EXT. LIFE, our newest short film, directed by Kevin Kolsch, will be making its North American premiere this week at the The Long Island International Film Expo.  This is a very large film festival in Long Island, NY that will be showing over 170 films over the course of 10 days.

EXT. LIFE will be showing on Thursday, July 15th at in the 9:30pm - 11:30 block.  EXT. LIFE will be playing second in the block after a 4 minute short film.  The location details of the theater and festival are:

Thursday, July 15, 2010
Time: 9:30pm - 11:30pm
Location: Bellmore Movies
Street: 222 Pettit Avenue
City/Town: Bellmore, NY

Please come see this one, folks! Here is a summary of the film:

Clarissa King has two dreams.  One is an aspiration to become a successful film actress.  To nail the audition she has lined up, get that callback and pack her bags for L.A.  To leave her dysfunctional family and unreliable boyfriend behind and head for the hills...The Hollywood Hills.  This dream occupies most of her waking thoughts.  The other dream comes in the night. It plagues her sleep.  It is a terrifying nightmare that feels all too real.

Do these two dreams go hand in hand?  Is the stress of her current life bringing on the nightmares?  Will success in the film industry make them go away?  Or are the dreams at odds with one another?  Are her nightmares trying to warn her against the very move she thinks will cure them?  » Read more

Looks like Meghan Miller, an actress we've had the occasion to work with twice now (EXT. LIFE, Identical Dead Sisters) is starring in a second Rhapsody Commercial.

Wonder how many of these she did with them.

If it ain't broke, don't fix it.  Sure, we all know that popular phrase.  But in the world of independent film, there should be a new one:  It might not be broke, but it sure as hell can be shorter.  Anyone attempting to get their films into festivals these days probably can spout off a whole variety of similar phrases with that central creed.

When Brian and I made Throwaway over two years ago , we thought we had a clear winner on our hands.  Everyone we showed the film to really responded well to it.  We even received about 50 positive comments for the movie on this very site.  But out of the near twenty film festivals we submitted the movie to, only a small handful accepted it.  We'll never know the true reason why this was.  Hell, maybe I'm wrong and the film is a piece of shit.  But rather than face a world of such cold truths (hold me, please!), we figured the 22 min runtime might have had something to do with it. 

Film festivals these days simply have a hard time programming Shorts Blocks when one of the shorts is nearing a half and hour.  I've been told if they look at the runtime of a DVD submission and it has a runtime over 14 mins, it goes directly into a special stack of films.... the stack of films that don't even get watched.  So for a while now, Brian and I have flirted with the idea of cutting Throwaway down to the 14 min mark.

At first we thought the excercise would be a painful one, and in the end we'd have an "alternate" version of the film that we'd only use to submit to festivals -- but would hold onto the 22 min version to show to everyone else.  But after hiring Craig Dewey, an editor I met through working with Margaret Laney on her upcoming short film Tapeworm, we quickly realized that this new 14 min version of the film was far superior to the old one.  And that, rather than serving as an alternate version, it should probably just replace the old and become the new default version of the film.

So to shorten such a terrible sentence:  This is the definitive version of Throwaway you all should have seen 2 years ago.  It's the version we should have been submitting to film festivals.  Our editor Michael Halper will be the first to say I told ya so!  And he'd be right.  He called this long ago, and God bless him for his foresight.  But sometimes, a film is your baby, and who wants to tell your baby he's too fat to join the Cross Country team?

So without further ado, click the damn Vimeo 'play' button up top already and enjoy the new--- ahem... I mean... enjoy Throwaway.

One of the most talented actresses we've had the pleasure to work with over the years is Meghan Miller.  Check out this awesome commercial for Rhapsody she just starred in.

We love supporting our actors, so please take 30 secs to watch this commercial!  (extra points if you give it a Thumbs Up and comment on it)

About a month ago, my lovely girlfriend asked me a simple question: "Why don't you own a video camera?"  This is a question I've asked myself many times over the years.  Being a filmmaker, I've always thought this was an essential items I should have in my arsenal.  But I've always just worked exclusively with cinematographers who have had their own kits, or rented equipment out.  As a result, I had handi-capped myself as a director, by ignoring a large part of what helps filmmakers improve and evolve.  Things like F-stop, ISO and Lenses were items I only had an elementary understanding of. I could get by well enough, but I wasn't a dedicated student of learning more about this side of the trade.

Well, that was all going to change.  In researching cameras, the Canon 7D quickly rose to the top of a very short list.  It was a dSLR, meaning, it has the body and look of a normal digital point-and-shoot camera.  Only, it shoots HD video as well.  These things are really taking off because they're semi-professional, yet very affordable.  They also shoot insane picture quality.  I already had experience with the Panasonic GH1, having worked with our friend Mike Halper on our two Fantastic Fest bumpers, and I couldn't have been more pleased with the end results of those two projects.  So the Canon 7D it was!

Within a few weeks of having this thing, my girlfriend and I quickly discovered our love for photography.  Every weekend we visited some new location to try and test the limits of the camera and capture shots that would normally, be way out of our realm of expertise.

Well, up until recently, the video was untested with it.  Sure, I went out the day I bought it and shot some outdoor stuff, but my hand was shaking so much, and it was such a grey day, that I was dismayed by what I got.  I knew I had my work cut out for me if I was going to produce something nicer.  Well, as it turns out, I didn't have that much work in store for me.  Shooting nice HD video was something that was about to prove much easier than I thought.  

Fast forward to Christmas in NY and I spend about 3 hours at a friend's house, shooting some test footage in his creepy basement (the same basement we used in our feature film Absence).  The set-up was this:  Kevin and I came up with a concept that we could direct fast and furious.  Kevin had some left-over latex lying around, and a bottle of fake blood he was itching to use to try and improve his special effects make-up skills with.  So I called up my roommate and fellow director friend, Brian James, Fitzpatrick, who also happened to be in NY working on a film and staying with his folks.  We then enlisted the help of James Lord, a brilliant photographer to be our DP for the afternoon.  And his awesome wife Ann, would be our damsel in distress.  Distress from what, you might ask?  Well, that was the role that Brian would be filling.  

So without further ado, I give you, "Laundry Day", the first bit of test footage we shot with the Canon 7D. We did this in about two hours.  Equipment was one zoom lens, a $100 tripod, and one light.  Fast, fun, and instructional, was the theme for the day.  Enjoy:

Last year, Brian and I received word that our short horror film 'Throwaway' had been accepted into the Festivus Film Festival.  This was a festival we had tried to get into the prior year, but they didn't have space for us.  However, the film left a good impression on the judges and they decided to just grandfather us into the 2010 festival.

The festival runs from Jan 14-17 in Denver, Colorado at The Oriental Theater.  'Throwaway' will be screening Saturday, Jan 16 at 6pm in a big short film block at the Oriental.  Here is a link to our B-Side screening page with more details, a trailer and pictures: http://festivus.bside.com/2010/films/throwaway_festivus2010;jsessionid=95B1BF8D621494793087A4DC6DFD30A0

I gotta say... getting into film festivals is usually bittersweet.  Depending on the festival, you go through two phases.  1) Being excited that your film was accepted... to 2) Being upset by how bad the festival is run.  Well, so far everything we have seen from Festival has been great.  Stellar website, big attention to filmmakers, tons of useful information, and good promotion of the featured films.  Hell, they even have their screeners do video reviews of some of the films, and 'Throwaway' was chosen and received a very positive review:

For more information on the festival, check out its official site: http://www.festivusfilmfestival.com/index.html