Day 3: IFP Market
Slept until 7:30am, until rudely awakened by my 2-year-old daughter Senya screaming "Daddy, Daddy..." because she basically hadn't seen me for the past two days while I was at the market. I felt pretty guilty and tried to spend some good time playing with her in the morning. Unfortunately, I had to leave by 9:30am, so I eventually left her crying and screaming in the hands of my mother-in-law. I'll make it up to her by selling my doc for a million dollars and buying her a big Tickle Me Elmo doll ;)
So today's the big day -- our very first screening ever of this doc was scheduled for 12:15pm at the Angelika Theater. I got there around 10:30am just to make sure that our poster was up and that our press kit materials were in place. We got lucky and our poster was put up in a very prominent place where everyone could see it. Our graphic designer (Jamie Carroll) did an incredible job and we got a lot of really positive comments -- I think a lot of people ended up coming just because they liked the artwork. (What a superficial society we are...)
Managed to catch a few more doc screenings beforehand: the first was called "Keep your ears on the ball" -- a documentary about four different people who lost their vision and how they cope. It was actually quite good, and I thought they did a great job of editing sequences together. They also had a special "Waking Life" kind of animation that was very effective.
The next doc I saw was one that everybody had been looking forward to - "Planet B-boy" -- a documentary about the world's different b-boy teams and how they all come together for a final competition every year. Fantastic footage and amazing b-boy stunts. However, it's not just your typical competition film: it has a lot of very poignant moments that really get into who their characters are. I almost cried at one moment. This is a film that could seriously be a huge hit and make a few million dollars at the box office -- and a few more millions in DVD sales. Look out for it.
So finally, 12:15pm comes around and it's time for us. The screening people were very conscientious and did a check of our film to make sure it was displayed correctly. After that was finished, the people started coming in, and I was surprised to see that there were around 25-30 people in attendance. (At most other screenings, except for Planet B-Boy, there were only about 10-15 people.) So I got up at the front with my producer Jillian, and we gave a short 4-minute intro to the film, giving some backstory to the creation of the high school. We probably should have kept it shorter, but overall we did a good job, I think.
And then the movie played. I didn't know what to expect, but people were really responding to the film. No one left early, and people were laughing at all the right places, and I could feel that they were connecting with our characters during the more poignant moments. When the final credits started to roll, there was a spontaneous applause that seemed to be very genuine and not just out of courtesy. Very pleased with that, obviously! Jillian and I answered about five questions from the audience and then our screening was over. People started to approach us and gave the film very positive reviews. One filmmaker said it was the best doc he had seen so far at the market. The Florida Film Festival said he definitely wanted to have us in his program. And another guy said he was a sound designer/editor/composer (with experience in a lot of very high profile docs) who said he would love to help us with our film, even though he knows we have very little money! I think he would be great to work with -- seems like the film really resonated with him and he obviously has the experience to clean up a lot of our audio problems.
It was then time to quickly race over to the A&E sponsored luncheon. Never one to pass up a free lunch, I headed over and met up with two women from the Center for Asian American Media who said that they had sat in on our screening and really loved what they saw. More encouragement! They wondered why I hadn't applied to them for funding yet, implying that it would be almost a slam-dunk to get finishing funds from them. I didn't say this, but the reason I haven't applied with them yet is because I'm not sure I want to be locked into a deal with PBS for over three years at this point. But definitely something to consider at a later date.
Headed back over for another industry meeting with CS Associates - a distributor who takes your film to international destinations. He hadn't seen the DVD trailer yet but he said that he was very interested in the characters, mainly because international sales are driven more by characters than subject matter. So we went over every character with him in detail, especially that of the Principal and Sharifea (our star student). He was very honest with us, and he said that after he sees the trailer in the video library, he will let us know if he's still interested or if he "never wants to talk to us again..."
Back to the Angelika Theater for another screening, this time of "Fridays at the Farm." Really not expecting much about this one, but it was absolutely the best film I've seen at this market, bar none. Just a short film at 19 minutes, it dealt with one family who decided to join a community farm in order to live life more simply and eat more healthily. While that sounds kind of inane for film subject matter, it was incredibly powerful and connected growing vegetables with the process of growing community amongst family and friends. If I saw this DVD for sale, I would snap it up in a heartbeat. Just shows what it's like to be truly happy and content -- not a Disneyfied version, but the real thing.
Back once more for another industry meeting, this time with Showtime Networks. Essentially, it was pretty much the same news as HBO, except the guy we met with was much nicer and more interested in us. He said that while our film is not really a good fit for "a premium network" where they expect more edgy (read: sex and violence) fare, he thinks the project is extremely worthy. Again, encouraging to us, but not any closer to getting a sale...
