“Watch and Dish: Hotcakes” – by Olivia Melancon, The Geeky Chic

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Posted on July 23, 2012 by Jules

The questions of life are many.The most basic can often be the most dark. What do we do when we come in to the light again from a dark, dark place? Is it easy to begin again? Will we fall back to the old habits that are familiar, if not damning?

Imagine considering all of this within minutes of walking in to a diner for a plate of something familiar.

Marty would like to have his hotcakes, go out, and begin again. From the second he opens the door, however, two fellow ex cons, a fortune teller, and the tension in his actions leave the viewer to wonder if that is possible at all. In nineteen minutes, the film characters have an Eastwood grit in a setting lending itself to Aronofsky style contemplation. Is he destined to return to his old ways? Is there more to it than that? These are questions the audience will continue to ask throughout the film. A fortune teller arrives to tell Marty that he is missing a connection that has been trying to reach him. Who is this person? Will he reach her?

The look of the film and the style it follows the noir/western model. Black and white film mixed with a downplayed interior, gritty characters, and a gritty tale. My only complaint was that the movie ended when I wanted it to go on. Twenty minutes of independent film accomplished what many main industry films are losing: character investment, plot connection, and a want to go along on the character’s journey. If this film is any indication, and I believe it is, New Orleans is a place teeming with originality just waiting to be discovered.

Hotcakes: well written, acted, directed, and styled. Twenty minutes I truly wanted to go on for two hours.

This review was first posted Jul 22, 2012 by Olivia Melancon for The Geeky Chic, a fine cross-cultural look at all that’s going on in your ‘verse right under your nose.Read it in its much finer, original setting here.

Cab Fare — Episode #2

Posted on June 18, 2012 by Jules

I JUST GOT OUT OF PRISON… ARE YOU AVAILABLE?

Swamp outside Gramercy, LA along the Airline Highway (US 61). Yes, they have a jail there.

I picked up an ex-con for the second time before I realized it was his primary occupation. He’s a convivial sort of fellow, very easy to talk to, even if he doesn’t always know how to have a two-way conversation. At the very least, he never bores when his sentences begin to run a tad too long. I didn’t ask what he had served time for; I never do. He bragged of other places he had been, but spoke of Angola in a more demure tone when I mentioned it. “I think I could get in there,” he told me. “I think now I’ve got that kind of pull.”

Only a month before its controlling company laid off half the staff of New Orleans’ only newspaper, Times-Picayune reporter Cindy Chang began reporting the findings of a year’s worth of investigations into how Louisiana became the prison capitol of the world and what that has come to mean for the state and its citizens. In the 1990s, the state responded to the prisoner surplus by empowering sheriffs to build prison additions to their jails, offering a monetary incentive out of the state coffers of $25 per prisoner per day. Already taxed to supply basic, necessary equipment for their deputies, the sheriffs took such action that today, Louisiana has five times and thirteen times the incarceration rates of Iran and China respectively per capita, with some of the most aggressive sentencing in the country. The story is so involved and fascinating and the observations and conclusions so woeful that it got picked up by NPR’s Fresh Air.

There’s rather a schism between Louisiana’s jails and prisons. In prisons inmates learn a trade, work a job or attend classes. In jail inmates lay around. The average life expectancy of a Louisiana con is 72 years, with the last 20 years of their lives spent much of the time in bed, too sick to work. It’s easy to ferret how prison might be seen by a con as something to which he should aspire, especially one with a reputation — like Angola. The average sentence in Angola is 25 years to life. That’s one of those prisons where freed men have been known to walk right up to the door and knock, begging to be let back in. Their artists and the rodeo they put on are almost as famous as their inmates’ crimes are infamous. An actress friend of mine once expressed interest in going to the rodeo and seeing some of the art work, though she said they’re not allowed to sell.

I didn’t ask my charge what it would take to find himself ensconced within Angola’s walls. That seemed too intimate a question. Since I had picked him up before, I knew I would eventually pick him up again, and that changes things substantially. With regulars especially, a sturdy wall of circumspection is prescribed. My cab — like 99% of other cabs — sports no plexiglass divider because they’re too costly. The smart cab driver substitutes that old divider metaphysically, by creating a supple, adequate buffer of separation. The sum total of what I put out there — via speech, body language and even driving tactics — always adds up to the same thing: You have your world and I have mine. I control the merging of our worlds, often with little more than the cab as the linking narrative.

Of course, some passengers don’t recognize our separateness. Usually, the drunker they are, the less they recognize where their life ends and yours begins — and this is very much in the physical world because drunk people don’t have time for the metaphysical. If they did have time for it, they wouldn’t be drunk, but perfectly sober, trying to see if they could make you drunk on the sheer abstraction and articulation of their every thought.

Tucked away in a seedy elbow of Metairie, there sits a bar called Cocktails and Dreams. Nothing on the outside of the place gives any indication of its name. Not until driving right up to it, amid crankily parked pickups and hot rods and deceptively deep gravel puddles, does the name present itself in a semi-circle from the trim of the bar’s colorful clock, inside. Only two kinds of clientele leave the inner sanctum of Cocktails and Dreams to stumble out into a cab, the drunk and randy and the randier — but also more drunk.

One of the nights I picked up a couple with long neck High Lifes still in their hands stands out above the rest. They were originally both going to the same address. It didn’t work out that way in the end, though. He stuck his hand down the front of her shirt and the only way that I know this — because I didn’t see it firsthand; I seldom, if ever, look — is because she announced that he had done so, and followed up with a report on how uncomfortable that made her feel inside a taxicab. I drove on, silently.

Often, as a cabbie, the mission is all.

When we arrive at her place, they have a rather lengthy discussion — about $4 worth of idle metering — and he gets back in the cab and supplies a second address. He is very put out. It takes him about 10 seconds after her rejection to lay it all out for me.

“That was my ex-girlfriend. I just got out of jail and she won’t give me no pussy. Can you believe that?” There’s a beat. It isn’t a long one, but I hear it and I know what’s next, before he even says it. It’s that kind of beat. “Are you available?” He doesn’t laugh, but I do.

In retrospect, I wish I had been up on the Louisiana prison system in advance of this particular meeting because I had no idea what he was talking about at the time and, lacking a proper context, failed to retain any of the names he mentioned — not even the name of the jail he’d gotten out of after 14 months. Naturally, I steered the conversation back to his former life, rather than his hopes for the evening’s outcome. I’ve gotten a lot of marriage proposals in the cab and have been asked out a few times (that’s a whole, ‘nother post), but this was the first time I’d been explicitly propositioned for sex.

So I used my years of phone room training and started by validating his feelings.

“Wow. If I had been locked up for 14 months, I’d feel the same way you do.”

Then I started asking about what jail was like, as any curious person might probe an expert. Never underestimate the psychological need of nearly any man to feel like an authority on a subject he knows enough to talk about at length, especially if it furnishes him with a means to save face. The ride was only a few miles away, but I remember enough to say that this man must have been released from one of the jails-turned-prison, and not a prison. He had never learned a trade and found being locked up boring in the extreme. He had no idea what he was going to do, but he didn’t want to go back.

I should also mention that in addition to paying for his lady friend’s fare, he tipped me rather well, after asking me one more time if I was sure I wasn’t available.

“No, I have to work all night. I don’t have a man at home paying the bills. I have to do that myself,” I said. Sometimes having a working class father pays off in dividends.

“Well, I can respect that,” he replied, just before he shut the door.

Jo Custer is a writer and an independent filmmaker trying to make a living out of that and cab driving. Some days work better than others. The next episode of Cab Fare will be up Wednesday, June 27. Follow on Twitter (#cabfare) or friend her on Facebook if you wish.

Review: “Hotcakes” – by Bill Arceneaux

Posted on June 10, 2012 by Jules

On the first episode of the #TeamNOLAFilm podcast, we discussed the need for a real investment in local filmmakers and their projects. We have so many out of town productions coming IN to the area which is great, but not enough local projects coming OUT. Do producers need a good example of what New Orleans talent can make?

“I have been waiting all morning for a man with half a heart.”

Marty, fresh out of prison, visits his regular post jail release diner. His body language says he’s yearning for a calmer future, but the scars on his face suggest something different; something deeper. Two other ex cons see this as well, and soon the three men are conversing over plates of pancakes. But there is more to their encounter than just short stacks…

Described as a sort of neo noir / urban western, “Hot Cakes” has a surreal nature to it; at times like Lynch, other times like Aronofsky. The appropriately timed music, the cryptic at times dialogue, the interesting framing (there is a Knight suit behind Marty in some shots) and even the setting – which comes off like a purgatory type meeting place for these characters – all makes the audience ask “what’s this all leading to?” and “what does this all mean?”.

Well, what DOES it all mean? What IS it leading to? A fortune teller in the diner is drawn to Marty, and makes a startling prediction for him; will it turn out to be correct? Will Marty be forced into a compromising position? His new friends certainly wish to pull him back into his harsh past. Will they succeed? The film’s aesthetic gives everything – including eating breakfast – a sense of impending doom. And by the time the end credits roll, this sense still lingers; things just don’t look good for Marty, in OR out of the diner. Is he in trouble no matter what? I absolutely loved this.

“No one should ever come here. I had teeth when I came here.”

My only complaint is that it ended. I would like to see what the director Jo Custer could do with a feature length script. She’s an example of the kind of local talent who deserve a shot. For Hollywood South to move forward, out of town producers bringing projects to the area need to make a meaningful investment in local filmmakers. Is an example of good local work needed? I just provided one.

