Thursday, September 17, 2009

Set in stone

This week has been hectic. I needed to get an HDCAM copy of my movie printed. There's only one HDCAM deck around that's accessible to me without having to drive to Atlanta. That deck is back in Cullowhee, at the college. I returned to my alma mater and encountered extreme difficulty in trying to make the print. After hours of unplugging and replugging miles of cable, I finally got it to work, with the great help of John Wells. I also stopped by the motion picture stage so that I could give a recorded interview about the details of the festival, as well as the benefits given to me by my time in the department. My performance was less than graceful. I can talk casually to large groups of people with ease, but put me in front of a camera, or make me do a stately presentation and I lose my edge.

I would like to stress something to any young filmmakers reading this. When you have your movie finished, immediately make high quality media backups, so as to not have to deal with it at the last minute and encounter huge problems. For a little while, I thought I wouldn't get my film turned in, simply because I couldn't figure out the deck I was using.

Also, take advantage of any equipment your school has. I contacted Crawford Communications in Atlanta to see if they could do the transfer for me. They would have charged me $450 an hour.

The HDCAM tape was sent of through DHL this morning. It should arrive to the festival in a few days. So now I play the waiting game.

Until we meet again.

Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Strigoii trailer

the Sitges Film Festival


So the other day I got an email. It was an invitation to the Sitges Festival Internacional de Cinema Fantàstic. It is the biggest fantasy film festival in the world. At first, I sat there thinking someone was playing a joke on me. I submitted my senior thesis film to the festival a couple months ago, but almost immediately assumed that there was no chance I would get in. This is a festival that caters to the great of the greats. As my realization slowly surfaced I began to lose my breath. Before doing anything, I got up and paced back and forth around the house for a few hours, not knowing what to do with myself.

The shock has finally settled, and the work has begun. My email inbox has been busier in the last 2 days than its ever been. Last night I booked the cheapest flight and hotel I could find. I am now officially $20,000 in debt, counting this trip and my student loan I'm trying to pay off.

I leave for Barcelona Spain on September 30th. I will be getting back October 14th.

Until we meet again.