the other entries, it turned out to be one of the more unique entries. The second one took more work and I think it is a more complete idea and maybe the funniest thing I've done yet, but it's a fairly common joke. Leave a comment; I'd love to know what you guys think.

After posting my last blog about all our festival rejections, I got a nice response from another documentary director who's in the same boat.  I ended up having a really good conversation with Tray White (The Impaler) about being a small-time filmmaker and how to work within those confines. He's had a bit more experience than I with the festival circuit; confirming a couple of my suspicions and sharing couple of good tips.

Basically the only way to get into the big festivals is with name stars or filmmakers and/or connections to somebody within the festival.  That all the schmoes aka me, who blindly send in entries have a lottery chance in hell of getting in.  Unpaid volunteers, who may or may not know a good film if it kicked them in the face, are the first round to get through; your film has to receive extremely high scores from them to get into somebody's hands who might have the slightest bit of power in getting your film into the festival.  Smaller festivals have similar systems in place, but don't get the landslide of entries, so you have a slightly better chance of getting through. 

Withoutabox, the do-all website for film festivals, has created a win-win situation for festivals and win-lose one for filmmakers.  The festivals win because they get more exposure to filmmakers equaling more entries and more money, while doing less of the leg work.  The filmmakers win because all these festivals are a click away, it's easy to research what festivals fit your film; and you only have to fill out your entry form once, making it incredibly easy to enter ten festivals in a blink, something that used to take hours of paperwork; but because it is so easy to find and enter multiple festivals there are exponentially more entries.  Making it that much harder for quality films to rise to the top. I've even heard stories about people starting film festivals just to cash in on the entry fees. Withoutabox has changed the landscape of film festivals forever. 

But I'm done with the blind entry, it's a worthless process.  Instead I'm going with an idea that Tray gave me, in that you call the festival first, talk to the festival director; make sure that your film will be seen by somebody that has some power in getting your film into the festival.  And if the director won't talk to you and won't give into those terms, fuck 'em, move on to the next festival, there's thousands of them out there.

It's tough going from a filmmaker to a salesman.  I hate talking on the phone, hate it, and avoid it with every opportunity; cold calling is even worse.  But if I want my film to be seen, it's something I'm going to have to tackle.  Before entering any more festivals, I am going to call the festivals I have already entered; push those investments that are already out there.  In the little time I used today I called two west coast festivals and got through fairly easily to both directors.  After a brief explanation of who I was and why I was calling; both promised to watch the film once it got around to them, regardless if it got good scores from those who had seen it before or not.  That's already a big step in the right direction.  The top guy at each festival will watch my film and by talking to them it gave them somebody to identify with behind the film.  At the least I know I have somebody's attention, and if the film doesn't get in, it's not because "nobody" saw it. 

I plan on calling the rest of the festivals I have entered and doing the same thing.  I may not get the same promises, but I'll at least know I've tried.  The next step is getting some distribution people to see it.  I know that there's a fairly large potential audience for the film, in anybody that is thinking about or is having a baby for the first time. That may lead the film to being on the Discovery Channel in some chopped down version, which I'm not opposed to, any way the film finds an audience is a good one. But I'd take some satisfaction in being able to walk into a Blockbuster and seeing a few copies of my film on the shelf next to the latest Hollywood release.

I'm pretty much winging this as I go along.  I know I could be doing it all in a more efficient fashion.  I've read some books on the subject, taken a few ideas, but this is the way I learn things; trial and error. And the next time I'm trying to get a film out into the world, I'll have some sort of clue of how to do so and hopefully some friends in the business to lend a helping hand.  For now I'll keep plugging along in my meager way, keeping the moral about the tortoise in mind; and eventually I'll find the finish line, wherever that may be.

As I sit here writing this, I keep hoping that the phone will ring with good news; the SilverDocs festival announcements are coming out at the end of the week, but from the experience of our past festival rejections I know I'm only a day or two away from one of the generic "We've received more entries than ever this year, with the quality running extremely high we couldn't find a spot to schedule your film." emails. I know that if we'd gotten in I would have received that phone call by now. But the slimmest glimmer of hope remains until that fateful email arrives.