This review was first published at Neaux Reel Idea and will be cross posted on InvadeNOLA, one of several outlets for which Bill Arceneaux writes, June 16.

Reposted with permission.

Cab Fare – Episode #1

Posted on May 22, 2012 by Jules

SO, AN ARTIST WITH A BLUE COLLAR PAST JOINS A DIRTY BOYS’ CLUB

…stop me if you’ve heard this one.

I’ve been driving cab since August 18, 2011. Nothing really beats those first few weeks.

The first three days were rough as hell. All I had were maps because I was paying Pete back, day by day, for the things he had fronted the money for — drug testing, fingerprints, criminal background check, the permit — and wasn’t able to afford a Garmin until Day 4. I’m wicked fast at reading maps and routing things, partly because I used to have to do that as a pizza delivery driver, and partly just because. Also, I lost $115 in those first few days. I’m pretty sure I found it just last week in my Folder of Supreme Importance, the place where I keep my passport, birth certificate, etc. But August 18-20 was a long haul.

After that, a permanent sort of glow haunts those early weeks, when I think back on them. The novelty of being a cab driver — especially being one in the most unique city in the U.S. — was really something. It became very obvious very early that a lot of people just came to town for the New Orleans experience and that I was often a part of that experience. I didn’t really have the heart to tell any of them that I wasn’t from New Orleans, so in those early weeks, I kept my mouth shut and let them do most of the talking. It was pretty fly.

My easily most favorite memory of one such adventure came when I picked up two boys from Austin from a bar at 8 am on a weekday. Many of the bars in the GNO are open all night, seven days a week. This isn’t unusual in the slightest. The “problem” was that they couldn’t remember the name of their hotel. They had stumbled away from it just after sundown the night before, tired from the straight nine-hour drive, and had been drinking ever since. Couldn’t remember where it was, what it was, what it looked like.

I say “problem” because, for this Texas duo, this really wasn’t a problem at all. They wanted the New Orleans experience and so they told me not to worry about the name of the hotel and to just drive. Eventually, we would spot it and they would get out.

Ok.

For about an hour, I drove all over the place, up streets and down, while they laughed in the backseat about how awesome New Orleans was. I didn’t have the heart to tell them that they were in Metairie, a suburb, and that never the twain shall really meet. They said I was the most awesome cab driver they had ever met and we talked film for a while. They insisted that I must come to Austin as soon as I could, whether I had a film to show or not. I promised that I would make the drive before too long, maybe for SXSW. (Note: I didn’t make it to SXSW this year, but I’m kind of hoping to next year. Just ‘cuz.)

After I got on the interstate, they spotted the Holiday Inn right at the heart of Metairie, on what all taxi drivers who drive for the same company I do call “The Stand” — because it’s the same stand (area) as the cab company headquarters. Makes sense, right?

Their eyes were glowing as they paid the rather exorbitant fare and they thanked me for a wonderful time. They really enjoyed getting lost with me for an hour, just for the hell of it.

Another aspect of the job are the people I group as the ‘taxicab confessors.’ These are the people who dump their entire life story on you, sometimes before you even get a chance to ask them where the hell they’re going. As time goes by, you get a better grip on how to deal with such people. You learn how to talk back and when, to keep them from dumping all over you, which really just spoils your day. But one of the earliest of the taxicab confessors — the first that I can recall — didn’t let me get a word in edgewise.

She was in a cab because she couldn’t drive. She couldn’t drive because she had lost her license to too many DUIs. She had gotten so many DUIs because her brother’s wife and her people were terrible, terrible people who made her drink all the time and then want to get away from them. Et cetera. We were going to a church in a rather hoity-toity section of Metairie. She was to lead the worship service. When she asked for my number so that she could have an instantly ready ride back to her house, I threw off and scrambled the digits.

More recently, I had a similar experience, picking up a woman in Baton Rouge. As soon as she was in the cab and we were on the way to the doctor’s, she said she wanted me to be honest with her and tell her if she was out of line. So I listened while she talked about how she had moved from a trailer park to the apartment complex she lives in now, a virtual shut in. She had lost a lot of weight — about 65 pounds down from 486 — because they had put her on a low-sodium diet, but she’s three years clean from a past life of drug abuse and, as she told me, other kinds of abuse. She has been hit by two by fours, by pipes, and she has just started to reclaim her relationship with her mother, since the woman who raised her — her grandmother — has been dead for two years. That’s the only person with whom she has any kind of contact, really, outside of her sitter (she’s on suicide watch) and some church she didn’t really have anything to say about. She mostly just praised Jesus.

The complex she lives in is trying to keep a clamp on the drug dealing, it appears. She got an eviction notice from them after having bummed a cigarette from a neighbor for her sitter. She doesn’t even smoke cigarettes, she said. I listened to all of this and more.

After she called me to pick her back up, I did my best to make the conversation more two-way. I told her that she needed to start reaching out to people, to the people she knows at the church, to her sitter, to anyone in a professional position to help her because being a shut-in is no good. I told her she had to document that she had just bummed a cig in a letter, signed and dated with her address on it so that the lawyers can show that to the judge when the time comes. There’s no evidence, just hear-say. And I told her that she needs to do all of this and more so that she can keep moving forward with her life, that it’s no good to just dump all of your problems on someone else — that that’s not what a real conversation or real connection with other people is — and that the devil she keeps speaking about is part of that cycle. Open up, learn to trust someone. Anyone.

She began crying. I appear to have not been the first person to tell her not to just dump problems. I had to explain the difference between a professional trained to act as a sounding board when necessary and the next person on the street who, like her, is dealing with all the same stuff, only to a lesser degree. She’s a paranoid schizophrenic and she’s on 24 different medications. She showed me the list. It’s absolutely insane.

But the thing is, after she started crying, the conversation became a lot more two-way. We had a spark of a connection as two people thrown together by little more than chance. I had to ask her if it would be okay if I picked her up again, and she said yes. The thing is, she had been off her heavier meds to see the doctor because those pills would just make her sleep and they needed her to be awake and alert. She also mentioned that she had a psychiatrist and that now might be a good time to call him. I agreed. Reaching out is good.

It’s a doozy of a job sometimes. It’s a crazy world. But occasionally, you get a small chance to touch a life and make a difference. You just have to hope that it’s for the better.

Jo Custer is a writer, a blogger, a sometime-journalist and an independent filmmaker trying to make a single living out of that and cab driving. Some days work better than others. Her next post is a little up in the air now. It may be Ep #2, or it may be on casting.

The Official HOTCAKES Film Fest List

Posted on May 19, 2012 by Jules

Last October, I set out to make my first film without any school-based resources. I rushed it into production and set it all on one location. It’s not quite the film I set out to make. Yet, it has audience potential I don’t want to sell short. So we’re sending it to some promising-looking fests, since I’ve never done that before. Our production assistant in training, Pamela Lewis, assumed the mantle of research assistant and, using this list of low to no fee fests, came up with a short list. Below is that short list with a few additions I threw in, along with a few words on why each fest made the final cut — or didn’t — in order by deadline:

1. Willifest (Brooklyn, NY) — September 20 – 23, 2012. No.

When Pamela marked the PowerPoint slide containing this fest as “pricey,” I had a feeling we weren’t going to submit to it. I want to say that I just got the tip about this too late, but they wanted $45 and a postmark by May 12. That wasn’t happening. Also, and I have to be honest here, the fest just looks too hip for me. Rule of thumb: If I don’t think I’d enjoy myself at the film fest, then I probably shouldn’t spend money sending away to it.

2. Brainwash Movie Fest (Oakland, CA) — sometime in September, 2012. Yes.

The deadline for this one was May 15 and it cost us $20. I had to make kind of a snappy decision about it, so I chose to submit on the basis of a certain je ne sais quoi. Something about its title suggested that our culty, little noir might find a home there, and the graphic designer in me (I used to work as one, though I’m not terribly qualified) likes their website. I’m a little concerned that they don’t update their site often enough or, more to the point, interact with people enough. I’ve sent a couple of tweets that just seemed to disappear into a void. Also, they were late in getting up this year’s readiness. We’ll see. At least I filled out the very time-consuming Withoutabox form (2.5 hours of my life I’m never getting back) and increased our chances of getting on imdb earlier rather than later, for whatever that’s worth. A word to my fellow newbs who have chosen the Withoutabox route to an imdb listing: Have your (optional) multi-word count film synopses written ahead of time.

3. Brownfish Short Film Festival (Brooklyn, NY) — November 2 – 4, 2012. No.

This is one of those ones I wish I had a New York friend with a lot of time on their hands to scope out for me. The question on my mind being, Is this a fest I would want to attend? With that doubt in my mind and the same snappy decision facing me because of a May 16 deadline (for which we would’ve paid $35), I just went with the gut and said not this year.

4. Director’s Circle (Online) — November 14 – 24, 2012. No.

This one didn’t make the cut, which is a shame. It’s headquartered in Erie, PA, which is where my best college years were spent. I still have friends who live there, and it would have been highly desirable to have made those contacts and connections, even if the film fest itself is online-only. But too many problems exist, too many questions without answers. For one thing, the fest has no Twitter presence and its Facebook presence is sparse, too. They do have over 15,000 friends on MySpace, but having deleted my MySpace accounts years ago, I have no way to gauge the real connectivity of that. And it does me little good. To make matters worse, their only phone number — which has a Pittsburgh area code, not an Erie area code — rings without end. No voicemail. A friend of a friend of a friend is directly involved and my friend said he’d forward me some info, but at this point, it would just be to gather more info — especially since you can watch previous entries through a pay-wall. Meeting their May 19 deadline (today) costs $35. This year, they’re out.

