Beverly Hills High Def Film Festival Witt’s Daughter that Night

(sorry its such a big file–for some reason it was resisting being reduced)

Philip Briggs (Gus Stringfield) Justin M. Via (Zeke) Myself and Mary Benitez (Production Designer)  egad, good thing I’m behind the camera and not an actor, I have all the verve of a tomato…

Of all the theaters that Witt has played in thus far, the Fine Arts theatre in Beverly Hills has been the best venue.  Not that I was at all surprised, I have been to several big name screenings there and I knew that it would be a beautiful projection in a comfortable location.  

The movie looked the best it has looked.  It was such a lovely, well tuned theatre that people could see the presentation in all its glory.  Some one asked if I had shot on film (once again, props to my cinematographer Jeffrey Siljenberg for his wonderful work)  

I got out the word to all of my friends and collected e mails from linked in and plaxo.  Also Twittered and blogged about it. (Mary Benitez, my production designer who’s also a web maven, commented that this is the most promoted short film that she’s worked on so far, which brought a smile to my face)  There was a hearty crowd of viewers in attendance who were entertained and voiced their support.  I was so happy to hear them respond during the film where they were supposed to. I was told that it even brought at tear to the eye.  Of course that was a delight for me, since that was part of my goal.

I look forward to seeing YOU at the next screening when it comes to a theatre near you!

Forgetabout Valkyrie–Come See Witt’s Daughter, Yoh!

Hey there,

I know its the holiday season and I am sure that you’re going to over the river and through the woods to whatever relative’s house you go–
BUT
Witt’s Daughter is playing at the Fine Arts Theatre on Tuesday December 30– Thats Not Christmas– nor is it New years–I don’t even think it’s Kwanza… well–I just checked–its during Kwanza, but hey–you can come out one night and enjoy a heart warming tale for the whole family.

But wait– I hear some of you saying, “I want to see Spirit” or “I want to see Tom cruise in that movie where he’s an English dude pretending to be a German dude, but he has the accent of an American dude” And to that I say Awwwww–come on. Pretty please with sugar on top? Those big block buster films will be around (and in three months from their release date, they’ll be on DVD or in downloadable from a computer near you– but Witt’s Daughter… Witt’s Daughter is a one ONE NIGHT ONLY

So be a part of this special event! Your presents are opened, and new years Eve is the next day, Come Celebrate your family time together by sitting in a row in a dark room not talking to each other and watch Witt’s Daughter!

When: Tuesday December 30th during the 5:00 showing

Where: Fine Arts Theatre 8556 Wilshire Blvd Beverly Hills, CA 90211

Tickets are $10.00 and can be bought at the theatre or online at http://www.studioscreenings.com or by calling (310) 360-0455

Parking is at the City of Beverly Hills parking structure at 321 South La Cienega Blvd. 90211. M-F 4pm - 6am and all day Sat & Sun - Free parking Two hours free parking M-F 6am - 4pm / 75 cents per hour, $7.00 max per day

8 min walk from car door to theatre door (fast pace) / 16 min (slow pace)

Limited free and paid street parking near the theatre (Be sure to read all of the signs), additional paid parking in the office buildings near by. Do not park in the small lot next to the theatre, or on the street directly in front of the theatre.

It sure will be great to see you there!

Beverly Hills High Def Film Festival: Wahoo! Witt’s Daughter Date and Time At The Fine Arts Theatre

My Cinematographer Got to Film Both David Caruso AND a Kid Named Boo Boo…Go Figure

Jeffrey Siljenberg’s Cinematography is amazing.  He was the Cinematographer on my film “Witt’s Daughter” and I definitely intend on working with him again.  With the canvas of a room and actors for models, he’s a painter with lights who can make any media look fabulous.

When I considered shooting my story in video, I thought I was going to take a hit in the warmth department because video tends to look sharp and cold.

