The Sleep of the Just
Have you ever unexpectedly slept for 12 uninterrupted hours? After an exhaustive week spent ramping up to last night’s private screening at THE DOWNTOWN INDEPENDENT, I did just that.
After setting the theater’s projector and sound to their appropriate level with the team at SNAP SOUND, I walked through the crowded lobby, shaking hands with old friends and making introductions with guests. Curiously, I felt confident that they would become new fans by the end of the night. Amongst the crowd, I finally had the opportunity to meet AIROM BLEICHER face to face (wished it had happened sooner). Airom composed and produced the music heard in the last third of the picture and I look forward to sharing his music and DEKLUN’s when we release the soundtrack via iTunes.
Before the screening, Kevin K. Shah welcomed the audience and invited them to introduce themselves to the person sitting next to them, and to congratulate each other for supporting independent film. This ingenious little ice-breaker is something we learned from Saskia Wilson-Brown and her Los Angeles screening series CINEMA SPEAKEASY. To express our gratitude, Kevin gave away 20 free copies of “Model/Photographer” and “White Knuckles” to the audience. After a brief introduction by me, the lights dimmed and HEART OF NOW filled the hearts and minds of those in attendance.
I sat next to Kevin and the film’s editor, Jamie Cobb. We listened for the audience’s unique reaction to the film. There were some unexpected, but welcomed laughs that we hadn’t gotten in test screening it. As well as plenty of moments where you could hear a pin drop – meaning no one in the audience was shuffling, eating or coughing. They were totally in the moment with the characters. When it ended, well… I’ll just say that continuous, unbroken applause is a good feeling.
I loved doing Q&A sessions at festivals for “IFHY“. By the end of that festival run, which took us all the way to London, I had a great deal of practice speaking about the film and was confident in which details the audience would find compelling to hear. But this being my first for this particular picture, it is tinged with uncertainty. I had no idea what people were scribbling on their comment cards at that point. So there was an irrational fear of outright rejection – that they hated it, or worse, felt indifferent – despite the applause. I explained that the spark behind making this film had been the death of my father and that character-defining feeling of being left behind. Further, that I had set out to make a picture about abandonment and aloneness which lead me behind the scenes to a collective of artists that came together as a family to author something bigger than any one of us.
Wonderful questions came in about improvisation, camerawork, the editing process and the sound design as a character unto itself. I was also asked to explain the butterfly motif and quickly refused to do any such thing. It got a laugh but I regret how I handled it. Given the opportunity, I would simply illustrate that it’s not my place to define any “meaning” for the audience, preferring that each person simply determine if it holds any significance for them.
During the Q&A, the audience also had an opportunity to fill out comment cards. It’s so vital to get an audience’s gut reaction, but also to talk with them afterward as their thoughts and feelings begin to settle. The response on those cards is overwhelmingly positive. 90% said they would likely recommend the movie to other fans of arthouse cinema. There was praise across the board for the performances by Marion Kerr and Kelly McCracken, and the rest of the cast. And the ending was cited universally as a favorite scene, even amongst the handful that were largely critical. It’s amazing how the ending was interpreted as very open for some, and as very definitive for others, but universally lauded. I can tell you that split seems to fall along gender lines. Women, I think, see a more conclusive denouement that men generally read as more ambiguous.
As I made my way to the rooftop for the after party, I spoke with Karen Worden of FILM COURAGE and we spoke of plans to appear on their radio show in February. Karen was so enthusiastic about the film that her comment card didn’t offer enough space to contain everything she had to say. Finally on the roof, a few guys on the crew each told me they had welled-up at different points in the film.
When I returned home and settled into bed, I fired up the laptop to check the email and facebook messages that had come in. Most were from people who were unable to attend, hoping to catch the picture at a later time. However, one email came from the projectionist at The Downtown Independent (aka “The Indie”). His words brought a sense of peace about the evening.
Hey Zak,
‘Heart of Now’ is a terrific film. It is humbling to see good work come through the Indie. This is a film I would be honored to present another time. The issues of abandonment and the subsequent coping mechanisms people employ are dealt with in not only a tactful manner, but also respectably and thoughtfully poetic. What I appreciate even more is the seemingly endless conclusion. It can be ambiguous or sharply conclusive, depending on the beholder.
‘Heart of Now’ has a poignant message that resonates with me personally right now as I deal with similar issues. It was even more striking to hear you talk about the loss of your father as an impetus for the film. My father was taken from me in ‘95. Many of the statements made by both Amber and Gabe reverberated deeply, so it only made sense when you elucidated that fact for the audience.
Thank you for bringing ‘Heart of Now’ to this theatre. I wish you, the crew, the production company, and the film all the best as you move forward in bringing this work of art to others.
A calm set in and I slept for 12 uninterrupted hours.
These words will spur me on as I spend the next couple days burning DVDs and Blu-ray screeners for additional festivals, distribution partners and friends eager to give creative feedback. The road ahead is focused on distributing directly to our audience-community next summer. We are designating July 4th, 2010 as “Interdependence Day” where we will usher HEART OF NOW and WHITE KNUCKLES through a series of release windows: Theatrical/DVD/Blu-ray, followed by Cable VOD, then by iTunes/Netflix/Amazon, and finally ad-supported outlets such as Hulu.
One journey ends. Another begins.
Picture Lock, Film Festivals and Everything In Between
Here is a list of updates on HEART OF NOW which currently has a soft picture lock at 89 minutes.
