1001 Positively True Stories of An Indie Filmmaker

Angelo Bell's Painfully Exhilarating Adventures in Independent Filmmaking

Posts Tagged ‘independent film’

The “Black Sundance”

Monday, April 20th, 2009

 

Who needs Sundance when your film has been accepted by a film festival of your peers?

That’s right, my film The Broken Hearts Club has been accepted to screen at the Hollywood Black Film Festival (www.hbff.org) 

Below is my “acceptance letter:”

Dear Filmmaker(s):

Congratulations!  

I am pleased to inform you that your film has been selected by the Hollywood Black Film Festival Screening Committee to screen at the 10th Annual Hollywood Black Film Festival (HBFF 2009), which will take place June 2-7, 2009 in Beverly Hills, California.

We have an exciting festival planned for you this year and I hope that you will be able to join us.

Your screening schedule, information regarding filmmaker registration and the shipping & delivery instructions for your screener will be emailed the week of April 27, 2009.  In the interim, update your submission information on withoutabox to reflect any changes to your submission, and make sure that we have your current contact information.  (All festival communication will be sent via email and will be sent to one email address per film.)

Congratulations again on being selected to screen at HBFF 2009.  Feel free to send an email to me at hbffprogramming@aol.com if you have any questions.

Sincerely,
Jacqueline Blaylock
Director of Programming
HOLLYWOOD BLACK FILM FESTIVAL

 

Truth be told, when I got the email I didn’t even look at the “Congratulations” salutation. My eyes went right for the body of the letter, scanning for those infamous words, “Sorry but…” Those words were noticably absent as I read. It didn’t really hit me until I read the words, “…pleased to inform you…” Then I thought…I‘m in!

Holy smoke, Broken Hearts Club is an official selection of the Hollywood Black Film Festival!!!

The Broken Hearts Club - Official Selection of the Hollywood Black Film Festival

The Broken Hearts Club Official Selection of the Hollywood Black Film Festival





Interestingly enough, I just tried to access my website at http://www.brokenheartsclubfilm.com and it didn’t come up. I checked the ISP and you guessed it! My server is being hit with a DDOS (denial of service) attack. Hopefully the site will be up again soon.

More about the Hollywood Black Film Festival

The Hollywood Black Film Festival (HBFF),dubbed “The Black Sundance,” is an annual 6-day celebration of Black Cinema drawing together established filmmakers, popular film and TV stars, writers, directors, industry executives, emerging artists, and diverse audiences from Hollywood and around the world.

Attracting such stars and industry insiders as Academy Award® winners Sidney Poitier, Forest Whitaker, John Singleton, Spike Lee, George Tillman, Tina Andrews, Reuben Cannon, Cedric The Entertainer, Anthony Anderson, Blair Underwood, Sanaa Lathan, Antwone Fisher, Ice-T, Rev. Run, Bill Duke, Loretta Devine, Rockmond Dunbar, Lamaan Rucker, directors Tim Story, Preston Whitmore, Rob Hardy and Jeff Byrd, and producer Will Packer, the festival has become a hotbed for the Black Hollywood community.

 

HBFF 2009 REGISTRATION IS OPEN
Register By April 15, 2009 and Save $$$

For your optimal festival experience, the 2009 Hollywood Black Film Festival offers a variety of passes:The Hollywood Black Film Festival strives to make the festival better every year, and we hope you enjoy your time here. We have made a conscious effort to make your attendance during this national recession as economical as possible, without sacrificing the quality of the program and services we provide you.  To that end, we have slightly reduced our pass fees from last year.

 

 

 

 

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Posted in Broken Hearts Club, Distribution, Festivals, Filmmaking, Hollywood Black Film Festival | 1 Comment »

Coppola says, “No,” to Cannes, Saying “I’m INDIE!”

Saturday, April 18th, 2009

No Cannes for Coppola

Coppola's Tetro

Kathleen Talbert, a publicist for Francis Ford Coppola, has confirmed the director won’t bring “Tetro” starring Vincent Gallo to Cannes. 

