Here’s an example of how important it is for independent filmmakers to have a website and trailer for their movies.  A while back, we received an email from the artistic director of the YES Film Festival (YESFest) saying she had seen our website and trailer for Saying Goodbye and that the trailer actually brought tears to her eyes.  She asked us to send her a screener of the film to consider for inclusion in her festival.  Fast forward several months, and we are excited to announce that Saying Goodbye is an official selection in the YESFest!

YESFest is held in Columbus, Indiana, which is “nestled between the cornfields in the heart of the heartland.”  We’ve never been to that part of the country before, so we were really hoping we’d get to attend, but unfortunately circumstances did not cooperate.  But if you live nearby, there will be two chances to see it.  Saying Goodbye is screening with six other short films on Saturday, May 19th at 2:30pm and on Sunday, May 20th at 3:30pm.  Thank you to YESFest for seeking us out and including us in your festival!

This past Saturday we had the second of our High Heels and Hoodoo sneak peeks along with the other five Indie Grant winners at the Indie Grits Film Festival in Columbia, SC.  Our screening was held at the New Nick - the old Fox theater is being restored into the New Nickelodeon theater, and it’s going to be fantastic when it’s completely done because it’s already pretty amazing just partially restored.  The Indie Grant films were screened in the lower level, and it was only the second day the New Nick was open for business, so we were honored to be a part of that.

It’s interesting how every festival has its own ‘vibe.’  The lower level of the New Nick is a lot smaller than the theater where the CIFF was held and therefore the audience was much smaller.  In addition, they were a very quiet audience.  We did not get the same laughter and other audience cues that we did at CIFF.  It made us very nervous while our movie was playing, but it was the same more subdued reaction for all the films.  But at the Q&A afterwards, they were just as enthusiastic about wanting to know about the making of the films. 

The absolute best part of the Indie Grits screening was that one of our stars, Sandra Lafferty (the ghostly Nanna), came to town for the big event.  She lives in Alabama, so we were thrilled she made the drive to attend the festival.  We hope we didn’t embarrass her too much when we introduced her to the crowd.  Sandra was in a little movie you might have heard of – The Hunger Games aka the movie with the third-biggest opening weekend of all time!  She played the woman in the market who gives Katniss the mockingjay pin.  We are so happy for her that she got to be part of such a phenomenon, and we’re not above exploiting our tenuous connection to a record-smashing franchise.  But, seriously, it was great to see Sandra again, and it meant so much to us that she was there for the screening. 

In addition to the film screenings, the Indie Grits Festival included many social events with classic southern food like shrimp and grits and bar-b-que, and we had a great time eating and mingling.  Thank you to the Indie Grits Festival for including us!
 

Another year, another fantastic festival by the folks running the Charleston International Film Festival!  Since we had such a great time at this festival last year, we were thrilled to find out High Heels and Hoodoo would have its very first screening at CIFF.  The sneak peek of our work-in-progress was this past Saturday morning in a block with the five other Indie Grant winning films, and it went great.

High Heels and Hoodoo was the first film shown in the block, and we were very nervous.  We’d shown it to a few family members and our expert advisors had given it a thumbs up, but it’s a completely different feeling when showing it to strangers.  We held our breath as the lights went down.  Within the first thirty seconds, people were laughing (and it was at a point where they were supposed to laugh), and the audience continued to give all the expected responses.  When the credits rolled eight minutes later, we heaved huge sighs of relief at the applause. 

Then we were able to sit back and relax as we watched what our fellow grant winners had been up to: the film noir Scattered City, the dramedy Jazz Hands, the comedy The Lot, the creepy animation supine: a dream; and the drama We Can’t Help You.  Such wonderful variety in the films, and so fun to finally see them on the big screen.  At the end of the screening, four of the films had representatives there for the Q&A, and we took turns answering insightful questions from the audience.

Afterwards, many audience members came up and told us how much they enjoyed High Heels and Hoodoo - hopefully when we get the comment cards, they will say the same thing!  We were also pleasantly surprised that a few people told us they came specifically because they heard us on the radio – how cool!

During the rest of the festival, we took full advantage of our all-access passes and watched other blocks of short films.  It’s so amazing to see the different things filmmakers are attempting with shorts, and it inspires us to go out and make more movies.

Thank you to CIFF for including the Indie Grant films in your festival and for putting on such an amazing event!

2nd photo credit to Ron Krauskopf with CIFF.