5. Vegas Cine Fest (Las Vegas, NV) — June 21 – 24, 2012. No.

I was all ready to send to this, but there was a mistake. We thought it was $45 for their May 31 deadline. More like $65, an automatic out for us. However, unlike all the other film fests I’ve decided not to submit to (except NOFF), I am still following them on FB and Twitter. They do some kind of online preview/screening whereby people can vote on potential films and this intrigues me. It might be nothing, or it might be the beginning of a new format.

6. Beneath the Earth Film Festival (Online) — November 1 – 30, 2012. No.

This may end up being a tough call we regret. But when an online film festival just doesn’t have a reassuring online presence (and they want $35 for a June 1 early bird deadline), I think the gut reaction is correct. Throw in some less than thrilling communication, and I’m pretty much done. It’s a shame, too, because in theory their model has great potential.

7. Milwaukee Film Fest (Milwaukee, WI) — September 27 – October 11. Yes.

Apart from being free this year, the Milwaukee has the distinct advantage of starting on my birthday. You may dissemble, but I find this auspicious. I honestly don’t think Hotcakes has a chance at larger festivals, unless they are looking for offbeat films with a potential for cult followings like our little noir. But it’s also clear from their website and programs that they care about filmmaking as an art and about keeping it fresh and alive in Budweiser central.

8. New Orleans Film Festival (New Orleans, LA) — October 14 – 20. No.

We pretty much knew going into this that we weren’t going to submit to the biggest and probably brightest of the home turf festivals. Partly because their June 4 extended WAB (Withoutabox) deadline costs $65, but mainly because of a rule they have regarding the screening of films prior to the festival. There’s an appeal form, but they don’t want films that have been shown in the Greater New Orleans area prior to their event, which is a bit of a killer. I really think they need to review this policy. If our schedules had lined up better (our film wasn’t finished until May 7), I absolutely would be appealing, but for $65, it just isn’t worth the hassle. This is what I mean when I say film festivals should partner with filmmakers and not hinder their work. So we lost a good opportunity to initiative.

9. New Hampshire Film Festival (Portsmouth, NH) — October 11 – 14, 2012. Yes.

Until blogger and old-fashioned photographer John Hoff (@JohnHoff3) mentioned it, NHFF wasn’t on my radar. He plans to attend and blog about it, since he lives less than an hour away. I was born not far from there and still have an aunt and two cousins in Portland, Me. Portsmouth the town, itself, has some historical significance to my family, as well. When he died, Willard Goodman (my maternal grandfather) was painting the town square. He had a fine, little model in his Peaks Island studio at the time — of the gazebo, the walls, how the murals would all fit together to create a beautiful landscape for walks. An unfinished work. It’s been a while since I’ve been to the old artist’s colony, and if we were to get in, I would travel to meet John in person and hopefully at least see my aunt. But again, I harbor no delusions. Like Milwaukee, it’s a long shot. Also, they’re not being very forthcoming about how they notify their artists. But at $20 for their June 5 deadline, I won’t quibble.

Tidbit: If you’ve ever held a box of Cella’s chocolate-covered cherries in your hand, then you have held an odd piece of my grandfather’s work. He designed their logo.

10. Love Your Shorts Film Fest (Sanford, FL) – February 5 – 17, 2013. Yes.

A lot about this fest’s website reassures. It’s one of the two we’re submitting to that is shorts-only, which I like. I’m not convinced any more (if I ever was) that film festivals are a good choice for feature films. LYSFF doesn’t have the kind of FAQ that I would like to see, but their website’s very informative and it’s obvious that film excites these people. It’s not free, but at $15 for their June 30 deadline, it is fair. Probably the only thing I don’t like is how long we have to wait for the festival itself, if we are accepted. I don’t have delusions. We probably won’t be accepted, but we may have to wait as long as until January 1, 2013 to know that for sure. Hopefully, if they reject us, they’ll email us much sooner.

11. Flyway Film Festival (Pepin, WI) – October 18 – 21, 2012. Yes.

Considering that they are liable to get over 1,000 submissions this year, I harbor the least amount of delusions regarding this festival. However, if there’s one place you want to get rejected by year after year, it’s Flyway. Director Rick Vaicius is way out in front of this fest, ever available to answer questions on Twitter or Facebook (though I prefer Twitter for this). It has the distinct disadvantage of being located in a small town in Wisconsin, but has the distinct advantage of being able to overcome that. Last year, filmmakers were able to telecommute in for Q&A sessions they couldn’t be present for and I imagine interactivity like that can only evolve and grow over time. Their June 30 deadline is F-R-E-E, free.

Best of all? Unless your film is showing theatrically, screenings aren’t an issue.

12. Martha’s Vineyard International Film Festival (The Island) — September 6 – 9. Yes.

I get the sense that this is fierce and steep competition. They only show shorts, and they only show 10 of them each year. Throw in the fact that only ~ 1 of those 10 will have been made in the U.S. (not to mention the fabulous location), and that spells defeat for probably hundreds, maybe over a thousand, filmmakers every year. But it’s free. Of all the fests I’ve pored over these past few weeks, I probably vetted this one the least. I like a tough fight, especially when I don’t have to pay for it. And I’m following them on Twitter and Facebook, so we’ll see a lot of foreign stuff. Yay! The deadline’s July 15. They accept by August 15.

And that, friends, is how a 12 film fest short list that would have cost us $335 in entry fees (plus shipping and insurance) becomes a pretty solid 6 film short list that costs us $55 in entry fees, which should come to about $80 after insurance, postage and mailers.

Do you have good or bad experiences with film festivals that are (or aren’t) on this list? Let us know. If you write something about it, we’ll link you. Thanks for reading.

Film Fests: Why I’m Upset with Filmmakers

Posted on May 17, 2012 by Jules

WHY I’M UPSET WITH FILMMAKERS (& HOW WE CAN FIX IT)

I’ve never submitted a film to a festival. It’s one of those things. You can warn someone who just got laid for the first time not to date the person who’s pursuing him for the wrong kinds of reasons — none of which is love — but if he’s never had a real girlfriend, he’s not going to listen. He’s going to go on getting laid, for better or for worse — and end up with a jaundiced view of what a relationship is based on his lack of experience for the better.

That’s kind of what festivals are like. It’s the promise of easy sex without any real challenge because, after all, someone else is doing all the work. That’s the real hook. You observe and maybe even participate on a superficial level, but your heart isn’t really in it. I mean, not unless you’ve set your sights on a fest for years and years as the end-all, be-all. Then my analogy no longer applies. I think a lot of people do this with Sundance, et al.

I never did. Between that absence of desire for film fest glory and being a film fest virgin and never having been accepted or rejected from anywhere, I feel oddly qualified to take on the subject matter in a way that I won’t next year, when I”ll be good and jaundiced.

Or, that’s the expectation. With an expectation like that, how can I not follow through?

I recently reached out to several of the film festivals on our short list. In the week since I began this process, I’ve exhibited early warning signs of gross dissatisfaction with a fest’s vet-ability. Because, when I look at a fim festival’s website in-depth, leaving no page un-clicked or unread, I have a hard time finding the place where there really should be a comprehensive — if not exhaustive – FAQ built from years of experience interacting with filmmakers via email and phone and in-person exchanges. (Yes, all of those channels.)

You can tell a lot about a thing — any thing — by its FAQ. Every website should have one. That your film fest has only been in operation for a few years is no excuse, not in the Internet Age. You should be soliciting feedback from the get-go, trying to improve it all the time. That’s how a potential entrant knows that you’re working and working well — and that you are an engaging entity, too — one more likely to attract both an audience and repeat performers. After all, we’re sacrificing our ability to do just that — attracting a direct audience, with whom we can build relationships — to your alleged ability to do the same.

If you can’t do that, then I have no idea why I’m suspending my dissemination of it on the world wide web, where it can grow legs of its own, even if my promotion’s low-key. The reason festivals and the people who stil support them tout — that festivals are about the quality of the films — is the same reason why a filmmaker might not submit, in reality. If a film is a good film — well-made, well-written or, hell, even promising — then it has a better chance of attracting an audience online than it probably does at a finitely peopled fest. This is especially true when festival-goers’ minds are only on the awards winners.

My use of the word probably brings me to the first point in the set of criteria I’m developing in my evaluation of a film fest’s value to the filmmaker it purports to promote. But I want to be infinitely clear about something here: I’m no more upset with film festivals that it’s so much trouble to get what should be a transparent amount of information than I am with the filmmakers who have been submitting to these festivals my whole life and then some. It was your job to make the kinds of demands I’m about to lay down so that we could be assured of good quality programming, a fair festival and good treatment all around.

Since the Cannes Film Festival Director was so kind to point out recently that film is still “primarily a male sport,” all I can say in response is: You kinda dropped the ball, bra.

#1. SHOW ME THE ENGAGEMENT

A worthwhile FF should engage with viewers beyond its capacity to sell tickets or attract an audience to a specific, geographical spot — and not just as an afterthought. An interactive preview method such as the Vega Cine Fest uses in its selection process may be a step in the right direction. (I don’t know because I haven’t seen it.) It’s one thing to post a selection of a festival’s winners after the party is over, as the 48 Hour Film Project has done in the past, selectively. It’s quite another to give people a taste of what kinds of films a program is seeking and to let them give feedback on what might get them to buy tickets and book airfare or make the drive. It can also help a filmmaker try to figure out who the audience of a film fest is, especially if the people who run the festival don’t know that or won’t tell.