In a statement, Coppola says:

“While I very much appreciate the invitation, this is an independent film, self-financed and self released, and I felt that being invited for a non-competition gala screening wasn’t true to the personal and independent nature of this film.  More important than Cannes, our team can focus all our time, energy and resources into the U.S. release this June 11th.” 

Talbert told The Circuit that Coppola will release the film through a distribution arm of American Zoetrope, the studio the helmer founded in 1969 with George Lucas.

Following its world premiere at the Seattle International Film Festival on June 10, “Tetro” will open in New York and LA before expanding to Seattle, Chicago, Miami, San Francisco , and Washington, D.C. 

According to the film’s official site, the drama involves an Italian family of artists who have relocated to Buenos Aires.

http://blogs.indiewire.com/mikejones/archives/2009/04/17/no_cannes_for_coppola

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Posted in Festivals, Film Reviews, Filmmaking | No Comments »

Sex, Shoes & Unicorns

Monday, April 13th, 2009

 

Sex, Shoes & Unicorns

Sex, Shoes & Unicorns

Today I  watched a very good independent documentary. The thing I love about watching the work of other filmmakers is that I am always inspired. Even if I don’t particularly like the film, I am inspired because finishing a film is a huge accomplishment in itself. My inspiration has thus caused me to rethink my plans for 2009. As you may know, I’ve been diligently working on two films. One is The Broken Hearts Club and the second is The Resurrection of Serious Rogers. Due to time constraints and post-production difficulties, I have to delay post for TRSR. BHC is nearly done. However, there was a third film I planned to release in the winter of 2009. I am now reprioritizing my endeavors and moving Sex, Shoes & Unicorns up.

 

Sex, Shoes & Unicorns is a Sex and the City-like tale of four girlfriends in Los Angeles who must choose between the best male-friend they’ve ever had and their long standing friendship. I shot the film in 11 days in over 15 locations throughout LA. I even managed to close down a high-end shoe store on Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills for a day. And it was free.

unicornEverything about the Sex, Shoes & Unicorns reeks of low-budget, but I make no apology for it. I think what the film lacks cinematically is part of the its charm. It’s not great looking by any stretch of the imagination but the writing is very good and the performances are solid. It’s a film I’m proud of for no other reason than I did it with almost no money. I managed to obtain over $5000 of clothing from local designers in LA for free. We shot in the Bonaventure Hotel using guerilla filmmaking tactics and we nabbed some decent footage in a park in Southeast LA.

I’ll make some minor changes to SSU and then ship it off to Amazon to get ready for a straight-to-DVD release. I’m not sure how I’ll handle some of the dated lines of the script. Perhaps a bit of dubbing will suffice.

In the next few days I’ll redo the trailer, a new poster, maybe make a second trailer and snag a few scenes from the film to place on YouTube. It’s all gravy with this film because, as I recall, It really didn’t cost me anything to make. So whatever DVD sales, Rentals or Downloads arise, it puts me in the black.

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Posted in Filmmaking | No Comments »

Top Countries and US Cities Searching for “Independent Film”

Tuesday, April 7th, 2009

Regions
1. United States
 
2. Canada
 
3. United Kingdom
 
4. Australia
 
5. Netherlands
 
6. Germany
 
7. Spain
 
 Cities
1. Irvine, CA, USA
 
2. Cambridge, MA, USA
 
3. Los Angeles, CA, USA
 
4. New York, NY, USA
 
5. Boston, MA, USA
 
6. San Francisco, CA, USA
 
7. Pleasanton, CA, USA
 
8. Austin, TX, USA
 
9. Washington, DC, USA
 
10. Chicago, IL, USA

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Posted in Filmmaking | No Comments »

“Broken Hearts Club” Actor Snapshots

Monday, April 6th, 2009

 

Michael Monks, Actor

Michael Monks, Actor

Michael Monks gave so much life to the Dr. Thaddeus Knowles character that I cannot imagine anyone else occupying that role. He was funny, insightful, natural and an efficient collaborator. Michael Monks has been around the block, so to speak. Recently he played opposite, Christian Bale in Harsh Times and alongside Keanu Reeves in Street Kings.  

