Do Over screens this weekend in the Hill Country

My short film "Do Over" will screen this weekend at the 2013 Hill Country Film Festival in Fredricksburg, TX. We screen in Shorts Block 8 at 10 AM. My producer Andrew Logan and I will be attending.

I've been grappling for weeks as to whether I'd be staying overnight and enjoy the fest for a few days. It's close enough to drive to, but far enough away that you wouldn't want to make the trip back and forth all week long. I've got a few projects I'm working on all once, so I've decided to drive up Saturday and spend the day watching movies and talking to whomever I can in that time. Wish I could stay longer though.

"Do Over" has screened at numerous film festivals throughout 2012 and 2013. It has received awards such as Best Comedy Short at the Iowa Film Festival, Best Regional Short at the Flatland Film Festival, and it wont the PBS NYC Reel 13 Online Competition.

Can't make it to the Hill Country Film Festival? You can purchase it for $1.99 and watch it right now!

SXSW Leftovers PT3: GOOD NIGHT Premiere

I was post-supervisor on The Bounceback and had been working on it right up to its premiere. The second film I was a part of that premiered at the festival was a movie I co-edited called Good Night. I worked on this film on and off over the course of a year and a half. I thought director Sean Gallagher had a pretty unique and savvy approach to making a micro budget indie that tells an emotional story.

I've been looking forward to Good Night's premiere for a long time. I get attahed to each long-form project I work on. As an editor, I feel like I have to. I feel like I have to be on that edge of objectivity and emotionality. As Pacino said in Heat, "Keeps me sharp. Where I gotta be."

During the course of making this film, some of the events it depicts paralleled events in my own life in unfortunate ways. The themes of the film took on even greater meaning to me. I think grew close to this project in ways I hadn't to others since the first film I edited, I'll Come Running. That's not a slight at any other film on my resume. Circumstances just made Good Night uniquely entwine with my life.

SXSW 2013 - Leftovers PT2: BOUNCEBACK Premiere

The premiere for The Bounceback was Saturday March 9th at the historic Paramount theater. Panic struck our team an hour before the show when our director, Bryan Poyser, got word the screening might have to be canceled due to a problem with our HDCAM tape. As Post Supervisor I went on high alert as getting these tapes made and QCed was part of my job.

I was on my way to the Paramount when he called me so I was able to get to the theater pretty quick. There was some confusion but we figured it out pretty fast: There had been a problem with the film screening before us. Our tape was fine. That other film's screening had been canceled (but SXSW added two more screenings to make up for the loss of their premiere). Still, it was a scare before our big unveiling. Good thing they keep the Paramount cold inside cause I was sweating bullets for a few minutes.

Jury Duty

In 2005, I was lucky enough to win the Best Hecho en Tejas (Best Made in Texas) Film Award at the Cine Las Americas Film Festival for my short film "Test Day." The shorts we screened with were strong, powerful narratives. The Hecho en Tejas section that year was comprised of only four short films. Today, it has expanded to include two features and around eleven shorts.

For that matter, Cine itself has grown since 2005. It is screening somewhere in the neighborhood of 160 films, shorts and features, docs and narratives. No film screens twice. There's a lot to experience in under a week's time.

I've been looking forward to getting back to Cine Las Americas ever since "Test Day" screened and was warmly received. This year they asked me to be a jury member for the Hecho en Tejas section. What I've discovered is I am a one-person jury - so if anyone is upset at the end of the weekend they only have me to blame! No pressure...

SXSW 2013 - Leftovers PT1: Missing Swag and Riding Coattails

This year's +SXSW  felt different. Maybe it was the plethora of Texas films that had received acclaim at Sundance ahead of their regional debuts. Maybe it was the fact I had two films I worked on premiering at the fest, and I realize how fortunate I am to be a part of two great projects that beat the odds (and how much luck figures into festival selections along with the quality of the projects). Maybe I felt the size of the festival in a way I hadn't before.

But there was a different energy this year. And in retrospect - now that I've had a month to reflect (and to finally write a post on the festival; wish I wrote more often but I when duty calls, I answer) - maybe the energy didn't come from the festival itself but from the banner year that Texas film is having. Whatever it was, it made for a memorable fest.

Halfway through the festival I landed a free lance gig editing panels for SXSW Interactive. So not only did the fun end prematurely and I saw way less movies than I had initially planned, the time I had to publish posts got eaten up by some uneventful panel cutting. That's the trade-off with such a large festival in your own backyard: There's work to pick up during a solid two week period. (And if you're a free lancer, you know it's hard to turn down work when it's this abundant.)

So what do I have to add to the post-SXSW reviews so many bloggers and critics have already provided for the past month already? Honestly - probably not much. But I got all these photos I took and they need to go somewhere...

This will be the first of a set of free-association, summative posts about the fest as I experienced it. You won't find any movie reviews here. Just impressions and fuzzy memories. And some photos!