Which brings me to an amazingly overlooked area…

#2. KNOW & COMMUNICATE YOUR AUDIENCE

It is absolutely the job of a Festival Director to know his purview: his audience. If you don’t communicate that to the filmmaking public, then you’re making the filmmaker’s job too hard. How is an artist who grew up in Florida supposed to know what’s on the minds of people in Eugene, OR, especially if she’s never been there? Is it primarily the college crowd in Eugene, or is it a 50/50 mix of working regional people and students? I can’t believe how often vital stats like this — not to mention the tastes of the people in a demographic — are simply missing from the content guidelines. This has been a thorn in my side for years with lit journals and editors who expect you to read their minds. Enough. If you know your programming audience, you will communicate that, rather than gating it as intellectual property. What ya worried about? Someone gonna scoop your ticket buyers?

#3. WATCH THIS BABY FRONT TO BACK

Reassure me that someone is going to watch my film from beginning to end. Please. If you’re a free festival like Flyway Film Fest (Pepin, WI) I might not need that. But after talking to Festival Director Rick Vaicius, I was reassured that the person responsible for each programming category at Flyway “must commit to watching everything in their category of responsibility” — that this was, in fact, one of the governing principles they utilized to design the fest. That’s amazing for a fest that receives a high quantity of entries — almost 900 (unsolicited) just last year, which is why this year the free submissions period starts later and is shorter. It’s also why Flyway staffs five screeners to hold onto this tenet.

#4. ONLINE MEANS ONLINE

If you’re an online-only fest, you must have a gaugeable online presence. This should be a no-brainer, but for some reason, Beneath Earth Film Fest has a website, about 689 likes on a FB page and a Twitter account with 25 followers. Their strategy for film promotion appears to be its judges, some of whom are quasi-famous, such as Gabourey Sidibe (Precious) and Christopher Zalla (Law & Order: SVU), but most of whom are not. The problem here is that aside from imdb and a Facebook page or two, none of them has much of an online presence, except Marc Graser, who writes for Variety. (Though N.Y.U. professor Jay Anania has a nice, sleepy blog.) So what of Beneath Earth’s claim that their “Grand Jury of film reviewers … not only love film but are highly vocal in the digital space. Together they reach over 1.1 MILLION people each month“? (Their bold, not mine.)

We asked. A co-founder who identified herself only as Antonia responded, partially:

Yes, we don’t have much of an online presence, and we’re aware of the irony of that. But it’s been deliberate. I’ve spent years in digital marketing and know that there are two approaches you can take when marketing anything online–you can bring people to you (pull) or push your product to people. For the past two years, we’ve utilized a push approach, leveraging the reach of our judges. Although we hit 24,000 visitors last year, we haven’t worked to capture them on Facebook or Twitter until we have the capacity to consistently engage with them.

I didn’t get a straight response to my question regarding how many submissions Beneath Earth receives. However, Antonia did say that this year would be the first year that their submissions would be open to films made between 1990 and 2012.

#5. EASE OF COMMUNICATION

If I contact you, please get back to me promptly and fully cover my questions. This one’s a gimme. You do it, you’re in (for now). You don’t do it, you’re out (for good). What’s prompt? you might ask. I personally prefer the three business day approach. If you can’t get back to me within three business days, you’re at best overly busy, which means understaffed. At worst, it could mean that you’re a scam operation, though I would consider the possible understaffing as the most likely culprit in most scenarios.

Which sends me right back to #3.

#6. EMPLOY THE SYMPATHY FACTOR

Sympathize with me. One of the main problems I’ve encountered is a sense that a film festival, although universally considered to be a not-for-profit undertaking, is acting the opposite. One of the quickest ways to get that impression is if they have no understanding of my position as a low-budget, independent filmmaker. Granted, I ask pointed questions in my emails; however, they are asking for my money without making me feel comfortable about sending it. That’s how I separate the good from the bad. The good ones won’t be offended or on guard because of my questions; they’ll be alert and sensitive to my needs — and forthcoming as hell in their responses. They’ll have a healthy respect for the give and take nature of things too. So when I counter a request to post one of my emails on a fest’s blog with a request to quote a part of the same with a real name, they won’t dither.

#7. PARTNERSHIP

Partner with me. This means that you have reasonable expectations of how and when and where I should be performing my job. If you are tying my hands unfairly, you’re not a partner. You’re a parent to whom I don’t need to pay an allowance. I already have two parents (bless ‘em) and, being on the social media, I also have a lot of people around me who think that they’re my boss. Being on Twitter alone can feel like being surrounded by a dozen or more consultants, not a one of whom has asked me a single damned good question. So if you’re laying down too many rules for me, I balk. Need to differentiate between a premiere and a non-premiere? Fine. Would you prefer that the film not be playing anywhere else simultaneously? No problem. But to tell a filmmaker — whose main avenue to show a short film (which has no hope of a distributorship) is the web — not to use the web to promote while in limbo? Uh-un. While you collect your entry fees and slog through screeners, we need to be doing our thing. It should be enough that it’s not being released theatrically for the duration of your theatrically resemblant film fest. Fair is fair.

I’m not even sure I like making any exceptions in the case of an online fest, come to that. Although, I could see a festival requiring that any publicly available players of the film contain an embedded link to where it can be voted on, thereby enriching the festival.

#8. POTENTIAL ENERGY IN QUANTITY IS VALUABLE

Something about your festival should stand out from the chatter. Something about your festival should make someone who doesn’t have a vested interest in doing so want to attend. Of New Orleans’ dozen active fests, I’ve attended three in the 22 months since moving here. Two of them — foburg and Big Easy — were free. They were also poorly organized, programmed and attended. The literary world has an analogous problem. If it weren’t for writers trying to get published in them, who would subscribe to a modern literary journal that isn’t really big, like The New Yorker, The Atlantic or Harper’s Weekly? A mild oversimplification, true, but outside of the tens of thousands of filmmakers struggling to get seen at one or two tiny festivals each year, who pays much attention beyond the Oscar-qualifying festivals? (There are over 7,000 annual film fests; of those, the Academy pays attention to a little over 60; of those, the U.S. hosts fewer than half and the average filmmaker has perhaps heard of a handful; of those, the average American has heard of maybe half again — Sundance, AMPAS, AFI, stateside. Cannes and Toronto, abroad.)

Chances are, if you’re fulfilling criteria #1-7, you’ll stand out. You’ll be out in front of your festival, meeting potential audience members online and in person, and it will give you and your festival a glow that can’t be copied (any more than an audience can be scooped).

Side note on the Big Easy: Not all the shorts exhibited poor editing and sound. One of those was also programmed at Flyway Film Fest last year as well – Sidewalk Sonata, a slivery doc about specially made pianos and their magical attraction. But since the house was filled mainly with people there to support their films (and a few to support local films in general, regardless of talent, skill or follow-through) I’m not sure how much it mattered.

#9. FAQ IT UP, DON’T FUQ IT UP

This goes for filmmakers as well as festivals. That’s what’s got me so upset. It’s clear that not enough filmmakers have been asking good questions. We should be full of questions. Those questions and their answers should be public and they should address every line of criteria on this list — which, by the way, is a partial list. This is my first time submitting any film to any film fest, remember? How about you? Are you in that process now?

What are your frequently asked (FAQ) — or unasked (FUQ) — questions?

Jo Custer is a writer, a blogger, a sometime-journalist and an independent filmmaker trying to make a single living out of all of that and cab driving. Some days work better than others. Her next post will share the final Hotcakes film fest short list. She’s a pretty good editor.

Also, she realizes that film is not “primarily a male sport,” except in Hollywood. In the art house world, women tend to outnumber the men. The last percentage she heard was ~ 66% which, incidentally, is also about the current percentage of women who are poor.

Hotcakes Poster (Print Version)

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Jules

One of theses days, the M. Bay click-boom will facilitate the feeling of the movie exploding on you when you open a poster file. Until then, you’ll just have to passively look at it. Sorry.

– The Hotcakes Team

Hotcakes for Breakfast

Posted on March 21, 2012 by Jules

A piece of fan fiction (kind of) by Hotcakes backer, writer & friend Angela Kamerer-White:

She walked into her usual breakfast place expecting to see Kwang Tae Woo, the 78 year old Korean man who had made her eggs over easy with a side of toast every morning since she moved to New York. When she sat at the counter, the man who poured her coffee was not Tae Woo. A flash of dimples distracted her. He had asked what he could get her.

Instead of giving him her usual order, she blurted the obvious.

“You’re not Tae Woo.”

He laughed good naturedly. “No I’m not. I’m his nephew, Siwon. He broke his ankle over the weekend and I decided to take a break from my studies and help him out.”

“Oh, my. Well, I am glad he has family to help him. He is so stubborn.”

“I think that is an understatement. He could give a mule a run for its money.”

She peered over her coffee to get a good, long look at the new fry cook. He had to be over six feet, clearly well built. Her brain had already registered the dimples.

“Have you ever thought of modeling?”

“Excuse me?”

“Sorry. That must sound like a bad pickup line to you, but actually I’m a recruiter for a major modeling company here in New York. You are tall and have a very fresh look. Just consider it. No commitments. Fifteen hundred dollars for a few hours of your time and then you can decide if it’s for you or not.” She put down her business card, alongside a twenty.

Outside, on the steaming sidewalk, she realized that she had forgotten to order.

