I don’t think I’ve mentioned this here before, but I write a monthly column on upcoming movies for kids (particularly those showing in Austin, TX) for a web site called Slackerwood. Here’s my column (titled Eenie Meenie Miney Movies) for November 2011.
I’ll start mentioning these here when they go live just for a bit of cross-promotional fun, but since this is the first time I’ve done this, I’d like to talk for a second about local film blogs. If you poke around Slackerwood you’ll notice that it homes in on the Austin audience. Like most other movie blogs it has the usual assortment of reviews and news, but if you live in Austin, it’s an invaluable resource for what to see in town. Since not every town has the same special screenings, finding a local film blog in your area is a great way to discover new things to see. As a filmmaker, your own local film blog can be a great ally – note the special attention Slackerwood pays to local productions and talent at festivals, both near and far. Recruiting local film blogger to support your film is a great way to raise awareness of your film in your own neighborhood, even when you’re screening elsewhere.
Local film & event bloggers are also a great resource when you’re headed out of town. If you have a festival screening in a new town, Google around the town’s name and use phrases like “local events” or “film blog” to zero in on likely suspects. Then fire off a friendly, personal email to introduce yourself and provide the writer(s) with the details of your film’s screening and a short synopsis and/or link to your trailer. It’s up to you whether you want to offer an advance screener, but I definitely recommend it. Why? Because like the local TV news, the local film bloggers may not mean much to you but they definitely have the ears and eyes of the local audience. When you’re trying to put butts in seats, that’s help that you want.
OK, enough of that. If you have kids and want to know what family films you’ll be taking them to over the Thanksgiving weekend (hint: Muppets!), check out the latest Eenie Meenie Miney Movies.
Venerable magazine-turned-website Film Threat looks back to its future with an IndieGoGo campaign aimed at returning to a print format. With less than 72 hours to raise the bulk of his $30,000 goal, publisher/editor Mark Bell decided to pull out the stops by staying awake for the remainder of the fundraising period while holding a “tweetathon” and live webcam feed.
I got a Kindle of my own this year. Although intellectually I knew the importance of ebooks as an emerging medium, it wasn’t until I started to prefer reading books on the Kindle for myself that I really got invested in making my own books available in the format.
Film Festival Secrets is now available as a Kindle download on the U.S., UK, and German versions of Amazon. All of the original content is included.
And before you ask: yes, I’m working on making an epub version available on the iBookstore as well as for the Nook and other e-readers. They will be comparably priced.
The Edinburgh International Film Festival has lost a £70,000 annual funding deal from Standard Life, Scotland on Sunday can reveal. The finance company’s decision will be a heavy blow to the festival, which is already struggling with the end of a £1.9 million three-year grant from the UK Film Council.
Standard Life said its decision was part of a wider reorganisation of sponsorship programmes. The move came after the festival declared it was ditching awards and red carpet appearances by A-list stars that attracted widespread publicity.
Thanks for your patience as I untangle the mess that is my previous WordPress install. The old site was hacked with a pretty vicious spamming virus that kept coming back despite my efforts to whack it down. (You might have noticed certain pharmaceutical ads in the RSS feed or on Google search results. Blerg.) So I’m starting over and will hopefully return it to its prior look and feel in the near future.
Marie Castaldo, 52, of Queens, New York, was arraigned on Tuesday night on charges of first-degree scheme to defraud, third- and fourth-degree grand larceny, petit larceny, third- and fourth-degree criminal possession of stolen property and second-degree harassment. “The defendant is accused of duping advertising and film industry vendors into providing their services for free to her film festival by – in most cases – making a small up-front payment and then refusing to make any further payments,” Brown said.
It’s always a good idea when submitting to any festival to do some research on the festival in question – using Google’s blog search tool and looking for the name of the festival with the words “scam” or “rip-off” is a quick way to find out if there have been complaints in the past.
Check out this new instructional video on preparing your film and submitting it to film fests. Some good interviews with filmmakers and festival staffers about how to get ready. It’s a fine companion to Film Festival Secrets.
Life In A Day is a historic global experiment to create the world’s largest user-generated feature film: a documentary, shot in a single day, by you. On July 24, you have 24 hours to capture a glimpse of your life on camera. The most compelling and distinctive footage will be edited into an experimental documentary film, executive produced by Ridley Scott and directed by Kevin Macdonald.
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Venerable magazine-turned-website Film Threat looks back to its future with an 
Got a Kindle? Now you can add 