Sun Dancing

As of 10:30 am pacific time Altared was officially submitted to its first film festival - Sundance. Twelve days of shooting, 7 days of ADR, and 2 years of editing and it's just getting started. Amazing what time, energy, money and research goes in to making a movie...especially an independent one. While we realize that Sundance (being the most competitive film festival internationally), is a bit of a long shot, there was still a reason to dance out of the Fedex office yesterday afternoon.

September 15th - it was the deadline we've had all along to have the film finished by and while the date (also being the Sundance deadline date) might not prove fruitful for our festival ventures, it is a marker in the progress of this film. Although we are still perfecting and tweaking the film (and probably will do until a distributor takes it away from us), we finally at long last have a very good, viewable copy of the film.

So, of course our first impulse is - let's show it to somebody! Last Sunday we did just that. We had a small, select screening with the investors, a One Tree Hill actress, and a few other film and nonfilm types that knew little or nothing about the film. And the feedback off the screening proved to be tremendously helpful. Unanimously, they LOVED the music, cringed at the cum scene and laughed at the old men in the shed. They differed on what story lines they were confused by, which characters they loved, and which ones they didn't. Overall, we made some changes based upon this feedback that we think has cleared up some confusing story lines, added tension to confrontations and fights, and tightened up a few awkward transitions.

While there are some editorial decisions that were made that were not my preferred choice, they were done out of necessity, for I was often forced to edit around continuity problems within scenes. My concern about some of these less than desirable choices was eased after the screening as I questioned the attendees specifically about these instances. Some of the instances are less noticeable as the scene hasn't changed dramatically due to the continuity mishaps, I've simply had to cut to a shot I had not originally intended to at that point. In other instances, we've resulted to utilizing flashbacks during the scene to allow us to cut around continuity errors. In the end, I'm happy with the results it just required a lot more work since we didn't have the luxury of reshoots.

In addition, we sent the film to producer Gill Holland in NY upon his request to screen it. His comments were:
"it is solid, well-made , will be good calling card" . . . "So glad I got to see it...it is at times sexy and fresh and there are some
interesting new viewpoints." He suggested we submit to women's festivals like madcat, in addition to Cannes, SXSW, Tribeca, Mill Valley, Seattle, Palm Springs, Florida, Genart...and oh yeah, Slamdance...

And so our next deadline looms upon us...October 9th - Slamdance.

Until then we'll continue to tweak the sound, play with the fantasy effects, and gather and prepare our press kit info. So for those of you actors that still haven't submitted your headshots and bios as requested...hurry up! Just remember the press kit is a way for YOU to get more exposure, so it would behoove you to send me your stuff.

We're also making plans to have a screening of the film in the near future. We're looking in to places so if anyone has suggestions (especially cheap ones!) we'd love to hear them.

If you want to check out any of our music choices, there's some links below. We received CDs from bands all over the US, Canada and Europe and Gill Holland and sonaBLAST gave us the rights to use any of their artists' music. The bands/artists we've used are: Mark Geary, Kelley McRae, BLOCK, The Old Ceremony, Tom Rhodes, Jared Booth, Puritan Rodeo, Da Howlies and piano music by Melinda Harper.

http://www.myspace.com/puritanrodeo
www.puritanrodeo.com

http://www.myspace.com/tomrhodes
www.tomrhodesmusic.com

http://www.myspace.com/jaredboothmusic
www.jaredbooth.com

http://www.myspace.com/kelleymcrae
www.kelleymcrae.com

http://www.myspace.com/markgeary
www.markgeary.com

http://www.myspace.com/theoldceremony
www.theoldceremony.com

http://www.myspace.com/howlies
www.dahowlies.com

You can also check out the bands on our film website:
http://www.myspace.com/themoviealtared