I’ve given myself one year, more or less, to put my senior thesis film, Sons of Gods into various film festivals around the nation. But up until this point, I haven’t been
very pro-active about the whole thing.
Diag 1: Sons of Gods: Prologue
Sons of Gods is a weird film. Maybe it’s great. Maybe it’s not. That’s in the eye of the viewer, and frankly, I’ve heard it both ways. Personally, like most film makers, I only see the flaws and the things that should have been changed. That said, I stand by 100% the camera movements and editing choices we made, and love how my Director of Photography, Chris Todd, and I were able to get angle after angle, allowing me to make something that at least looks extremely cinematic.
Plus, the visual effects are pretty damn stunning. Tons of sky has been replaced with bluer hues, since most of the atmosphere was blown out while on set. 3 guys walking over a little plot of land 10 times suddenly becomes an army of 100 with space ships in the background, and a $9 pair of plastic National Geographic binoculars seem to work like something out of Star Wars.
SoGs, as we affectionately call it, is a big story. And that’s probably a big problem with this little movie of mine. It has a beginning, middle and end, but it’s very clearly the first piece of a much large story. Much, much larger.
The Pony Express…with wings!
Right now, three envelopes are headed to various film festivals in America: The Coney Island Film Festival, the FantasticFest here in Austin, and the Indie Memphis Film Festival.
Diag 2: Indie Memphis Film Festival
Diag 3: FantasticFest 2008
Diag 4: Coney Island Film Festival
Thanks to Without A Box I was able to quickly and easily find out about the other festivals besides FantasticFest, the one festival I knew I wanted to submit to. Primarily because I know I’ll be there, at least part of the time, and it’s a Science-Fiction/Horror Film Festival, and if my movie’s going to really shine anywhere, it’s somewhere like Fantastic fest.
But, if last year was any indication, they don’t tend to show a lot of short films. There’s been hub-bub that’ll change this go-around, with FantasticFest actually having a block for short films, rather than just attaching them to the front of features (which is great in and of itself, but means they won’t take *that* many original shorts in comparison to a shorts festival or a festival with a particular shorts showcase). Hopefully Tim League and the rest of the gang at Alamo Drafthouse will like the flick.
As far as the other two - Indie Memphis was ending today. So it was my last shot at getting into that particular festival. It’s been around awhile, which is always a nice thing when you’re trying to decide where to spend your hard earned money, and I have a good friend that lives in Memphis. So if I get in, yay all around. Unlike Fantastic Fest, though, this isn’t a genre film festival. So it could be tougher to get into.
I submitted to Coney Island for the same reasons as Indie Memphis, except that the deadline was a bit of a way off, but Without a Box had it listed in their ‘hot’ film fests. And frankly, I like their posters for their little showcase and as a designer, that appeals to me. They seem to have some style, some personality, and getting into a festival like that could be a fun little trip. Hopefully their personality will translate into liking my movie.
Honest worries
I won’t lie here - my film worries me. It’s so specific, it’s so genre, it’s so niche, that while I may have had this great idea to tell the first part of an epic, everything may have just backfired on me. It’s not getting me exactly what I want and I’m nowhere near ready to start tackling the feature film versions of these movies.
Director’s get better. I get better, with every movie I helm, and I don’t want Sons of Gods to be sullied by a first-time director or even a moderately novice director who could have waited 5 or 10 years, gotten more experience, and known how to better tell the story.
I’m not a king. I’m not a genius. I’m talented, and I’m dedicated with passion. But I’m far from a messiah. I’m the sort of director who likes to shoot the angles, get the coverage, try out different readings and performances, and then, whilst sitting with my editor or by myself in the editing bay, start to craft and create a movie that I may not even have envisioned.
Because film making, more than any other art form, is collaborative. While it may be my job as director to steer the ship, I can’t run the engine, cook the meals, swab the deck, and do all the other tasks by myself. Bringing in other people, other good, creative, intelligent people, starts to shape your idea like PlayDough. A director still tells people where to press and what to move, but your team’s fingerprints are all over the final piece.
And this is a very, very beautiful thing.