My first film eRATicate was accepted into the first three festivals I entered and won two awards at the very first festival it played. Since then it's been all downhill. The Turning Point is racking up rejections faster than I can count. It's near a dozen (it'd be too depressing to know the exact number), most of them sending out the stock email, and a few of them not even bothering with that. It's infuriating when you send in a $20-40 entry fee and they can't take a few seconds out of their day to let you know your film won't be playing. But far more hurtful is the mounting feeling of failure.

I believe that The Turning Point is a good film, I've watched enough documentaries and been involved in the making of enough films to know that. It is in no way a perfect film, but it is a strong one. Maybe I'm too close to the film and I'm deluding myself, but the reviews and comments we've received mirror my own thoughts. But even if the film isn't as good as I believe I still don't understand why we're not getting in. It amazes me that we're getting rejected from festivals where I've seen awful films; films that are incompetently made, that barely understand the language of film, ones that I know are currently showing in place of ours.

My first guess is that the film is too personal; added in with the fact that there is not a single recognizable name attached to it. But that doesn't completely explain it, because I know of many films that are in the same position that are playing plenty of festivals. My other guess is that the film doesn't play the way people are expecting. It's not your standard documentary; it's got sort of an experimental feel in places; that it plays with the line between documentary and narrative in some ways. But Tarnation comes to mind in that vein, and it was far more experimental than mine... but then it comes back to Gus Van Sant attaching his name to that one. I've tried unsuccessfully to get a few name filmmakers to even watch it, but most won't accept unsolicited films.

I feel like I'm in a catch-22. I can't get into any festivals because the film is too small. And I can't get anyone to pay any attention to the film because we're not getting into any festivals. I know that film festivals aren't the end-all be-all for indie films these days. With the advent of do-it-yourself DVD distribution labels, it's possible to make your money back through internet sales. And with our extremely small budget it shouldn't take too many DVDs to break even. But it really hurts knowing that I put three years of love and all my talent into this film and nobody wants to show it. I keep thinking that'll change with every entry form I fill out, but being a pessimist, my good faith is quickly running out.

This is my adventures at our local film festival; where my documentary The Turning Point was premiering.  I'd been disappointed about the scheduling of my film for the few weeks leading up to the festival.  When I entered, I didn't pay a fee because they offer free entry to local filmmakers.  What I didn't know was when you enter that way, is that your film is now only considered for the "local's only" slots; which are free screenings that only show once.  We had the misfortune of being scheduled as the very first film of the festival.  So basically by the time the festival started our part in it was over. 

However after it was done, I didn't feel too bad and had good festival over all. Our screening went pretty well; we got to screen in the biggest theater and ended up about 95% full. The audience really seemed to enjoy the film.  They were laughing throughout and I noticed a few people crying during some key moments. Afterwards I had a lot of nice comments; people liked how honest it was, they felt that my wife and I really opened ourselves up; they enjoyed the humor, that it kept the film entertaining. And I got a lot of comments about the editing, which I always thought was the strongest aspect of the film.

Opening night there was a fun party, with mass quantities of free wine and cheese consumed.  I met a couple of cool filmmakers, who of course asked when they could see my film.  Another big problem with screening first, I couldn't tell anyone to go and see it.  A problem I overcame the next day, by carrying DVD copies around to pass out to key people.  Friday night was the preview screening of cult hero Bruce Campbell's My Name is Bruce.   The crowd of 500 ravenous Bruce fans ate up the still rough film; read all about it in my review at Ain't It Cool News. 