But Jeffrey’s brilliant lighting took my request for 1950’s magazine illustration warm and colorful lighting and made it a HD video reality. His amazing work brought the Panasonic HVX 200 image up to a level that even surprised the folks at EVS who rented me the camera.  “Look, look!” said the employee, behind the counter as he pointed a customer to the giant screen television that was playing a scene from my film. “THAT was shot with a Panasonic!”  (Just imagine what Jeff can do with even more sophisticated media like 35mm film) Not only that, but Jeff was thorough, a down to business hard worker who helped keep the crew mood light and fun.   

Since we worked together, he’s gone on to shoot a spot for David Caruso, collaborated with “Grand Theft Auto” game designer Christian Cantemessa on a project, shot a feature film with one of Disney’s Tween heartthrobs, Boo Boo Stewart, and is attached to another project. 

I just saw that he put his demo reel up on his website so I thought I would show it some love and blog about it and him.  If you’re on the hunt for new talent that’s amazing and great to work with, you won’t be disappointed if you give Jeffrey a call.  You’ll be glad you did!  

http://www.jeffsiljenberg.com/reel/

Confessions Of a Juvenile Old Movie Junkie

Growing up as a latch-key kid in Los Angeles, I had some great times.  I remember summers, when we weren’t scrounging for returnable Coke and Seven Up bottles for our candy picnics with Leah the next door neighbor, or playing TV tag in the backyard with my cousins, my sister and I would watch old movies. Shirley Temple, Danny Kaye, Bob Hope, Bing Crosby, Boris Karloff and the like, helped us pass the time.  They were always there, ready to entertain, and guaranteed to be funny, or brave, or adventurous– and dare I say at times, scary?  They were my babysitters and my sleep aids. My friends that kept me company when I was sick, and quite unexpectedly, my film school teacher.

Time  would pass and I would go from trying to memorize “You remind me of a man? what man?  The man with the power? What power, The Power of Hoo doo. Who do? You do. Do what? Remind me of a man” and weather it was the Vessle with the Pestle, or the flagon with the dragon was the one with the brew that is true– to noticing the shadows as Barbara Stanwyk ran through city Hall to stop Gary Cooper from jumping from the roof on New year’s eve.

To old movies, I owe a debt of gratitude, because in part, they made me who I am. They gave me a love for character, for compelling stories, for composition and my sense of vibrant color. (long before I discovered animation, I fell in love with Technicolor) So I was delighted to meet Gary Sweeney who parlayed his love and knowledge of old movies into a beautiful website called The Midnight Palace.  It’s a great place for anyone who wants to learn about the golden age of Hollywood.

Several years ago, I was working with High school kids at my church and I told one of the girls in my group that she reminded me of Grace Kelly. Her response was “Who?”  I chuckled to myself and counted myself lucky to some degree. There was no reason I should have been introduced to those movies either. After all when I was young, even then, old movies were OOOOOOOOLD.   But I’m glad that I did see them, and I’m glad to know there’s a wonderful web site out there that commemorates them.  I encourage all of to stop by The Midnight Palace by clicking on the picture of Audrey Hepbern above and take a look!

My Trip to the Hollywood Film Festival

Its something you don’t think about during the festival.  It seems that, as a filmmaker, all you can see is your film’s flaws and how seemingly how much more brilliant than you is other entrant’s films…  

I realized after attending the Hollywood film festival, that it was a very wonderfully cool thing to be an official selection.  To get a spot is highly competitive due to the small number of slots.   After seeing many of the films in the festival, I was really astounded with the talent that was out there. It was so cool–Witt’s Daughter was among them!

MURPHY’S LAW

 The day of the festival opened with a disaster!