The next day she watched Siwon with a director friend who had stopped by to scout a new face.

“So, Jo. What do you think?”

“Well, dimples like that certainly don’t grow on trees,” Jo supplied as she sipped a vodka martini, offering the one in her left hand to her. Taking a sip, she took another look at Siwon.

He was a natural.

“Oh, and you will appreciate the humor in this. I found him in a diner making hot cakes.”

“Ha ha! You get all the luck.”

“Indeed.”

Siwon decided he liked the modeling industry and soon signed a contract. He was quickly one of the most highly demanded models in the company — not just for his looks, but because of his gentlemanly ways. He was touted as every mother’s dream, the perfect “boy next door.”

No one minded that next door was South Korea.

They were in the backseat of the limo she had rented for his first New York fashion week.

“You were amazing.”

“Thank you I wouldn’t be here without you.”

“I can’t take credit for your charming good nature.”

“And I can’t take credit for the good looks God graced me with.”

“Alright, truce. I am starving, and that is the best part of New York. You can get any kind of food you want at any time of night. Though I would give my left hand for some beignets, but oh well. We could get some Korean food..”

“Let’s go to my apartment. I’ll make us some hot cakes,” Siwon said.

“You sure? This is your night..”

“Yes I am sure, cooking is relaxing and it seems fitting considering my cooking got us here.”

“Okay.”

There was something appealing about a man in the kitchen, but a man in the kitchen in a tux? Well, that was her average late-night sex dream.

Siwon stripped down to his wife beater. This was his house. It wasn’t like she could object to him getting comfortable. Being in close proximity with him in such an intimate setting was making it hard to ignore the niggling attraction she had been able to shove down for professional reasons. She never wanted a model to feel like they had to trade sexual favors to keep their job. If sexual tension was a sound, it would be the sizzling of the oil in the pan, making her skin crackle with desire. Really, she needed to find a man her own age before she became that woman who wore heavy perfume and made passes at pool boys young enough to be her grandchildren.

He flipped a few pancakes, smiling at her between turns. She went to the fridge for some water when she noticed the carafe of maple syrup in the fridge. This gave her a wicked idea. She stuck the syrup in the microwave just long enough to get it hot without being scalding.

“Wonnie?”

“Hm?”

“Go lay down on the coach?”

“…uhh, okay.”

He stretched himself out on his long, white, overstuffed couch. She walked over with the carafe of syrup, only putting them down long enough to relieve him of his shirt and pants, gently quieting his initial objections. She then took the syrup and poured it all over his well defined abs. The indentations filled up like the wells on waffles. His intake of breath as the warm syrup hit his skin set her on fire. Reputation be damned, she was going to have Choi Siwon for breakfast!

She began lapping at his nipples and followed the path of the sticky sweet syrup with her tongue. She then slipped off his now damp Calvin Klein boxer briefs, very content with what she saw there. She doused his growing erection in syrup and then wrapped her tongue around the base of his cock, teasing with tongue and teeth. He reached for her hair and began to tug her closer but she managed to control the pace of his thrusts into her mouth, with a shout of her name he came hard the mix of sweat, syrup and semen — a satisfying cocktail she swallowed down easily. She climbed up his syrup covered body to allow him to taste himself on her tongue and he took off her dress and lingerie underneath it. They rolled off the couch as Siwon flipped her over, getting his own idea with the syrup.

He filled her with the now lukewarm mixture and began dining. Now it was her turn to scream. Then it became a war for dominance to see who could taste more, touch more, a pretty sticky situation. But she was sure she had never fucked anyone so hard in her life. They moved to the bed at some point after a slow and sensual shower, the stove long forgotten.

“And that, my friend, is why pancakes will always be my favorite breakfast food,” she said calmly, a sip of orange juice her coda.

Jo blinked a few times and scooped her dropped jaw off the table.

The waiter finally came to ask their order.

“Can I get some hot cakes, please?” Angela asked with a grin.

THE END

Hotcakes: Making of… Final Chapter

Posted on March 20, 2012 by Jules

FINAL PRODUCTION DAY. OR, MOMMY: WILL YOU PLEASE MAKE US EGGS?

On the last day of any shoot, you need every last one of your people to be in your back pocket. Everything that can go wrong that hasn’t already gone wrong will, so you need to be able to anticipate those obstacles and counter them as deftly as possible.

On our shoot, the trouble was sneaky. It didn’t happen right away. It lurked, patiently.

At the beginning of the night, everyone was tired, but loose, which was good. I had this really bright idea to have our main crafty person, Jenny Martin, be a short order cook with the griddle we had bought on our first night, for the hot cakes we never made during our opening night fundraiser. Thus far, we had only made prop hot cakes with it and we had all this syrup and Bisquick and milk. Cassie brought in farm-fresh eggs from her beloved chickens and I picked up some bacon at the dollar store et voila! Instant breakfast. The caveat, of course, being that if cast and crew can order whenever they want, then there’s no consistency with the noise. Right in the middle of a take, one of the sound people said, “I hear something frying.” It was one of those moments where you just have to pretend like you didn’t give a contradictory order only a little while ago. “Quiet on set!” I yelled.

Then I made Jenny not only stop cooking the bacon but clean up the fat to get rid of the sizzling. On a griddle with a fair amount of surface area, this took some doing. Then, we restructured our eating plans a little. We would have something of a break between set configurations and camera setups. We were shooting the last two scenes of the script, and that meant turning two flats around after we shot the phone scene and then pulling out an entire wall of flats — and all of the furniture props in front of it — for the last scene. But we were also shooting all the shots we hadn’t gotten yet from the first three nights too. A lot of shots, really. Everyone’s blood pressure was a little too high for my comfort.

Probably the only thing that saved us that night was Michelle’s decision to go handheld once we were at the phone. We hadn’t discussed it, but being my own AD, I didn’t need a reminder about our time constraints. I have no idea what time it was when we started to actually shoot the phone scene, but it was late. The configuration of the walls and a door that Jacques walked out of took a lot of time, each piece a solitary prop that wasn’t being held together by much of anything beyond gravity and a few screws. These are the sorts of moments in which my Pittsburgh Filmmakers independent screenwriting classes serve me well: I had written in a burnt-out light in this hallway we “constructed” for just this reason. We didn’t have the money, space, people or time to make it look solid. Just darkness.

And the results are really beautiful, some of my favorite images from the film:

Of course, going handheld didn’t solve our other problems. We still had a fight scene to choreograph and I had failed to find a fight choreographer, so Burton — a certified and trained stage combat fighter and teacher — had to lead that charge alone. He and Jerry listened to me describe how I wanted those shots and Burton suggested one more shot in which we see Jerry as Chico go down, made possible by the handy mat he brought:

Jerry and he got it down pretty quick. One great thing about having a top-notch actor like Burton Tedesco in your cast is that he knows when he’s needed and where. For that entire week, he had taken off from his second job so that he could be doubly available to us and he knew exactly what I wanted and wrote it down and built on it, so that when I got tired and said something stupid, he could redirect. By our last night, he had already done this a couple of times. Our one lack of communication would cost us later on, but at this time, we hadn’t yet realized that we weren’t prepared for the other stunt. In the script, DiDi tries to stop Marty from hitting Chico and gets thrown several feet across the floor. A complicated stunt for anyone who isn’t a stunt actor, no doubt, and this is played by Kat Loyacano who, prior to our first night shooting, had never had a speaking role or carried a server’s tray.

Suffice it to say that I wasn’t comfortable with that part of the script, and I had to brush the thoughts of failure out of my mind. I had done the same thing on Toll Road — had changed the ending to suit the circumstances of the production while shooting and, well, the mood. Rita Pritchard was supposed to cry. I nixed the crying, at first subconsciously; then, when actress Lorraine LeBlanc asked if I still wanted her to cry, I remembered, considered it for all of three seconds, and said, No. Probably the only difference I can claim for my decision on Hotcakes is that it was more deliberate and less instinctual. We were running out of time and we hadn’t rehearsed it or figured out how to shoot it to make it all cut together well — at least, not in my head — and I didn’t want to ask Kat to do it. Besides, Kat was running out of time. She had to pick up her son in Hammond and, just as we were getting the last of the fight scene filmed, she announced that the time for her to leave had come.

Later, many months later, I would inform Kat quietly that on the last day of a shoot — in particular a low-budget shoot that can never get its location back — you do not make any other plans, that it’s always going to run long. This isn’t always true, of course, but it usually is, and the important thing is you can’t predict it. There are no honest forecasters. At the time, I just told her to go. It was better to be dismissive and move on and not worry about the fact that we’d only gotten the fight scene from four angles and that only one of those was truly wide and a one-taker. That was in the past. We still had shots to get.

Kat left and we kept shooting, well after the sun came up. One of the beauties of shooting for black and white is that mixed lighting isn’t an issue, as long as the direction or intensity of the lighting isn’t too out of sync with what you’re supposed to be shooting — and even much of that can actually be solved in post, if not fixed wholesale. So even though people kept pointing out to me what everyone awake on planet earth knew at that moment — that the sun was out and it was 8:40 in the morning — I was able to ignore them and press on until we had what I thought at the time was a pretty good ending to our film.

We would, of course, find ways to make it better later, though. But that’s in post…and post can seem like a really long, long way off — like a foreign country you may or may not have a visa to — when you’ve been on set for as long as I had been. There were so many things to do. Byrdie’s shop had to be righted, for one thing. The set had to be struck so we could return the props to Strike it Green and the gallery to an empty, transitional look. There was one tiny, little item I’d forgotten in the madness of pulling the production together. I had forgotten to reserve a U-Haul. On the first — oh, yes — the first of December. In the a.m.