By Saturday I was a bit bummed out, because we were already on day three of the five day festival and I'd only been to two films, including my own.  I remedied that with an early screening of the documentary Beyond the Call; which turned out to be an extremely powerful film from Academy Award nominated director Adrian Belic.  The film follows three men as they travel to the poorest and most dangerous parts of the world, bringing in food, medicine, clothing, and shelter; basically whatever is needed by these unfortunate people.  These guys are their own organization, with no offices, and most importantly no agenda but to help.  It's a wonderfully made film about some amazing guys, I really wouldn't be surprised to see it nominated for an Oscar at the end of the year. 

Adrian came out to speak after the film was over.  He himself is an amazing character; very funny and open with the audience.  But you can see there's a fire burning inside him to tell these stories that others are afraid to.  I met him briefly after the screening at a filmmaker's get-together and he was happy to talk with me in more detail about the making of the film, unfortunately I had to leave just as we were starting to get into a conversation.  Before that I did get to sit down with some other interesting filmmakers, including Alexandra Lipsitz the director of Air Guitar Nation.  More about her later.

Saturday night I unknowingly saw a double feature of Seattle made films. (I lived there for 10 years.) The opening short Full Disclosure was surprisingly good; extremely well written, shot beautifully on 35mm and starring two very good actors.  The film is nothing but two characters out on a date, who decide to share every single bad habit they have right up front, so as to not waste any more time than necessary with each other.  Writer/director Douglas Horn shows some great potential as an up-and-coming filmmaker, his next film is the feature Entry Level, it sounds very promising and will start showing at festivals later this year. 

The Seattle feature was Expiration Date, a dark comedy about guy who believes he is destined to die on his 25th birthday, because both his father and grandfather were killed by milk trucks on their 25th birthdays.  It's not a great film, but for the low-budget it was fairly well made and it kept the audience laughing.  The main thing that bothered me was the annoying lead actress, who I didn't like from the start and sort of killed the momentum for me.  But besides her the film had some funny moments, was pretty well directed and had a good, charismatic lead in Robert Guthrie.  The best thing about watching it for me was all the Seattle locations they used, including an apartment building that sits a couple of blocks away from our old place.

Sunday morning I went to a forum for documentary filmmakers.  It was a good talk among some of the key filmmakers from the festival.  It's hard to sum up as they covered a wide variety of subjects and this post is already getting to long.  Let's just say that when it was over, I was inspired enough to go after the next idea I have for a documentary, which I'll hopefully be shooting this summer.  More to come on that to be sure, but I don't want to jinx anything yet. 

Sunday night I saw a good quirky, comedy called Big Dreams Little Tokyo, it sort of reminded me of a mix between Napoleon Dynamite and a hidden gem called Jump Tomorrow.  I was really enjoying the film, but I was wiped out, and near the end of the film they started using a lot of subtitles, which is like kryptonite when I'm tired and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn't keep my eyes open for more than a few minutes at a time.  There was a lot of laughing, but I have no idea how the film ended, I'll definitely want to see it again on DVD.  Writer/director/star Dave Boyle shows a lot of promise; keep an eye out for whatever he does next.

Monday night came too quickly and with way too few films seen, but I was excited about the last night's films.  Based on the cheeseball title alone, I wanted to see the short film Zombie Prom and it did not disappoint.  Only a few minutes in, when they started to break into song, I thought "oh no", but those fears quickly subsided and it ended up being the best musical I've seen since Grease.  (I'm not a huge fan of them.)  Not as technically sharp as the rash of features lately, but it had more spirit and the songs were hilarious and well produced.  The comic book angle and plot reminded me of My Boyfriend's Back, mixed with the 50's style and musical numbers of Grease.  It was a true crowd pleaser; and I wouldn't be too surprised if they expanded it into a multi-million dollar feature.     

It was playing with my most anticipated film of the festival Air Guitar Nation; which I'll be back next week with a full review.  I really enjoyed the film, but the highlight of the night for me was my talk with the director Alexandra Lipsitz.  After the film was over, I asked her if I could buy her a beer and pick her brain about documentary filmmaking before her next screening started.  Probably since it was Monday night and most everybody had left the festival she agreed. We chatted for about an hour; from personal things to all kinds of filmmaking topics, including some good tips on the making and promoting of documentaries.  She was an extremely cool person, somebody that's just enjoyable to be around.  When it was over, I felt like we parted friends.  

