Wednesday 6 August 2008

The Opening Night At The Rhode Island Film Festival

Chris' film, Gone Fishing, was one of the 10 films screened at the opening night of this prestigious film festival. To say we were excited was an understatement. The opportunity to see our work on a massive screen in front of an audience of 2000 people is the dream of every filmmaker.

But sadly, the festival just couldn't get its act together and despite having a fantastic venue, some superb films and the best HD projector available, 7 out of the 10 films were projected in a very small window in the centre of the screen. It was like looking at a postage stamp.

To make matters worse, they projected it in the wrong ratio (the image was stretched) and managed to chop off the first 20 seconds of our film which was really gut wrenching. I didn't feel great about it but Chris was devastated. We also discovered that last nights screening was part of the audience award and people were voting for their best film. The whole set up just wasn't fair to any of the filmmakers.

The after show party was good through and the people I spoke to were very complimentary about the film, so who knows if we will win. Either way, a level playing field would have been nice.

I was able to pitch Kaleidoscope Man to quite a few people and was interviewed by the local TV station called "Cox Cable" (no relation!) where I did a massive plug for the movie and the website.