Film Festivals, Some Editing and A Trip to the 70s: A Thankful Update

Another month has passed since I posted an update here! It's been a very busy Fall...the busiest one I can remember in the recent past! Thanksgiving is coming this week and I am thankful for the busyness because I've been given the gift of working on things that I love! What's better than that?

In the past 9 weeks I've been to 4 different Film Festivals for 2 different films! Between making a film with my friend and mentor, Dave Perry, producing the Historic Smithfield Plantation Ghost Tour and lots of promotional film shoots and photo shoots, I've also been editing Wayward! And, last week we were able to drop the trailer! That's a huge step forward! (Check it out on the Home Page of this website!)

Cotton Clouds, my film that premiered last March, took Best Docudrama at Peak City Film Festival in Apex, NC. We also attended PUSH Film Festival and the Alexandria Film Festival with Cotton Clouds, where it was screened as an Official Selection! These are my first festivals that I've attended as Writer/Director in a regular filmmaker category and not a Student category! That's a big milestone for me as a filmmaker!

Last week I got to attend the Super Gr8 Film Festival in Harrisonburg. Dave Perry is an amazing cinematographer who enjoys using many different types of cameras. He knew about the Super Gr8 Festival (one of just a few of its kind) and had decided to enter with his own Super 8 camera! He asked me to write a script and we got started! They send a piece of film that you shoot on and edit in camera. No 2nd takes! Everything has to be planned out to the second, because the film will only end up being between 2 and 3 minutes long depending on your frame rate. We meticulously planned every shot, even filming it on Dave's phone the day before with stand ins and a stop watch! The day of the shoot arrived and our two actors (dressed in 70s clothes...because...why not?!) did an amazing job with this high pressure task! In about 7 hours we captured about 2 1/2 minutes worth of film to produce

a micro-short called Interference! Dave did sound after the fact and sent the track in separately to be synched at the lab in California where the film was being processed. No one would see the finished product until the festival! It was nerve-wracking, but the film turned out beautifully! I can't wait to be able to share it with you! It's been digitized and we will get our copy soon!

I love collaborating with other filmmakers! There's been even more of that going on behind the scenes, as well! More on that later!

That's my quick update! Now, back to editing Wayward!