This morning we made our radio debut on NPR!  When we blogged about our experiences at the Beaufort International Film Festival, we mentioned a few opportunities had come up we didn’t want to jinx by talking about them… well, this was one of them.  Mike Switzer (the host of The South Carolina Business Review, which airs Monday-Friday at 7:52AM) was at the screening and Q&A for Saying Goodbye and wasn’t scared off by the fact that Jocelyn talks a million miles a minute when she’s nervous, so he approached her about coming on his show to talk about the film.

Since South Carolina ETV Radio is located in Columbia, Brian was also able to participate in the interview.  Even though we’ve done a few TV interviews, this was our first experience with radio, so it made us (Jocelyn!) a bit nervous.  But Mike instantly put at us ease and gave us the chance to talk about both Saying Goodbye and High Heels and Hoodoo. 

It’s been fun getting emails, texts, and facebook notes from friends saying they heard us this morning.  Who knew we had so many sophisticated friends listening to NPR so early in the morning?!

If you missed the broadcast, you can listen to the podcast of the interview here.  We don’t think we sound too cringeworthy.

A huge Thank You to Mike for including us on his show!  

For Saying Goodbye, Susan Hogue served as the liaison between the USC students, the SC Film Commission, and us, and she did a wonderful job keeping everyone on track.  As the administrator for the Indie Grants program, Brad Jayne is the "lucky" person in that role for all six of the winning projects and the TTC students.

Brad was one of the winners the first year the Production Grants were awarded, and he made the drama Song of Pumpkin Brown, which blends a touching story with southern jazz music. 

This is Brad’s second year guiding the Indie Grant winning filmmakers in making their films, and he’s been a great help to us with High Heels and Hoodoo.  Brad's the one who recommended John Reynolds as our talented DP, he offered helpful feedback on the rough cut and the score, and he even volunteered to make our credits and title cards look snazzy.  We think the title card logo is going to look awesome on business cards and stickers. 

Many thanks to Brad for all his help and guidance.  South Carolina filmmakers and students are so lucky to have people like Susan and Brad willing to help with these grant programs!

Because the folks at Concentrix Music and Sound Design made Saying Goodbye sound so beautiful, we of course wanted them to work their musical magic on High Heels and Hoodoo.  We jumped in the car for another road trip up to Charlotte to meet with Fred Story and Anthony Fedele for our spotting session, where we watched the film together and talked about options for the score and sound design. 

We presented Fred with a tougher challenge this time.  With Saying Goodbye, it was obviously a drama, so it was easier to pick a sound for the movie.  But High Heels and Hoodoo doesn’t fit comfortably into a genre.  It’s too light to be a typical horror movie, but it’s not funny enough to be classified as a comedy.  But as expected, Fred and his team were up to the challenge.  Last week they delivered a score that provides suspenseful texture, while acknowledging the playful moments, and ending with a rockin’ credit sequence.  We think it sounds great, and it’s exactly what we were looking for even when we weren’t sure what we wanted.

We do know we’re not the only ones who think the Concentrix crew does great work.  We were thrilled to learn that at last weekend’s 26th Annual Mid-South Emmy Awards the Concentrix team was honored with two statues.  Anthony won an Emmy for sound design and audio post-production, and Fred won an Emmy for music composer/arranger, both for the documentary North Carolina’s World War II Experience. 

Congratulations, guys!  We’re thankful to have such talented gentlemen on our team!

One of the fun things the SC Film Commission's Indie Grant Program does is showcase the six grant-winning films in several South Carolina films festivals.  The films will play in a block as works-in-progress to give us filmmakers a chance to gauge the audience reaction – kind of like informal focus groups to help figure out if we need to make changes before we finalize our films.

The first showing of this year’s Indie Grant films will be at the Charleston International Film Festival.  We had an amazing experience there last year with Saying Goodbye and are excited about being part of the festivities again with High Heels and Hoodoo.  The screening will be on Saturday, April 14th at 11:00am at the Sottile Theatre located on 44 George Street, Charleston, SC.  You can learn more about the six Indie Grant films and purchase tickets by clicking here.

* If you buy tickets online for CIFF before April 7th, use the code "5bucks" to get half off the ticket price! 

Then just a week later, the Indie Grant films will be showing at the Indie Grits Festival in Columbia.  In 2010, MovieMaker Magazine name Indie Grits one of the 20 coolest film festivals, so we’re looking forward to participating.  The screening will be on Saturday, April 21st at 8:30pm at the New Nick theater located at 1607 Main St., Columbia, SC.  You can learn more about their schedule by clicking here.

We’re excited to have the chance to show High Heels and Hoodoo to a wider audience, and we hope you can make it to one of the two screenings!

