Melissa's OTL Advice Corner - Entry #1 Film Festivals

A year and a half ago when Alicia sent me her film festival list I had no idea what film festivals were really about. I had absolutely no clue that they cost money, that some of the festivals are very exclusive and that there is an entire network dedicated to helping people enter their films into hundreds of film festivals all around the globe.

If you are looking into submitting your film into film festivals here are a few tips from a master submitter!

1. Get to know Withoutabox.com! The faster you can navigate yourself through this fantastic website the better. Get your projects set up and once you do you can submit your films to hundreds of film festivals in about 5 minutes. This site will also keep track of your submission history and keep you notified of up and coming deadlines etc.


2. Always make sure that you take the time to read the fine print details of what a festival is looking for. Often times the title alone with give you an idea about what special things each festival is seeking (but some do not). There is nothing worse then sending your hard earned cash along with your film into a festival that is only meant for a special interest group i.e. Spanish Language movies only!

3. Try to get your film submitted during the Early Deadline time slot. Watch the timelines for festivals that you are interested in and try to submit them during their early deadline submission process. Most film festivals will jack up their prices pretty high for Late Deadline submissions. By being early you can save upwards of $30.00 per submission. This will also allow you to submit to more festivals for the same amount of money that you would spend to submit to one festival during the late deadline.

4. Be realistic about the festivals you are submitting to. For example: I made a short film about a bird mascot and beer. I am not going to get into Sundance or Cannes with this type of film. This film is better suited to smaller underground festivals and very specific location festivals. Base your festival selection list on where you feel your film would do the best. You want to get as far as you can with the money you have. If you really, really want to enter your film into Sundance just because, go ahead and do so, but do a little research and find out what other festivals your film would do best at and submit to those as well.

5. Don’t be discouraged if your film does not get into a film festival. Festivals often get thousands of submissions so if you get a rejection letter don’t take it too personally.

Well that about does it for this entry. Check back in with our blog for more advice from Melissa’s OTL Advice Corner!

Cheers!

MJ

A Love Affair with Food!

In honor of two of our shows in development - From Farm to Market to Table and Chewing the Fat, I have decided to do a blog all about my favorite channel - The Food Network.

When I say this is my favorite channel, I'm not joking. My TV is set to turn on to The Food Network in HD whenever it boots up. The first thing I do when checking into a hotel is see whether they have The Food Network. I can't tell you how often it's off the list - all of Walt Disney World is without! The Brown Hotel in Louisville! The Peabody in Memphis! The Long Boat Key Club in Florida! All without! Devastating really.

I first discovered The Food Network back in 1998 when I had my wisdom teeth out. I had a lot of time on the couch, and watching programs about food was actually very satisfying. I understand that this isn't always the case for everyone, but for me - it was satiating. In the beginning my favorite shows were: The Essence of Emeril, Cooking Live, Two Hot Tamales, and Ready Set Cook! I would drive my parents crazy because I commandeered the TV whenever I was home. When they first started airing the Japense Iron Chef and The Two Fat Ladies, I thought...brilliant! I was even on board for shows like Taste and the first incarnation of Molto Mario - Mario without his audience was just plain awkward. Or what about Door Knock Dinners that introduced us to Paula Dean. So fun! Competition shows like Ready Set Cook, Iron Chef and Door Knock Dinners definitely helped pave the way for Top Chef and Hell's Kitchen.

Who remembers Dweezil and Lisa - hosted by Dweezil Zappa and Lisa Loeb? I do...not their best choice.

I grew up watching all the food programming on PBS when I would visit my grandfather in Connecticut. Julia Child was a staple in my house growing up. I even created my own show called The Lee Cook Show where I would prepare food for my mother. She would suffer through it, until she realized that she no longer had to cook dinner for my family.

I have always loved watching people cook. I love Hibachi where they cook in front of you, or restaurants like Boston's Fire & Ice where you pick out your ingredients and they sauté it for you. And fondue! Forget it! I'm a huge fan! Even cooking demos at supermarkets have me transfixed for hours. There is something magical about cooking. The fact that it comes to life with a few stirs and a few dashes of ingredients never ceases to amaze me.

Currently my favorite programs on Food Network are - Anything with Jamie Oliver, Unwrapped, Challenge, and 5 Ingredient Fix. For a long time my favorite was Good Eats but since Alton Brown was mean to the contestants of The Next Food Network Star a number of years ago, I find him less hilarious.

If I could make requests to The Food Network, I would say that I wish they had a show for people with allergies, or a show for vegetarians - it's been a long time since Pick of the Day with Curtis Aikens has been on air. And since Ming Tsai left, there hasn't been an Asian show.

Even though the network has changed so much in the 10 plus years that I've been watching, I'm a devotee and will keep watching until they take it off the air.