Feel free to guffaw now. I managed not to show any emotion at all at the U-Haul on Tulane and Broad, where I thought I could just pick up a 14-footer, like the one I had returned a week and a half prior. But it was a moving day in a town with a heavy reliance on month to month leases. They called Mandeville for me. LaPlace for me. The Westbank. When they asked me how I felt about driving to Covington or Baton Rouge, I said I would rather not. Somehow — I’m not exactly sure how — they had overlooked the U-Haul on Chef. Maybe I looked like I wouldn’t go there; I don’t know. But the Gentilly location on the Chef Menteur Highway (aka the “ho stroll”) had a 17-footer, if that was okay by me. Oh Lawdy, it was.

What happened next is one of those things that can only be seen in hindsight. I had been up all night. I am not used to driving 14 foot U-Haul trucks, let alone 17 foot ones. Cassie, Michelle and Jeff were all back at Byrdie’s striking the set without me and that gave me a sense of urgency. It had already taken a while to find a truck. Then I had to drive another five miles to pick it up, in the other direction. I drove a little too fast and parked a little too quickly. I felt the truck snag on something, but I couldn’t make out what. When I got out to inspect the car behind me, I saw a scrape and nothing more. I made a mental note of this, not knowing whose car it was, to ask Byrdie if she knew whose car it was later. Then I went back inside to find what was left of my crew in a tizzy cuz Byrdie had come back to the shop to open it at 10 am and had found it in utter disrepair. There was batter all over the kitchen that no one had bothered to clean up. The set was nowhere near dismantled. In her infinite wisdom, she went home and decided to wait us out. I mentally added giving her the larger end of the ballpark figure we had agreed upon to the question of the car. Thankfully, the girls had taken the initiative to clean up. I had done it every other morning alone, often getting home three or four hours after everyone else, and was sick of it.

The icing on all of these hot cakes was that Michelle had stepped on a rusty nail while trying to sweep up. Cassie had done her best to disinfect it, but of course the more important thing was that Michelle get a Tetanus shot asap and that we find her a way home. Once that was done, I was left with a very tired production designer whose job was never supposed to have been on set and who had a class to get to and Jeff, who really didn’t want to drive with me out to Harahan to return all the props. Thanks to the two of them staying as long as they felt they could — and to a mysterious stranger, a carpenter — we managed to get the truck loaded up so I could go the rest alone. By the time I returned and unloaded the stuff at Strike it Green with Lonnie Schaffer and then returned to Byrdie’s to collect all the leftover belongings people always leave on sets, she was there waiting for me with a bent piece of metal in her hands. As it turned out, the metal siding of the U-Haul had pierced the car’s tire and gotten wrapped around the inner rim. It was really a marvel to behold and the owner of the car was a mystery no longer.

Cassie also returned after class, which helped. It was an epic production, understaffed.

Sometime that evening, I returned to Byrdie’s one last time, to make sure my co-producer got all of his equipment back before he crossed the lake to go home. I got the last of the cast and crew leftovers then and shook Bob’s hand. He had the reins now. By the time I got home, the world was swimming with color. My roommates looked at me dubiously, at which point I looked at a clock and informed them that I had been on set or cleaning up the set for 30 hours straight without a break. I don’t remember how long I slept, but it probably wasn’t long enough. I had cab driving to do. We wrapped on a Thursday. By Friday afternoon, I was out making money again alongside some of the grumpiest hoi polloi. My cab driving friends and Hotcakes backers, the very first of our backers – Pete, Willie and John — all congratulated me and asked about what comes next and were doubtless mostly mystified by my answers. “It’s in my editor’s hands now. Later on, I’ll reshape and guide it; but right now, he’s the storyteller. We’ll see what we’ll see…”

THAT’S A WRAP! OR, HOLY HELL, WE’RE IN POST-PRODUCTION. I’M SCARED.

One of the first things you learn as a filmmaker going through the whole process is that it is never over. Just when you think it’s over, that’s when you realize you have to back up and probably start again. So you learn to stop thinking in beginnings and endings. You learn to see everything as a process that requires decision making. Not all of your decisions are going to be perfect, but the more options you leave yourself early on, the stronger your decision making will be later on, when your back’s up against a wall. We shot in color, but we knew we were finishing in black and white. Early on, we had to admit to ourselves that because of certain things — like money that looked bloody in black and white but just plain weird in color — there was no going back on this decision. I was okay with this, even after our stills started to come out and, well, look like this before we gray-scaled them:

Hell, I was even aware early on that our faux brick looks like absolute real brick in color, as it was made, but that it suffers somewhat in black and white, before finishing.

The decision to go black and white was an artistic one as well as a technical one. Even in the digital world, it’s cheaper to go black and white than it is to go color because color always costs. Our walls didn’t quite match, but that was okay, because in black and white, you couldn’t really tell the difference. We looked at things in terms of contrast and high key vs. low key instead of having to spend extra money meeting the criteria of a color palette. And we didn’t have to worry about color correcting in camera, which saved time, or mixed lighting situations, which saved us the most. Even color timers have trouble with this. It wasn’t planned for, but Michelle’s trouble with the focus, even, is a blow softened by our choice of black and white over color, in places where the focus is a bit soft, statically.

On the artistic side, I wanted a sense of blending. There are very few hard blacks or bright whites in the film. It’s mostly just gray on gray on gray. We have no villains, nor any hero.

Hotcakes is not a hero’s journey. Nor is it particularly happy. Plus, I had this whole John Ford homage going on in my head, especially after we decided to put it all in the one location. We would compress the space inside the diner just like Ford compressed the space inside that stagecoach and leave you guessing about the outside world for a bit.

(For Sonuvabitch, we’re going to shoot in color and finish in black and white as well, but we’ll probably make sure we can finish in color too, if we change our minds. Not that I want to go to color. In my head, it looks a bit like Yojimbo, visually, but there’s a strong thematic nod to Silverado as well. Comedic. And neither hero, nor anti-hero, again.)

The whole month of December, I didn’t ask Bob for much besides stills and patience as I tried to write making-of blog posts and get the Kickstarter up and running. I got the credit card I needed about two weeks before I was ready mentally and we finally launched it, just before New Year’s. It took a lot of doing. Getting the Kickstarter page ready was just the tip of the iceberg. I had to populate an entire website filled with bios from actors and crew who were suddenly shy. I threatened to write people’s bios. There’s still one I don’t have.

Then the Kickstarter started to take over my life. I reached out to a lot of people to spread the word about the film, showing a ton of stills along the way. And then, an amazing thing happened. Our audience began to emerge. At first, it just seemed like will ‘o the wisp. But the backers started coming in. People started sending me emails and messages, asking about the film or working with me. Interest was growing, some of it strong. I have a feature length screenplay written by one of our backers sitting in my inbox right now, waiting for me to read it. I have two more shorts I’ve already read in there written by another backer who I want to work with this summer. I haven’t experienced that kind of interest since my film writing days (’05-’07), when all kinds of offers used to flood my inbox.

Generally speaking, it’s a good feeling. Even though you end up having to say no a lot.

So we all had Christmas, then the Kickstarter began, and then it was a New Year, just like that. I started to apply gentle pressure in early January. We had a test screening which I managed to set a date for perhaps three weeks before it happened on January 28, at the Shadowbox Theatre. It was mis-projected onto the newly installed screen that theatre owner Richard Mayer was trying out. But we had a pretty fair turn-out, after which I gave us a little bit of a break in which to digest feedback. You learn early on from workshopping as a writer that statistics and instincts are your two best friends. You throw out the stuff that’s just gushing praise and then you throw out the stuff that’s just cutting it all to pieces instead of having any inkling of what you were going for and, in the middle of all of that you do two things: You find the parts where people had trouble following — and in film, you don’t really want them to have too much trouble upon a first viewing — and then you find your audience. As it turns out, ours is smart and well-read and, well, worldly. Mature. And we didn’t skimp on the intentional humor, so even if you’re not terribly well-read or worldly, you’ll probably at least enjoy a few laughs.

By far, the test screening has been the greatest part of the Hotcakes experience.

Even a week later, when we succeeded at our Kickstarter goal with 7% on top of that, the test screening was still inspiring me to change the way we were approaching the editing. That’s when I decided we had to do the pick-up shots. It wasn’t my idea, at first. Jeff brought his camera to the test screening and absconded with several of our Hotcakes people into the green room for a taped reading. He’s stalled in production at the moment, but it was going pretty well there for a while. The good news is that he was able to bring his mic and boom and borrow a recorder for Marty’s pickup shot with Burton, which Byrdie okayed. She wasn’t comfortable, after her trauma, with me bringing in a flat and shooting that, so we stuck to the one shot, the final shot, which we got from several angles.

Then we got Kat’s pick-up. She had to come in all the way from Hammond in a storm that had put her power out and flooded her backyard, but she did it. The rain was pounding down here by the time she got here too, so it ended up being the equivalent of an MOS shot, even though I operated the boom and recorder as I had for Burton.

I’m not going to lie. I like Burton’s shots better than Kat’s, but that’s only because we were handheld and the camera movement on DiDi was shakier. The important thing is, it will blend. It has to. When Bob tried to apply image stabilization to it, the wooden paneling in the background behind Kat did a wonky sort of Brady Bunch on acid thing. Oh, well.