High Heels and Hoodoo has a scene that’s a memory and a scene set in the spirit world, and we wanted to make sure those parts looked different.  So Brian bought this snazzy program called "Magic Bullets Suite" to manipulate the images. The software has all kinds of filters and effects, and Brian was like a kid in a candy shop trying out all the options.  In addition to the distinct looks he could add to the different scenes, he also used the software for color correction.  He spent hours making sure the colors were consistent across all the shots, but when he was sure he had it right, he ran into the Goldilocks issue. 

He sent the final version to Jocelyn, and she complained that it was too light - when she watched it on her computer, it almost looked bright enough to be daytime.  When Brian burned a DVD and watched in on his television, it was too dark.  It’s supposed to be midnight in a cemetery, but the viewer has to actually be able to see what’s happening.  And of course when he watched it on his computer where he’d done all the color tweaking, it was juuuuust right.  So which of those three outputs should we believe?

That’s why we’re so glad we have the upcoming sneak peeks.  This is one of the types of issues a work-in-progress screening helps evaluate, so we can discover if we need to make changes.  The film will be playing in two different theaters with different projectors and screens, so we’ll be able to see whether it looks too light, too dark, or just right on the big screen.  

Beaufort is a beautiful, charming area, and we had a fantastic time at the Beaufort International Film Festival (BIFF) this past week.  Brian had to work for the first part of the festival (including the screening of Saying Goodbye), so our sister Joanna agreed to go with me as both paparazza (see her photos from the weekend here) and moral support to keep me from dissolving into a puddle of nerves.

On Wednesday night, BIFF held an opening night reception at the Old Bay Marketplace Rooftop, and luckily the weather was perfect – not too cold, not too hot.  While enjoying the delicious food from local restaurants, we had our first celebrity sightings: Tom Berenger and Powers Boothe.  I was too chicken to talk to either one, but I had Joanna take surreptitious pictures of both of them. 

The screening for Saying Goodbye was on Thursday at 1:40.  Not only was I already nervous that I’d be doing the Q&A without Brian, but I was anxious about the venue, since I’d heard it had about 500 seats.  That would be the biggest venue we’d played in, and how embarrassing would it be when the only people who showed up were Joanna, me, and a few friends.  Luckily that was a silly worry because the most amazing part of the BIFF is the Beaufort Film Society that sponsors it.  The members are passionate supporters of films and filmmakers, and they would show up at the start of each day and watch movies until the end of the day.  So even on a Thursday afternoon, the theater was almost two-thirds full, which was awesome.

Even better, they were a very reactive audience.  We had a lot of laughter and tears during the Saying Goodbye screening, and while I’d love to claim it’s because Saying Goodbye is just that incredible, all the movies that week got the same animated response from the audience.  It’s truly gratifying for a filmmaker to play in front of that type of audience.

After the screening, it was time for the Q&A.  I took Stuffy the Stand-in for support, but I still almost fainted when Ron Tucker (the charming director of BIFF) handed me the microphone.  Somehow microphones make public speaking even more intimidating.  But the audience was so gracious and asked such fun questions that I immediately felt at ease.  The entire screening and Q&A plus the conversations with audience members afterwards were such a wonderful experience and made me so proud of the movie the Saying Goodbye team has made. 

After the screening, we were able to relax and enjoy things more.  On Thursday evening, there was a reception and table read of the screenplay finalists.  Brian arrived on the scene on Friday.  Since we’d never visited Beaufort before, the three Rish siblings tried to balance sight-seeing with watching films.  We probably didn’t do either justice, but we got a nice sample of both.

Then on Saturday evening, BIFF held a glamorous awards ceremony.  We’re a little disappointed our winning streak was broken, but it was a huge honor that Rebecca Koon was nominated and that we were a short film finalist.  Besides, there are some things more important than bringing home a trophy like the enthusiastic support we got all week from new fans and a few opportunities that came up that we’re keeping mum on for now so we don’t jinx them. 

After the ceremony, there was an after-party where we finally worked up the nerve to talk to some of the famous people in attendance.  Kim Delaney was very sweet, and Tom Berenger is not only handsome and charming, but extremely nice.  He and his partner Laura chatted with us for the longest time about dogs and editing and film festivals.  And for this old-school Tom Berenger fan, that pretty much made my night!

We had a great time at the Beaufort International Film Festival, and we want to thank Ron Tucker, Rebecca Berry and the rest of the Beaufort Film Society for having us.  We highly recommend BIFF to filmmakers out there looking for a top-notch festival experience!