From Farm to Market to Table

This week the On the Leesh crew had a second day of shooting a new cooking show pilot. This is our first foray into the world of cooking shows, but the creators, Susan Wands and Diane Petkoff came to us with an idea we couldn’t pass up, so it was full steam ahead into these unchartered waters! The show is titled, From Farm to Market to Table and is hosted by the very charming, Mary Micari. Although we can’t get into the details of the show at this time, let’s just say it can apply to both expert cooks and newbies in the kitchen. I should also say that, although we may not have technically produced a cooking show before, we have, collectively, watched a lot of The Food Network. I should say here, that hands down, the most hours logged watching this channel is done by Alicia. It’s her ‘go to’ channel for entertainment. I’ve often found her watching shows like, Challenge, Everyday Italian or Paula’s Home Cooking. When they got rid of Ready Set Cook, Alicia cried for days. So, although we may not have hands on personal experience, Alicia has absorbed much of the art of the cooking show over the years. So stay tuned for more information on From Farm to Market to Table

Milestone in Post Production

The short film I wrote and directed, titled, Milestone is very close to being finished. Alicia is furiously editing it and Banana Whale is providing the music, and there’s color correction happening, and foley being added...all sorts of fabulous post-production things are occurring. So, that means it will soon be reaching its finished line; which is thrilling for me!

I’ve been getting asked a lot about what the experience of directing was like and usually I respond with very short answers like ‘I liked it,’ or ‘I learned a lot’, or some sort of something that was positive but general and allowed the person to get on with their life. Lately however, while sitting with Alicia and going through the fine tuning process I’ve realized something... The biggest thing I’ve learned about directing is that the number 1 thing you need to do is surround yourself with people who are both honest and smarter than you. It can be hard to see the forest for the trees when you are listening to your own words and watching performances that you’ve directed. As I expected, there were moments that I would’ve done differently if I had to do it over again and there were lines that, once they moved from the page to the screen were no longer necessary. While I, on my own, could’ve sussed some of these things out, the fact that I had Alicia sitting there with me, offering her thoughts and concerns helped immensely. With her editor’s eye she was able to not only offer suggestions, but was actually able to put those suggestions into the video so I could see them in action. That was amazingly helpful!

So... to all of you newbie directors out there like me... do not operate as a one person show – surround yourself with people that think like you – only better, faster and smarter. You’ll thank me later!

Best Laid Plans Where You Live

So... I realize that I haven’t written in awhile. I wish I could say that I’ve had a good excuse, but alas, I have nothing to offer you other than being in the midst of some things that made it difficult to take a step back and assess. In short, I’ve been avoiding you. That’s right people... I have been avoiding a blog! But hear we are – almost a year since I left for Ghana.

But I have news... First – check out the cool logo for the film that Melissa Jernigan at OTL created for me! I think she did a great job and am grateful to her for her patience in my not knowing what sort of graphic best summarized the project. Big thanks to her!

Second, while I, again, cannot really get into some of the details of what’s occurred in my situation I will say this. It is a SMALL world out there in a very big way. People talk about how huge NYC is, but truly, NY’ers (at least my friends have agreed with this), often stick to their small neighborhood most of the time. You create your own little safe haven in the midst of the city’s noisy chaos. Certainly for me, I’ve had to work at creating a whole new existence in my own neighborhood. Since it’s the same place that I moved into as a married person, all of my beginning memories of living there were associated with that identity. And then breakups happen and you find out how amazing it is that the simplest things trigger monumental emotional recollections – such as walking your dog, or going to certain restaurants. In the beginning of this process, your neighborhood is like a dysfunctional home that feels both safe and like its inundated with land mines. But then, the more things you do on your own, the more territory you take back and fill with new happenings, the more the “safety” scale tips in your direction. It’s your home again.

Neighborhood, by definition (I even looked this up), means “an area surrounding a particular place, person or object”.

Perhaps that’s why then, while chillaxing around my neighborhood with my dog, I was pretty jarred by seeing my past hanging out with his future only blocks from where we lived. Life winked at me in the form of a very jarring reminder that people don’t operate under the same rules. Perhaps nobody is right or wrong, but you learn quickly that the feeling of safety that you’ve built is shaky. If you assume that people have the same life rules that you do, and you create your world with that assumption in mind, you can, like me, be pummeled by the fact that that is wrong, wrong, wrong! So here I am again, learning something new. I’m growing people! If only the emotional growth could expand to my actual physical growth I’d be smiling from ear to ear! Looking back, there’s been so much disappointment this year – so many surprises that I wasn’t at all prepared for or deserved. There were things that I was so sure of a year ago but now realize I was completely wrong. But I’m not in charge of any of those things. Sometimes I can’t help but let the disappointment wash over me and follow me around, but other times, I’ve realized that what I can also do is simply focus on the things I am in control of and surround myself with people who operate under similar life rules as my own. And maybe that’s not a best laid plan, but it’s the best I’ve got right now.

Holly Gets Another Great Review!

Web Series Magazine had great things to say about our little web series that could: The In-Betweens of Holly Malone. Be sure to check out the great shout out on their site: webseriesmagazine.blogspot.com. And as always, watch the show HERE!