 

Back in the day Michael went tote-to-toe with Angela Basset and Lawrence Fishburne in What’s Love Got To Do With It and was the airline pilot who sacrificed himself for Harrison Ford in the classic thriller, Air Force One. Michael now coaches actors in the Ivana Chubbuck Acting Technique.  Michael is also a champion of sorts for independent film. In 2007 he directed an independent film written and produced by two of his students. And if the project has merit, Michael probably won’t say no to appearing in your indie short film.

Maya D. Gilbert, Actress
Maya D. Gilbert, Actress

  Broken Hearts Club also stars Maya Gilbert. Maya plays the supportive but firm Carina Thiebold, wife of Dr. Thiebold (played by Tank Jones – more on Tank in an upcoming blog). You may have seen Maya recently on Zane’s Sex Chronicles airing on Cinemax. She’s currently in production  for two films this year. Check her out on IMDB. Maya hails from Ohio but there is nothing “small town” about her.” She is a natural talent with the exuberance of youth and the wisdom of maturity. She will definitely achieve immeasurable success in Hollywood.

Broken Hearts Club isn’t a typical romantic comedy. In fact if anything it is a romantic-dramady. In my desire to bring the full breadth and profundity of heartbreak into focus I realized I couldn’t do it with traditional rom-com antics. Besides, I think it was a smart move to stray as far away as possible from the conventional. Independent films with no so-called name talent, that will most likely be self-distributed have to do things differently. For Broken Hearts Club the process is simple. Having gone 0-for-8 with film festivals I am nowgearing up to release it on DVD this year. Myself.

Another clip from “Broken Hearts Club” – this clips is in by no means finished. It’s in its most raw form with temp sound, so adjust your speakers volume as necessary 

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Posted in Broken Hearts Club, Distribution, Filmmaking | No Comments »

Independent Film Distribution Information Overload

Tuesday, February 24th, 2009

There exists an incredible amount of information very pertinent to the independent filmmaker embarking upon the task of self-distribution. The only aspect of the old model of distribution that holds true is that filmmakers must think about distribution BEFORE one sequence of the film is ever shot. Doing this creates a focus on results.

The only caveat I have is the overwhelming statistical data and numerical comparisons used in discussing the old incumbent model vs the new emerging model. Every film is different. Many films have completely different audiences and the way to reach these audience vary by increasing degrees. Podcasts may not work for every film. A local theatrical run may not work for a film while an overseas theatrical run, via festivals, may work wonders.

Filmmakers should have a presence on the web and free Internet tools and social networking sites such as Vimeo, YouTube, Twitter, Myspace, Facebook, Wordpress, Blogger, etc should direct the prospective audience to that web presence (site). Trailers and new versions of trailers are good examples of visual content to make this happen. Promoting a recorded Interview is another way to make this happen. However, I for one, cannot imagine how giving away your content –a completed film– could help a filmmaker unless that was his intention from the start.

In the end, it’s about hard work getting to know your audience(s). My distribution mentor, Tony Comstock, once told me that you should never commit to making your first film unless you’re committed to making your third. It’s about building your audience. Documented examples like “Four-Eyed Monsters” are exciting but rare. It’s difficult to emulate a film’s success especially when you have a different kind of film.

In my personal experience, I realized that there was a 99.999% chance that I’d have to self-distribute my film, The Broken Heart Club. However, being new to this arena I also realized the importance of education. I didn’t want to “learn” on my pride & joy, so I pulled another film out of the cobwebs, dusted it off and prepped it for self-distribution. The process not only revived the film (I ended up shooting another sequence and a narration) but it revived FIVE other films as well. My self-education unearthed glorious and empowering examples of low-budget film distribution. Now I am as excited about distributing Pulp Fusion: The Resurrection of Serious Rogers as I am about The Broken Heart Club.

Empowerment is the key. If independent filmmakers truly believe we don’t need Hollywood to make a film, shouldn’t we also believe that we don’t need Hollywood to distribute our films? We’ve proven the former. Let’s prove the latter.

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Posted in Broken Hearts Club, Filmmaking, Internet | 1 Comment »

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