Up until just a few days ago I didn't consider myself a documentary filmmaker.  Narrative features have always been my goal.  But this festival made me realize that I'm moving in that direction.  I also like the small crews and the on-the-fly decision making on documentaries.  Film sets and actors with the all the accompanying aspects can be a real challenge on any budget and it's something I don't want to deal with when I'm funding my own films.  Maybe somewhere down the line, with somebody else's money. The capturing and telling of real life stories is starting to become extremely appealing.

We're basically trying to get the film out there one person at a time.  So I ask you to take a look around; first add us to your friends list, then watch the trailers and first four minutes of the film, read the reviews, and if you want the whole history of the film, read the rest of this blog.  We're hoping to turn it into the little movie that could.

I'd love to hear comments of all kinds, post a comment below, message me through Myspace or email me at ross@eraticate.com... Do you like the trailers? Does the movie interest you?   How can we do more to get the film out there?  Do you work at a film festival?  Do you know a publicist who'll work on the cheap? Is there more you'd like to know about the film? Say whatever you want... I'm trying to learn all I can about marketing an extremely small movie like this. 

If you're interested in seeing film work prior to this documentary check out:

Okay I know that's a silly title, but even though the film is done we still have a lot of stuff to pay for.  Film festival fees rack up quickly, and if I want to go to any of them outside of driving distance it's going to cost more than we have to spend.  Then there are DVDs to be made, posters to be printed, and any other number of things that may pop up.  And honestly we're still trying to recover from the post-production fees. 

So mostly for fun, but also for the long-shot of winning some money I made this little commercial for a TaxCut Online - Youtube contest.  The grand prize is $5000, which would go a long way towards paying for (and off) all this stuff.  Take 44 seconds to watch it, I bet I get at least  one laugh out of you.

After being rejected by three of the top ten film festivals in the country, namely Sundance, Slamdance and South by Southwest, The Turning Point has been accepted into its first festival, the Ashland Independent Film Festival - April 12th - 16th.  And if you've read this blog before you might have noticed that it is my hometown's festival.  So in my own mind, it feels a bit cheapened. 

It was one of ninety films selected out of over nine-hundred entered; however I have a feeling that I had the advantage of being a local.  I know that I shouldn't let that cheapen the achievement, but that doubt lingers, which probably won't go away until the film gets accepted into a festival on a level playing-field. 

I'm sure by the time the festival rolls around I won't have any of these cares, I'll just be enjoying the moment.  There is nothing quite like seeing your film play with a full audience.  For a small town film festival, Ashland has been doing a wonderful job the last couple of years; bringing in some big time films and filmmakers, treating them like royalty, and filling the theaters to capacity.  This year's festival kicks off with the premiere of My Name is Bruce, directed by and staring Bruce Campbell, sure to be an instant cult classic.  I couldn't get much better omen than "Ash" opening the festival for the premiere of my film, about becoming a father to my own Ash.

(We left off, with an error that had killed my previous day's work.)

I immediately quit Final Cut, making sure not to save it... As the program takes the long five minutes to restart I have visions of staying up all night, pulling my hair out, right up until the time I've got to start my nine hour drive to Seattle. Luckily the film reopens, but the file is still missing, I go about reconnecting it another way, fingers-crossed, render, and this time it works. After a couple more little things that I fix problem free, I've watched the film through and it seems that everything is in order.

I pack up all my supplies. Including multiple back-ups of the film on tape, all the music and sound-effects burned on to CDs, and even my Mac tower; incase something should go wrong while I'm in Seattle, I'll have everything on hand.

Monday's drive goes smoothly. I even manage to miss the traffic in Portland and Tacoma, something I usually hit in both cities; maybe things are starting to go my way.