For better or for worse, we premiere on March 28 at 8 pm at Cafe Istanbul. The first draft of the score was sent back with about 50% red ink on it. It was heavy and moody and it killed all the natural humor inherent to the piece. So Mike has gone back to work on it. Jonathan is working on foley and audio engineering this week too. Bob is, until tomorrow sometime (I hope), placing the audio from last Saturday’s ADR session. And Ryan is wrapping up the color correction he has been working on since we arrived at a picture lock at the end of February, almost a month to the day after our test screening. Whew.

We’ve almost finished it. Now…who wants to come see a movie-film?

Hotcakes Trailer

Making HOTCAKES, Part Three

Posted on March 11, 2012 by Jules

When we left off with the story of my latest short film, the first installment in what we’re now calling The Short Stack Series, I had started to freak out. We were down a camera department. The first DP I’d brought on board had failed to keep in touch despite the need for vital pre-visualization discussions and, since we were paying to import him all the way from Hattiesburg, Mississippi, I felt like we needed to find someone more dedicated. My next instinct led me to call Josh Huval, who I had worked with once before on the first film I laid hands on after arriving in New Orleans. He had read the Hotcakes script and liked it; he had great suggestions for a prison location we had failed to secure on the cheap, where he had shot a short film before; and like me, he had gotten fed up and left a film program at UNO to strike out on his own two feet. I thought our problems might be solved.

For UNO's Fall 2010 "one Week Film Fest," we made a short Western, El Duelo Agrio. From left: Nicholas Whelton, Josh Huval, Eric Gremillion, Laura Steffan, Virgile Beddock, Jared Stanton, Jo Custer, Jeff Bruno, Beth Burris. Photography: Josh Huval and his fine Canon 7D.

Then Josh didn’t respond to a Facebook message, nor an email. I got nervous. This was the weekend before production. On November 22, for better or for worse, we had a U-Haul to pick up along with over $600 worth of props and flats and sandbags, a done deal. That was the Tuesday before Thanksgiving and our production designer who had but one very green assistant and me (sort of) had to build our entire set and a long counter from scratch in five days. On the sixth day, a Sunday, Byrdie’s Cafe and Art Gallery would reopen for business, at the end of which (7 pm) we would need to come in and set up for both our kickoff fundraiser and our first night of shooting. We were already down a camera assistant and a gaffer due to a judgment call on my part and now, it seemed, two DPs.

In a last minute series of phone calls to my sound mixer, Jon Berguno, I got a bunch of names. A lot of them didn’t pan out. They were union and didn’t understand why the pay was so low on a short film that was never going to make a profit. They were coming from really far away and had a day job they had to be up for at 4:30 am and there was no way they could fit in night shoots for even one night, let alone four — especially after they heard how low the pay would be. Even the non-union people dithered over this. The one name Jon gave me that came attached to a real person with real world expectations about a short, indie film was Michelle Kowalski, a director who is known a little bit more for her cinematography than her other talents. We talked on the phone for maybe 20 minutes and I decided to give her a shot. She would meet us Saturday, the day before the shoot, and we would go over the script, line by line, until we had a basic shooting plan.

I can’t be sure because it had gotten to the point where I was wearing too many hats — not just writer, director and producer, but all the work that their assistants and then some (like a location manager) would do — but I think the very next day, I talked to Jeff Bruno. Jeff’s the other half of the very dynamic filmmaking duo that is he and Josh Huval. He was our gaffer, assistant camera and entire grip and electric team, really, as well as our second camera operator. Turns out, Josh hasn’t been blowing us off. He has been ensconced at his grandparents’ for Thanksgiving, recuperating from two months of shooting on G. I. Joe without working Internet access. He didn’t get my messages because, well, just that: he didn’t. Josh called moments later, very tired and okay with not doing the shoot, even if we were both sorry about how it had come about. Our DP wanted a 7D to shoot on and had found somebody who would rent us one for cheap. But Josh would lend us his 7D for free and, together with Jeff’s 60D, and their lenses combined with Bob’s, we would have a pretty complete camera system to work with — a tremendous load off.

They’re good guys, Josh and Jeff. I like them both a lot. They know what’s important. Also, Jeff applies his ample drawing talents to the slate, between takes, making post a treat:

Take 4 of our 4th shot, Day One. Hadn't even broken out the Red Bull yet.

I want to be clear about something, here. We went with Michelle not because she was my first choice, but because that was the deal. It’s a hard lesson to learn because it’s hard to separate, to know where to draw the line. As a director, I should hire the DP I know can best communicate the story; but, as a producer, I have to hire the DP being responsible, even if the irresponsibility has a naturally occurring explanation like no Internet access. And apparently, I’d forgotten how to use a phone. I guess I’d gotten used to writing. I hadn’t seen a second of Michelle’s work and, as of this post, I’ve only seen Trust Bob, which showed last night at the foburg film fest. I was running on base instinct, really.

It turned out to be an interesting experiment. If you’ve never sat down with a DP you’ve never met before as a director, your 17 page script and your respective film experiences the only palpable thing you really have in common, you’re kind of missing out. It’s not an easy way to work, but it has a purity and an honesty that I enjoyed. All Michelle and I did the day before production began was talk script, story, character and shots — and, of course, the concessions we had had to make to time and budget and location.

Michelle collects actors' head shots and character descriptions, day before the shoot.

I had written a jail scene for the opening, but we had decided, on actor Michael Martin’s (Jacques) advice, to lose it rather than maybe be able to get those shots later. What that meant was that my carefully planned four day location shoot for 13 pages of a 15 page script was now a four day location shoot for all of what was now a 17 page script. Using a location that was an art gallery that would be booked for every day of the rest of the following year. What we had, essentially, was a trade-off: The risk of never finishing the film on two locations had been replaced with the risk of never finishing the film on one. When you’re working without an AD, that’s a lot of unnecessary pressure to manage.

Michelle and I came up with a pretty bare-bones shooting strategy. I marked the script and we sort of came up with an overall shot list that I would pretty much rewrite every night, just before shooting — and one night, the third or fourth night (I forget), mid-shoot. I explained to her that I had written the dialogue scene after they had finished eating for a booth, but that we couldn’t afford to rent a booth, hadn’t been able to find any used or discarded booths, and had no time nor resources to build one from scratch. In order to get around that, we would shoot a little wider on the scenes leading up to that one — nothing closer than a cowboy shot — and then we would go in closer on the now-table scene. This made sense on several levels because while our three principal characters have met before and certainly know each other by sight, name and reputation, they’re hardly friends. Also, I wrote this philosophically as a Western, so the cowboy shot is almost expected in those opening scenes where Chico is pushing Marty’s buttons — and his luck, especially. It’s almost like Marty’s just lost a pretty high stakes poker game and Chico won’t let it go.

Slating the first shot of the night...sometime after midnight, I think.

This is also the scene that Michelle has the hardest time lighting. It’s not surprising. We should have had months or weeks to discuss this and bounce ideas around.

We had a day.

Michelle had a few major contributions to the shot list, including a salient one she came up with early, before we started shooting. The fortune teller scene was of such import that she suggested we do a high angle – low angle sequence. The scene was broken into three parts in the script, so she suggested shooting each subsequent shot in the timeline at a slightly lower angle on our fortune teller, the bringer of mysterious news, while shooting the reverse shots equally higher on Marty, the poor man left to make sense out of what she had told him. In theory, this worked great. Co-producer and editor Bob Krieger liked it, too, but he cautioned that if we were going to do that, we would want to get the entire exchange on an even angle, just in case. The main problem was that the location didn’t really allow for Michelle’s idea. The camera had to be set up behind Marty to get the fortune teller, with the tabletop to be taken into consideration. We could only go so low.

The wall behind our fortune teller, meanwhile, made the angle on Marty start out high and go skyscraper on us by the third shot. Marty’s eye line became too angled for us to really connect to him fully, one, and two, the angles of the shots weren’t evenly matched.

Probably…well, two probabilities here. First, probably almost no one will notice this but me. But probably the best thing I can say about these shots is that we hadn’t wanted the over the shoulder shots to be too dirty — we wanted as much space between their bodies as possible until that breaking moment of realization on Marty’s part — and I think we achieved that. When I look at the spatial relationship between them and their body language, I’m pretty pleased. It’s natural and yet distant. Just like falling into a dream you know is a dream. It’s a credit to Michelle’s ability to think and see clearly on her feet that this scene works at all. The rest was just tightening, creativity in editing and a little ADR.

The secondary problem was that we ran out of time. Really, on this third day of shooting, a Tuesday, we should have had plenty of time because Byrdie’s is closed for business on Tuesdays. But again, I was working without an AD. So the call, which was already late because of people’s schedules, became later and got started even later. But you don’t know yet what happened on the first two days of shooting, so let me back up a moment.

PRODUCTION

On the morning of Sunday, November 27, I got a call from Jerry Lopez. We were set. Byrdie’s would close at 7 pm for a kickoff Kickstarter party, during which people could set up accounts online via Bob’s and Michelle’s laptops and pledge. A lot of things had come together last minute. We had found Tony Fennelly, our fortune teller, mid-rehearsals. Jeff showed me a link to a student film he was still editing called Mugged in which Tony fends off a would-be mugger who turns out to be her grandson and scolds him. It was a funny, little 3-2-1 script (no more than three pages with no more than two characters on no more than one location) that I had given feedback on during the writing stage and I loved the way she embodied the character. The wig she wore for it was great, too. Cassie had also just finished building the set in time. We had to import my roommate, Steph Novakov, to help and Cassie had to import her Dad for a couple of grueling overnights, but the job got done. The counter looked amazing, an easy $800 on the tag at Ikea. And on Thanksgiving Day, I asked Michael Martin’s partner, Eric Martin Webb, to be our stylist, since Crystal Wells, whose house I also live in, had her leg in a cast and was in San Diego.