Heading home now to see little Senya before she goes to bed. Hope to have an even better screening tomorrow. Maybe I can track down the PBS people and talk to them...
So today's the big day -- our very first screening ever of this doc was scheduled for 12:15pm at the Angelika Theater. I got there around 10:30am just to make sure that our poster was up and that our press kit materials were in place. We got lucky and our poster was put up in a very prominent place where everyone could see it. Our graphic designer (Jamie Carroll) did an incredible job and we got a lot of really positive comments -- I think a lot of people ended up coming just because they liked the artwork. (What a superficial society we are...)
Managed to catch a few more doc screenings beforehand: the first was called "Keep your ears on the ball" -- a documentary about four different people who lost their vision and how they cope. It was actually quite good, and I thought they did a great job of editing sequences together. They also had a special "Waking Life" kind of animation that was very effective.
The next doc I saw was one that everybody had been looking forward to - "Planet B-boy" -- a documentary about the world's different b-boy teams and how they all come together for a final competition every year. Fantastic footage and amazing b-boy stunts. However, it's not just your typical competition film: it has a lot of very poignant moments that really get into who their characters are. I almost cried at one moment. This is a film that could seriously be a huge hit and make a few million dollars at the box office -- and a few more millions in DVD sales. Look out for it.
So finally, 12:15pm comes around and it's time for us. The screening people were very conscientious and did a check of our film to make sure it was displayed correctly. After that was finished, the people started coming in, and I was surprised to see that there were around 25-30 people in attendance. (At most other screenings, except for Planet B-Boy, there were only about 10-15 people.) So I got up at the front with my producer Jillian, and we gave a short 4-minute intro to the film, giving some backstory to the creation of the high school. We probably should have kept it shorter, but overall we did a good job, I think.
And then the movie played. I didn't know what to expect, but people were really responding to the film. No one left early, and people were laughing at all the right places, and I could feel that they were connecting with our characters during the more poignant moments. When the final credits started to roll, there was a spontaneous applause that seemed to be very genuine and not just out of courtesy. Very pleased with that, obviously! Jillian and I answered about five questions from the audience and then our screening was over. People started to approach us and gave the film very positive reviews. One filmmaker said it was the best doc he had seen so far at the market. The Florida Film Festival said he definitely wanted to have us in his program. And another guy said he was a sound designer/editor/composer (with experience in a lot of very high profile docs) who said he would love to help us with our film, even though he knows we have very little money! I think he would be great to work with -- seems like the film really resonated with him and he obviously has the experience to clean up a lot of our audio problems.
It was then time to quickly race over to the A&E sponsored luncheon. Never one to pass up a free lunch, I headed over and met up with two women from the Center for Asian American Media who said that they had sat in on our screening and really loved what they saw. More encouragement! They wondered why I hadn't applied to them for funding yet, implying that it would be almost a slam-dunk to get finishing funds from them. I didn't say this, but the reason I haven't applied with them yet is because I'm not sure I want to be locked into a deal with PBS for over three years at this point. But definitely something to consider at a later date.
Headed back over for another industry meeting with CS Associates - a distributor who takes your film to international destinations. He hadn't seen the DVD trailer yet but he said that he was very interested in the characters, mainly because international sales are driven more by characters than subject matter. So we went over every character with him in detail, especially that of the Principal and Sharifea (our star student). He was very honest with us, and he said that after he sees the trailer in the video library, he will let us know if he's still interested or if he "never wants to talk to us again..."
Back to the Angelika Theater for another screening, this time of "Fridays at the Farm." Really not expecting much about this one, but it was absolutely the best film I've seen at this market, bar none. Just a short film at 19 minutes, it dealt with one family who decided to join a community farm in order to live life more simply and eat more healthily. While that sounds kind of inane for film subject matter, it was incredibly powerful and connected growing vegetables with the process of growing community amongst family and friends. If I saw this DVD for sale, I would snap it up in a heartbeat. Just shows what it's like to be truly happy and content -- not a Disneyfied version, but the real thing.
Back once more for another industry meeting, this time with Showtime Networks. Essentially, it was pretty much the same news as HBO, except the guy we met with was much nicer and more interested in us. He said that while our film is not really a good fit for "a premium network" where they expect more edgy (read: sex and violence) fare, he thinks the project is extremely worthy. Again, encouraging to us, but not any closer to getting a sale...
Heading home now to see little Senya before she goes to bed. Hope to have an even better screening tomorrow. Maybe I can track down the PBS people and talk to them...
posted by cccwong at 8:00 PM
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