Archive for the ‘TDDUP-Festivals’ Category

Here we are in March already.  I’m sorry I haven’t been posting more often.  This blog tends to get the least attention out of everything I’m doing.  I’d like to update it more often, but it is hard to get myself here to do it.

TDDUP is about to play at a few festivals in the next several weeks.  Newport, Santa Cruz, Sonoma and Cleveland are coming up.  You can see the listing by clicking here.  Hopefully someone here will be able to check it out.

My film recently finished playing at “Smogdance” where it took both the Best Animated Short category and Audience Choice Award.  I received a couple of nice certificates, some prize money, and software.  It was nice to get the news of how well it did.

This has been an unusual winter for me.  Normally by this time I would have gone skiing several times already, but unfortunately I’ve only been able to go a couple of times.  I shouldn’t complain, one of the day’s that I did go was timed with one of the biggest storms to hit the Sierra’s in a while.  Something like 12 feet of snow fell over a 4 day period.  I went to Kirkwood on the last day of the storms to swim through chest deep snow.  It was truly bottomless.

Because of my schedule, I haven’t been submitting to as many festivals lately.  In fact, I’ve only sent to one in the last month or two.  And that was just earlier today that I put it together.  This one is going to Australia for Mudfest.  This time around I sent in both Till Death Do Us Part and my older short The Instant Animator Machine.  I’ve been wanting to submit this older film for a while but just haven’t gotten around to it.  I finally have.  It is almost completely opposite of TDDUP.  It is short, a comedy, and very simple CG.

Speaking of festivals, TDDUP just finished at the Pomona festival just outside Los Angeles and it won the “Best Animation” award.  Hearing about that was a nice start to my week.  I’ve also just been notified that TDDUP has been selected to play in Cleveland at their International Film Festival.

As usual, I’m working on various projects.  Mostly the same things I was working on in my last post.  Nothing really else to say.  So, we’ll just leave it at that.  Happy Winter!

It has been rather busy around here.  Sorry for the lack of updates.  There is a large gap in time between the festivals that I’ve entered and their dates.  Basically, I haven’t heard one way or another from the latest round of submissions.  Well, make that, that I’ve only heard from one.  And that was an acceptance notice from Smogdance in Pomona California.    Although I have no details yet and I’m not even sure what dates it takes place.  I’ll post more when I get that information.

Outside of the festivals, I just finished up a commercial that I was helping out on with animation and continue to write for a few projects.  It has been an exhausting few months, but very enjoyable.  I’m keeping this entry short and hope to come back again soon with another update.

Still no word on when the short will play at its next festival. I’ve heard back from a couple that my short was not chosen. This can be a hard pill to swallow. Especially when you want your short to play everywhere. The reality is, at least what I’ve heard from others doing the same thing as me, that shorts have a high rejection rate.  I’ve even heard that filmmakers should expect only a 10% acceptance rate.  Boy, I hope it isn’t really like that.  If so, it means I could be in for more disappointment in the future. I guess I need to be prepared.

Coincidentally, while I was at Palm Springs, I attended a panel discussion of festival programmers. There were guests from several festivals across the country, large and small. One of the things they talked about was why films are turned away. The reasons were vast. Everything from, it is too long for the time they have remaining, the story doesn’t fit into the theme they are trying to reflect in the festival or a particular showing, or a plethora of other reasons. It was very sobering.

With that said, I expected this from the beginning and there are tons more festivals out there.

Look ma! I’m on TV! The CBS affiliate in Palm Springs invited me to their studio for a live on-the-air-interview. This all happened back at the Palm Springs Short Fest. I debated on whether to say anything here or not, but decided to hold off until I had a copy of the interview in my hand and ready to be posted.

First off, it was an honor and very exciting to be given this opportunity. I’ve never been asked to sit down on set and be interviewed. Despite all my preparation, it didn’t turn out how I expected. We were kind of rushed for time and my long drawn out and very detailed responses could not be implemented!!  (sarcasm intended)

Despite being ready to go, as soon as I sat down in the chair, I started feeling a little nervous. I wasn’t shaking or anything, just one of those “what the heck am I doing” moments. It was too late though, as I say when skiing in places where I probably shouldn’t. “I’m commited!”

Needless to say, I was more comfortable once I started talking. Just a little stiff. However, I did pull off a great impression of a robot! By the time my 2-3 minutes of fame was over, I had finally loosened up. Lessoned learned for next time. There will be a next time, right?

In retrospect, I should of spent more time talking about the film’s premise in the beginning, what you can’t see is the host’s facial expression. I got the impression while watching him that he wanted a really concise answer and so I cut it off short before spitting it all out.

What you see when following this link is only a part of the interview. The only bits and pieces I left out were some banter at the end and the interview with SJ Main (we shared the time together). I also edited down some of the intro which including more of my short. What did he just say? Yes, finally a part of my short is up online! Don’t get too excited, only a very small portion. Stick around, I’ll be posting a higher quality section of the film soon. Maybe even as much as 3 minutes. I swear!