Tuesday morning I arrive at Modern Digital, ready to download my film into their system. I'm terrified that my Final Cut 2 version won't open up on their version 5 system. Luck is finally on my side and except for a few files that need I to reconnect it opens correctly. I quickly scan through the film and everything seems to have transferred over fine. After a bit of set-up, we start to output the film onto Digi-beta, which we will color correct from that night.

Only three minutes into the film, I notice a major screw-up. A section that I have playing in reverse is completely messed up; now it's going forward and pulling the clips from random parts of the timeline. We stop the output. I look over the section and all ten cuts are messed up, where timing is crucial. After trying to fix the first clip manually and a half an hour of tinkering later, I know I don't have it exactly the same as it was before. Forseeing the hours of work I have ahead of me, I get the bright idea of re-inputting the section off one of my tapes. It works beautifully. I scan through the film a little more thoroughly and everything else seems to be in order. But I watch closely to make sure.

Again there are two more screw-ups, both in sections where I have footage playing in reverse. It wasn't until the second error, that I realize that this was the problem. I let them slide for now; deciding to use this tape as the reference for Bad Animals sound mix. Fixing the problem spots afterwards and hoping that everything goes well on the second output. Once that is started, I go to drop the tape off for input into Bad Animals system, where for once, everything goes smoothly.

That night I begin the process of color correction, something I had only done one time previously in Final Cut, which was a time-consuming and imperfect way of going about it. Modern Digital uses a system called Da Vinci, which I guess is the industry standard. The technician gives me a quick tutorial, and it's amazing to watch the control he has over the picture. If you have the time, you can mess with every color in the shot, work over various sections of the frame, brighten, darken, saturate, de-saturate; you get the idea. But I need it done quickly, I don't have time to get too into it. At $250 an hour, I can't afford to. (And that's the ultra-cut-rate-Indy-filmmaker-inside-friend deal.) Mostly we just darken the blacks and richen the picture, fixing the few problem spots along the way. We get through 50 minutes of the 70 minute film the first night.

The next morning I show up at Bad Animals, tired, but better for wear now that things seem to be going my way. I sit in the same studio, where Soundgarden, Alice in Chains and Pearl Jam once mixed their music. I feel unworthy to be there. But the mixer is a completely down to earth dude, we hit it off pretty quickly and he makes me feel at ease. He tells me that the average is 20 minutes of runtime per day. I've only got one day paid for, so we need to make it through in the next eight hours. After a feeling out period, where he figures out what kind of sound I'm going for, he cooks through the rest of the film. We finish up eight-and-a-half hours later, with only one fifteen minute break. He tells me he'll go over it again in the morning to make sure he's happy with his mix.

Through the pouring rain, I walk back to Modern Digital to finish the color correction. We've reached a critical part in the film; one of the few tricky spots where I want a more specific type of look; we spend an hour going over and over this short scene until I'm finally happy with it. The rest of the film goes by fairly quickly; and amazingly we're done about eight-hours and $2000 under what was originally estimated.

The next day is spent marrying the final sound with the final color. An easy process when left to the pros who work at these places. It was nice to sit back for a few days, away from the controls and let these guys do their jobs. To get an outsiders look at it. After that, I spend a few more hours in Modern Digital's Final Cut suite to lay the subtitles back in. The film is now ready for its final output.

On Friday morning I pick up my master tape and two dubs; driving away from Seattle a much happier man.

Now that I'm home I feel very satisfied with the final product. There are a couple of spots where I wish I'd been paying a bit more attention. Those couple of days were such a whirlwind that a few small things sneaked through. But they're minor problems that most folks won't notice.

Now that the film is in the can, my job has turned into getting it seen. I've contacted the few film festivals that I had already sent a rough cut to, to see if I could replace it with the final cut. It was too late in one case, but the others have been open to it. I'd much rather they see the film at its best. As a homemade, super-low-budget film it needs all the help it can get. I believe it's a strong film, with a wide-appeal factor... But ultimately it's not up to me. We'll see what happens. For now it feels good to have finished a film of this size. It gives me the knowledge and confidence to do it again; but not too soon.