My printer had stopped working.  It does this every now and again—my lovely Epson printer decides to only print half an image.  Which is annoying, and made even more so when I used my limited supply of 19×13 inch matte paper to print my poster.  To make matters worse, I had to attend an event for two hours in Los Angeles (with 40 minute commute) and I was trying to go to the film festival starting at 2:00 pm.  By the time I got the printer working, printed a poster, small hand outs and business cards, I didn’t get to the Arclight in Hollywood until closer to eight. The Arclight was screening the films in three of it many theatres, so the place was bustling (after all, it was Saturday night) As I rushed back and forth from the registration table and the theatre, I casually glanced scanned the crowd to see if I knew anyone.  I usually do, but in this case I didn’t.  After installing my newly mounted poster on an easel outside of a theatre, and putting fliers on the registration table I realized that since I had a couple of hours to kill before the Witt’s Daughter screening, I could attend another filmmaker’s screening I chose Sherman’s Way: the story of an uptight and by the book young man who decides to turn down a prestigious internship gotten him by his oppressive and influential mother and chase after a girl to California.  When that doesn’t work out, he spends a week helping a burned out Olympic skier restore a convertible MG to give to the skier’s estranged son.  The performances were nice and the story was entertaining and heart warming.  The filmmakers had a question and answer afterwards, but I couldn’t stay because I had to meet folks who were coming to the Witt screening.

 It was nice to see so many of my friends come out to see the film—made even more nice by the fact that it was so late on a church night (most of the folks who came, being friends from various churches I have attended as well as the one I currently attend—thanks in part to reconnecting on Facebook)

Once again I was rushing around trying to get people shuttled to the right theater (they switched screening locations due to a sound issue) and it was funny because at that point, I did run into someone that I knew who had actually been in the same screening I attended.  

MAKE SURE YOU HAVE SOMETHING TO SAY

I was so happy to see all the people as I plopped in my chair next to my dad.  I gazed around at the folks in the chairs all there to support the film, and it felt pretty good—no—it felt pretty great! So I only half way heard the announcer as he stood in front and asked if either of the filmmaker’s were there and I absentmindedly raised my hand.  He then asked if I wanted to say something about the film. I wasn’t expecting that… I mean, I guess I should have been—but really, I should have been given notice that I might be asked to speak.  I thought about this as I later thought about the words that came out of my mouth… well, it was more like a sound… low… gutteral… and somewhat stupid sounding “uuuuuhhhhhhh…..”  And the audience laughed.  One person said, “Well, that’s something” Eventually I recovered enough to introduce the two actors that were in attendance and give God props for putting together the film that I hoped they would all enjoy.

 HORRAY FOR HOLLYWOOD?

 I wish I could say that I enjoyed watching the film on the big screen. Don’t get me wrong, it was fabulous to see the film blown up to giant film size, and amazing to hear folks responding to the funny bits in the movie.  But it was like the verse I read earlier that day from proverbs 25 that says “If you find honey, eat just enough— too much of it, and you will vomit.” Its difficult to watch a film in a new and exciting venue when you have seen it countless times in editorial.  I thought “how does Stephen Spielberg do this?’  Further more, the copy of the film was a disappointment.  The Hollywood film Festival projected the film in one of two formats Digi Beta or Beta SP. I did not know about those formats and so I asked someone who I thought did…they didn’t and so they made an educated guess.  It turned out that I was the one who got taught the lesson.  Digi Beta is actually Digital Beta whereas Beta SP is just a plain old analogue tape.  So taking a HD tape and down converting it analogue caused the image to suffer. The colors were cartoony and very yellow, and there was funky weird pixilation in the blacks.  Sad news.  The audience did not notice it, so it was just my annoyance.  In the end, though, everyone was happy they came to see the film and then raced home to go to bed.  It was wonderful to have their support.

Oh– and I did go to see “Just One of the Gynos”  a well written film by Tripper Clancy and co directed by Brandon Olive and Alex Ranarivelo.  Brandon was also the star-and he is very funny and very natural on screen.  Actually the whole cast was great.  It handled a ticklish subject within marriage with humor, grace, and warmhearted pathos.