Cassie sawed like a champ all night long all Thanksgiving week. It was really something.

So what did Jerry want? As it turned out, he had been experiencing kidney stones and on the morning of our first production day, had passed his fourth stone in two weeks. He had been pissing blood for a while, apparently. We had zero flexibility in the schedule, but I asked him if he wanted me to schedule the first night without him. It wasn’t really feasible and we weren’t really configured for it, but he was okay with working that night, as long as I scheduled him lightly. No problem. I scheduled two scenes that night that we didn’t finish, with just a few shots leftover, and I turned my head and looked the other way when he brought out the bag of Advil and the not-so-full fifth of tequila. When an actor’s willing to work through real, physical pain for a role, you don’t comment on his means of coping, even if it’s a thing that might normally be grounds for firing on any other day.

Aside from Jerry’s self-medication, two things cinematography-wise stand out from that first night, in my mind. One, Michelle’s lighting on the opening dialogue scene around the door looked stagey — then and now — but I liked it and still do. What I don’t like is that we had such little control over the set design in that shot. We were using a door to a shop pretty much the way it came. All we did was take down the excess stickers on the door and unknot the curtain. There’s a white wall to the left of the action that has nothing but light switches. Cassie and I had planned differently. There was supposed to be a brick facade where the white wall was, but we realized belatedly that we had suffered a small miscommunication on the set configuration and ended up, in the interest of time, putting the facade back at least 12 feet from where I had originally envisioned. No big, but still.

The second thing is that during the dialogue scene at the table, Michelle kept changing the focus mid-shot and often mid-dialogue. The first cut Bob put together, which by far was closest to the rhythm I was going for when I wrote it, had at least five shots in it we either couldn’t use completely or had to get extremely creative with in cutting. I never did get a chance to ask Michelle what the problem was, but my instincts tell me that she — like me — couldn’t see how bad it was on the 7″ monitor we were using. She was trying to follow movement without rehearsing movement and without a focus puller and it didn’t work. I’m not nearly as upset about this as I probably should be. It gave Bob and me some good lessons in post and although some people might disagree with me, I still managed to make one of my main directorial goals with this film: I wrote and filmed a very watchable, seated dialogue scene. The acting works. The tension works. Hell, the scene works without the music. I can’t wait to see how it looks once composer Mike Flood is finished with it.

That was Day One, in a nutshell. On Day Two, as I recall, the shit hit the fan. Technically, we started earlier because we didn’t have a kickoff party that took up over three hours of production time. Sure, we raised $100 of cold, hard cash that night thanks to little things like Tony donating her time and real-life Tarot reading to the nights’ entertainment, but I hadn’t realized that I would need to apply for a credit card to complete my Amazon payments account. I had thought my bank card with a Mastercard logo would be enough.

Not so much.

Toll Road screened for an audience of two -- Bob and myself, as I battled the Kickstarter site.

As a result of that and my forgetfulness, our party wasn’t all that it should have been. I forgot that we were supposed to be serving hotcakes fresh off a griddle which Jerry and Michelle ran to WalMart for at the last minute, along with the fixings. In the interest of time, we set aside the previous plan and settled for hastily bought and made sangria that night. I don’t think anyone noticed but us that the hotcakes were missing from the hotcakes party and, because the set wasn’t really configured yet — at least, not the table part of it — Jenny Martin never took pictures of people interacting with the set. Or she forgot her camera. I can’t recall. All I know is that our marketing fell a bit by the wayside as we struggled to get the production off the ground, which is a bit of a shame, $100 or no.

Day Two, partly because we wrapped so late on Day One, did not start well. People were just not in great spirits. In part, this might have been due to things getting boggled with Kickstarter and our party the night before; it’s hard to say. It was just one of those nights. I do recall that I hadn’t slept more than an hour or so in two nights and that this may have augmented any negativity I experienced during this time. I remember that I scolded an actor on set, in front of everyone. I couldn’t even say for sure why, just that he wasn’t really making my life any easier. Moments after this, I decided that we would wrap early. I had lost the ability to think clearly, not unlike mountain climbers do after they reach that critical ceiling, and I decided that Day Three, the day Byrdie’s was closed, would be our big push for the summit. The more we accomplished that day, the less we would have to worry about on our final night of shooting, when at some point, the absolute necessity of each and every shot starts to be examined in the interest of time and the best possible film.

It was the right call and although Day Three was sluggish, it was also the day the cast and crew bonded most. It was Tony’s only day on set and she showed up just in time for the Chinese food I had decided to order, spur of the moment. After the night we had had, it felt like the best possible time to splurge, and it was well worth the $55. Lead actor Burton Tedesco (Marty) had come in early to not watch the dailies that Bob and I — first to arrive — were supposed to be going over with Michelle on Bob’s laptop. I had to call Michelle to see where she was and, as it turns out, an elderly woman had been mugged right in front of her building moments earlier in broad daylight and she was in shock. It was one of the more inarticulate conversations I’ve had in my life, so I decided to walk over to her place just a couple of blocks away from set and escort her back. Jeff may have come too…

The dailies looked pretty good. The focus issues in the table scene were more obvious, but I remember thinking we could try and reshoot some of that the last night, if we had time — always a nice thought to have, but often, it proves too hard to follow through on. We had had an overnight calamity as well, when my great plan to leave up the lamp that overhangs our main diner table backfired when Byrdie’s bicycle lurched forward and knocked over the flat beside it. Thankfully, we had two lamps and could switch them out and try to hide the broken glass better, but somehow, we ended up with the broken one in the fortune teller scene. I think we did it in the interest of time without considering the breadth of the camera setups. But it’s hard to say. All I know is it was another surprise in post.

Somewhere between Michelle’s sidewalk mugger and the broken lamp, it just felt like the day to take things easy at first and then begin a slow but steady and deliberate push. So I focused on accomplishing that. Dan came in with his laptop and pulled up Monty Python skits on YouTube and we all got our funny walks on. That helped a lot. And the actor with whom I had not parted on the best of terms the previous evening came in as rested as I and as professional as you please, which was good. It was all hands on deck time.

Tony and Burton’s big, pivotal scene together was not easy and went overlong, and that was the first thing we shot. When I say overlong, I mean that we ended up scrapping Bob’s advice to make sure we had the whole thing on the even keel. I’m not sure how this came about, but it must have been my fault. Michelle had wanted to get the entire two shot in a slow push-in and for some reason, we never did get that shot, with push-in or without. I can’t even tell you how much I wish we had gotten that shot. It has kept me up at night.

We wrapped Tony after maybe five hours of shooting her scene and then it was on to all of the big stuff that involved intricate and detailed camera work around the counter without actually pulling out that wall, stuff we wouldn’t really need our lead, Burton, for. I sent him home early that night, just after I had everyone take a break while I figured out exactly what shots we needed to get that night. We could live without him and I wanted him fresh for the two most important scenes the last night — the phone scene with Jacques and Frank (Dan Skelly) and the ending scene with our entire cast, for which he was also our trained fight choreographer. I would need him to be sharp, so I told Burt to go home to his wife. I think this must have been sometime between 11:30 pm and 1 am. Late, but early on this set. This resulted in one shot I would have done a little differently, in retrospect:

DiDi (Katherine Walters Loacano) and Chico play while Jacques (Michael Martin) looks on. But do you notice the C-stand leg in the bottom of the doorway, right? And all that space between Dan and the wall without so much as an elbow peeping out? Yeah, little things like that get to me...

Dan does a good job in the clip of making it look like he’s actually talk to someone. To the lay person, nothing looks wrong, but what if we were to cut directly back to this?

Yes, it's dark on purpose. But in retrospect, it doesn't help the fact that there should be space between Dan's head and the door. Again, probably nitpicking...you just keep blinking.

One of my favorite memories of Day Three came late. It’s during that scene everyone loves between Chico and DiDi, involving the gun. You know, this one:

That was an exciting scene for the actors and me as well. I had been chagrinned for days that I had cast someone I knew who had never been a waitress as a waitress, who had to learn how to hold a tray as we set up for her opening shot back on Day One. And it had been hard to shoot, honestly, because her self-consciousness surrounding the tray bled through. But put a gun in the woman’s hands and she was a new DiDi. That was awesome and, along with my experience with our stage actress earlier, Tony, it gave me ideas on how to approach directing differently in the next film. I love those moments, even if the impetus for them is never ideal for the moment at hand. Katherine came alive in that scene and it flowed so beautifully between them that it’s made me reconsider all of my notions for how energy between Capricorns (Kat) and Aquarians (Jerry) really works. One take we did, much of which we ended up using, made everyone within earshot laugh. I’ve been calling it “muskrat creepy” and it involves Jerry letting Chico get super excited about every little thing Kat as DiDi does. At the end of the take, which made some people feel uncomfortable, Katherine told him bluntly, Capricorn-like: “Don’t be creepy.”

It was too late, though, and their chemistry showed through. Jerry was literally jumping up and down saying let’s do it again! as much about their scripted action as he was about each successive take. I had to remind him that we had to wrap because Kat still had to drive all the way back to Hammond and it was already 5 in the morning. It was a great thing to see, and I’m glad it happened, because the film is so much better for it.

Hotcakes Movie

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