A MINOR DISASTER
The last six weeks have been eventful to say the least. We began extensive sound work on a 90 minute cut. In the middle of which, we had a major drive failure and lost all the sound work done over the course of three weeks. Fortunately all the core media was backed up and protected off site, and the project file and its back-ups did not reside on the drive array that failed. The subsequent weeks were spent rebuilding and redesigning the latest sound work.
MARION KERR as “Amber” in HEART OF NOW
SOUND WORK
As of last week everything has been recovered or replaced with newly recorded fx. With looming festival deadlines, Jamie and I spent this week going through the film, filling out the soundtrack, replacing mono sound with newly recorded stereo fx and foley work, giving it a solid stereo mix in the edit bay. We’ve found that the process of detailed sound work inspires new ideas for picture edits and the result here is that we shaved another minute off the film. All this is in an effort to present the film well for festival submissions.
FILM FESTIVALS & OUR OVERALL STRATEGY
Tomorrow morning, we are sending the film out to Slamdance, SXSW, Rotterdam and Berlinale. Our strategy is to limit first-round submissions to festivals that can generate significant press – for us and our publicist to make the most of. Kevin K. Shah and I are constantly refining our strategy to distribute HEART OF NOW and WHITE KNUCKLES via a theatrical tour, DVD, VOD and online outlets next year. If either film is programmed at a major fest this winter/spring, it will be leveraged to announce our platform release of both films, but the overall strategy does not rely on top tier festival acceptance. We are moving forward either way, making great strides to partner with the right companies and to make a successful, possibly innovative run at distributing directly to our audience while licensing to foreign territories.
SOUND DESIGN AND THE 5.1 MIX
I’m very fortunate to have enlisted the creative talents of Zach Seivers and J.M. Davey of SNAPSOUND for our 5.1 theatrical and home video mix. During November, we begin a three week schedule of extensive sound design and mixing that will culminate in early December with a finished, professionally mastered motion picture. SNAPSOUND’s credits included numerous independent features that have played Sundance, SXSW, et cetera.
PRIVATE CAST/CREW SCREENING
Finally, we are looking to hold a private cast and crew screening to share the film with our friends and family. If you’d like to attend what will likely be an intimate, early-December screening at the Downtown Independent theater in Los Angeles, add your info below. Press inquiries should go to pr@sabipictures.com.
Reflecting on From Here To Awesome
To my mind, the biggest problem (as a filmmaker and cinephlie) is that the system is set up in such a way that audiences don’t have TRUE choices for content. The system favors the safe and familiar and “what’s worked before”. I wonder how many cutting edge, iconoclastic filmmakers have been passed over in recent decades because some suit couldn’t reduce their work to “it’s like RoboCop meets Pretty Woman”? I’d like to see this flipped on its head so that audiences have a portal through which they can access a vast array of content on demand and pull it toward them, rather than having distributors push selected content at them. This portal would navigate though a variety of methods including searches, intelligent recommendations, keyword tagging and metadata, and good old word of mouth through a social network that would also allow fans to interact and communicate with filmmakers thru live and recorded video as well as text-based discussion. For the suits reading this, “its like DirecTV meets Amazon VOD meets iTunes Store meets Facebook meets Google meets Video iChat meets Coppola’s Little Fat Girl all packaged into a 60″ HD television with webcam, harddrive, and broadband built-in”.
If today we are “Here” and our goal is to get to “Awesome”, i think we are right on the brink of the next “ipod moment” — a moment that changes the way content finds its audience. today’s independent filmmaker is moving closer to what we at Sabi Pictures call the interdependent filmmaker — one who embraces the value of community-based solutions for everything from education and production needs to sharing your audience with like-minded artists. my vision of “awesome” is a universal framework that supports the artist and his or her audience cyclicly. allowing the filmmaker to retain ownership of his or her work is paramount to the evolving models of distribution and I believe that Arin Crumley’s idea for a universal distribution agreement is a brilliant concept for defining a new relationship between filmmakers and outlets. the technology is such that the only thing holding back the low budget (yet equally skilled, compelling and entertaining) filmmaker from monetizing their efforts is an audience equipped with the tools to find them.
Being a part of the first wave of the FHTA project has been a massive awakening and education in terms of elevating my understanding of what can be done with a motion picture once it’s locked and ready for the world. It has emboldened me to truly take ownership of my films, to give myself permission to fail, to assert and define my place in the film world, to brave the ever-evolving models of self-distribution and to have courage in rejecting the conventional route toward distribution for independents such as myself.
the distribution opportunities provided by FHTA were not an end result in and of themselves. they were a door that opened to a whole new journey. I learned to pursue these opportunities with vigilance, to build upon them and to let them inspire new ideas for building an audience. if you’re not pushing your filmmaking forward in some manner every single day, then you’d better go out and hire a great publicist (and a team of interns) to do it for you. that, or turn in your indie credentials right now. haha!
I received a vast “DIY” education from Lance Weiler and Arin Crumley. I now understand how to build and sustain an audience and the importance of creating a framework for the filmmaker to interact and make himself or herself available to the people drawn to the work. I now know the value of transparency and the importance of giving myself permission to fail as I experiment with the newly emerging distribution models. I now know that I’m not alone in wanting to change the status quo by retaining ownership of my work and I know it will happen for us soon. It is only a matter of time, planning and effort.