I had lunch with the directors afterwards and Brandon gave me some great advice on being a director working with actors.  He said, something like, if the actor is not giving you what you want, take them aside and ask them “what are you thinking right now?”  Help them get to what you believe the scene is supposed to be emotionally with questions about that particular emotion. For example if the scene is a sad scene, say “what makes you sad?” and if they say something like “homelessness” you say “come on that doesn’t make you sad–What makes you sad?” and then keep pressing them on it until get to the root of what really makes them sad “that my mom is back home and I am here–”  “thats not it–really, what is it?” actor response “that I moved away and left her” (by this point the actor is really sad and you then send them into the scene to act with that.  I asked, “doesn’t the scene have to be about the scene?”  (being that we are both fans of method acting) He said, yes, but in the end, its about getting what you need on screen if the actor is not giving you what you want. And besides, sometimes in life, we respond to people based on other things that are not about the particular event at hand.  It was actually a pretty cool connect the dots moment for me.  Because that is what I do for my writing.  I ask myself this question “What’s important to you about_____”  and it starts at the macro and then works it’s way to the micro, and that way, I actually find the important idea that I want to build to in the story– the theme.  

Getting Ready For my First Film Festival

Yesterday I went to pick up my tickets to the Hollywood film festival.  I was kind of puttering around all day, knowing that I had to pick up the tickets, but not in any particular rush to get there.  My dad called me around one-ish to let me know that he was there, and that if I faxed my ID to the Film festival Office in Beverly Hills, that he could pick the tickets up for me.  I looked across the room and sized up the prospect of hooking up the fax and then thought, “Well, I’m going to have to make the hodge over to my father’s house anyway to pick up the tickets—so, I might as well make the trip to Beverly Hills instead.  It was a nice day, and I was yet to be out in it. 

It wasn’t until I left the house in the San Fernando Valley at 3:14 that I remembered that the office in Beverly Hills closed at 4:00, so now I actually had a bit more sense of urgency.  Traffic was pretty light- thank God, as I made my way over the 134.  This time, I decided that I would take Sunset all the way to Beverly Dr. instead of using the directions Mapquest gave me (which more often than not seem to take you the most congested route) Even still, it was a slow race on Sunset.  I tried to keep my cool—after all, it was my fault for not remembering the cut off time—I sure didn’t want to have to schlep back the next day. Traffic seemed to thin out somewhat once I passed Doheny and I dropped down neatly from Sunset on Beverly, turning right and then crossing Rodeo to Camden.  My father had told me about a free parking lot directly across from the building (well, at least for an hour), so that’s where I parked.  It was 3:56.

When I got to suite 600, the lobby was a bustle with commotion.  The receptionist directed me to a young woman in black pants who was rushing through the explanation of the tickets she had in hand.  I squeezed in next to a pretty blonde young lady named Christine who was there with Brandon, the lead and co producer of “Just One of the Gynos” he asked good questions.  Actually—what he did was repeated back exactly what he heard to be clear.  Something I often have to remind myself to do—rather than presuming.  I was glad that he was there to do that, I was a little out of it, having not eaten more than two carrots that day and fighting allergies. Basically, the drill was, that each VIP pass allowed the filmmakers to go to any screening they wanted to for free. That they could put up a mounted poster in front of their theatre thirty minutes before the screening, that there would be an awards announcement on Sunday in the Movie theatre bar, and on Monday, there would be a star studded gala event with an after party in Beverly Hills.  (But make sure to get their before the limos or else you’ll get stuck in the red carpet throng.  It was kind of exciting—but again, I was a little out of it because of the afore mentioned issues.  The young lady stopped her explanation and took questions.  One older gentleman was pretty perturbed that he couldn’t get more tickets to the thousand-dollar Gala for free, and questions arose as to what the capacity was of the three theatres—something I would have never thought to ask.   I asked if there was a way to find out who was sitting at our tables at the Gala so we could see their movies to have something to talk about—she didn’t know. The festival coordinator then took the ID’s of the folks who had straggled in late—of which I had been one.

A few of those guys had been the indie frat boy types.  As the woman started to take ID’s they pushed their way to the front of the line to be the first to hand in their ID’s.  After the girl went back through the large wooden office door, though they did not know Brandon and Christine they zeroed in on them, asked them what film they did and if they were going to the opening film festival that night.  When they got their answer, they invited them to an after party they were sponsoring.  It was kind of funny to see the (frat) guys had that level of indifference to the others around them who overheard the singular invitation.  I rose from the couch and made polite conversation with a young woman who was picking up tickets for her boyfriend while babysitting another friend’s little girl.  Eventually the small talk died away and I returned to the couch next to Christine.  She was very friendly, and when I told Brandon that I was thankful that he had asked his question we exchanged information about our films.  I had actually heard of his because of the message board on Without A Box, so it was nice to put a name to a face.  Eventually the young lady came out with more tickets and she went through the whole spiel again, which was nice, so I was able to pick up what I missed.  The frat boys left, turning to Brandon and Christine saying “See you tonight.”  After they left, I chatted with the two a bit longer.  They were a nice couple.  And at the end, Christine said, “We’ll see your film.”  I had already said that I would try and go see theirs. 

It should be an interesting time.  

Great Reviews Coming in!

Reading This Blog post May Help a 78 year old Man

There were still some of the old Guard in animation when I graduated from school.  Men who had done great work on films going back as far as Snow White.  But as talented as they were as artists, they weren’t very forward thinking when it came to encouraging new                                     talent as it came to them.  

I recall being told by one older gentleman “You’re a wonderful draftswoman, but you’ll never get a job at Disney because you’re Black and a woman.”  Of course I was appalled but figured success would be the best response, and God proved to have the last word on that.

     

A more recent picture of Corny than I remember him

One of my early jobs, was not at Disney, but at Marvel Animation, where I met a wonderful old guy animator who was not at all like the other old guy animators I had met. His name was (and still is) Corny Cole. With his wild salt and pepper hair He was a funny rumpled dude who I remember always in an big green khaki jacket with gaping bulging pockets, and one of those floppy hats that you see on fly fisherman except with no lures.  He was fun and he could draw like crazy.  Corny was one of those guys who always had time for you, no matter who you were, and was as willing to help you with a drawing as chat with you about any funny little thing.  I recall flipping some animation he did of some pigs playing volley ball with their snouts from a scene he animated for a commercial. It was amazing– and all the more so, because he had done it in ball point pen!  Yet with his quiet confidence, he was a humble fellow.  He was a great guy to meet when I was just a green twig out of school and he made me feel comfortable.  

So when I read about how everything Corny’s home and everything he owned (including his pets) perished in a recent fire in Marek, and someone asked me to share about it, I was only too happy to do so.  I have often joked about wanting to have a clean slate, where everything just up and disappears– but a joke is one thing– reality is another.  sixty years of Corny’s drawings have gone up in ash and smoke.  (Video KTTV) Cal Arts, the school I attended, where Corny now works, has set up a fund for him should anyone want to contribute.  The Creative Talent Networks has set up a Pay Pal Account that accepts donations.  Or if you want to call Cal Arts their number is 661 255 1050 and ask for the Character Animation department.

Witt’s Daughter Reviews coming in

How exciting!  I am starting to get reviews from folks who have seen the movie and they are so very positive! (and no, its not my mom– she’s passed on) Since they have been calling or writing, I have asked them to write a few words that I can share on the website.  I look forward to being able to share them with you!  And now I will go have a celebrational bowl of Oxtails and Greens…  Yeah I said that… oh come on, don’t be that way– You would like them if you had them.

And now I will go have a celebrational bowl of Oxtails and Greens…  Yeah I said that… oh come on, don’t be that way– You would like them if you had them.