I must begin by apologizing to any remaining faithful readers who no doubt have been disappointed by our lack of updates for the better part of, oh, the past eight months. We were holding off until we could make a glorious announcement that we had been accepted into Sundance or SXSW or some other film festival. Any other festival. But nearly eight months into the festival rounds, we are oh-fer.

0 for 19 – to be exact.

The first few rejections, from major festivals like Sundance, SXSW, and the Berlinale, were expected (though we had  our fingers crossed) and we took those in stride and looked boldly forward to the next round.

Our producer Sumi continued to email Keith and me the form letter rejections and we’d all make a few pithy jabs at the location of the festival in question, e.g.:

re: Nashville, Mike: “Ahhh, who likes country music anyway?”

re: Florida, Keith: “Screw old people, and alligators, and hanging chads, and Elian Gonzalez, and lawn flamingos.”

Though as the rejections continued to come in, the internal jokes got significantly more R-rated, certainly not appropriate for a family-friendly weblog like this one. After nineteen consecutive rejections, it’s hard not to become an insufferable potty-mouth.

Striking out at anything is discouraging … at least in real baseball you go back to the dugout to a bunch of other guys who also don’t get a hit most of the time. But entering these festivals is not only time consuming and expensive -  couple hours busy work and $50-$100 per entry – it’s also a fairly solitary pursuit. Sumi, Keith and I are the only ones who face the defeat and we don’t even get to commiserate in person.

Someday, we’ll have a water cooler to chat around. But for now, we will be better about sharing our struggles and God-willing a success or two on the blog.

The bad news is, our batting average is .000. But the good news is, it can only go up.

We’ll keep you posted – cross your fingers!

Love,

- ML

Film Festival Rejections:

• 12/1/10 Sundance
• 12/15/10 Berlinale
• 1/15/11 Cinequest
• 1/31/11 SXSW
• 2/15/11 Florida
• 2/25/11 Nashville
• 3/6/11 Tribeca
• 3/31/11 London
• 4/22/11 Seattle
• 4/28/11 Los Angeles
• 4/29/11 Nantucket
• 5/10/11 Sydney
• 5/12/11 Edinburgh
• 5/18/11 Gen Art  – Subject was “Your Film Matters”
• 5/18/11 Waterfront
• At some point: Washington DC, Hong Kong, Cleveland, New Directors

First things second, WE ARE IN CONSIDERATION AT SUNDANCE! This just means that we paid $100 to Sundance, but it sounds really good. Keith and DVG worked their little buns off all of last week, tweaking, tightening and adding more closeups of me. Now the film is much better. Thanks, KBDVG!

More soon!

-ML

Can I put this on my resume??

Spooky Crazy Lake....

I don't know why I like this sunflower so much

This one is by far my favorite

Nothing to do with the movie, but it seems to speak for itself

... if only

This is for the European release... in the alternate ending, everyone dies

and last but not least, the actual poster

Yay photoshop!

Awesome view

Sunset THROUGH Manhattan!

The best way to see Keith - in silhouette

The Team

The Producers

MAMBO #5

MAMBO #KEITH

After the party is the afterparty

Thanks for coming, everyone!!

-ML

We spent last night and the night before screening our brand-new film to appreciative audiences at two very cool venues: Attic Studios in Long Island City and 45 Bleecker in Manhattan.  The first screening was pleasantly intimate, with a sneak-preview sort of vibe; our 40-50 audience members sat on folding chairs and watched the film on a screen only eight feet away from the front row.  Last night’s screening was a bit grander in scale; we filled most of the middle section of the 300-seat theater, and it really felt like we were presenting all our hard work to the world.  Both screenings went exceedingly well, with laughs in all the right places, a celebratory atmosphere, and a lively Q&A session afterward.

Brigitte relaxes at the Queens screening.

It’s a heady feeling to be able to debut a film that hadn’t even been conceived five weeks ago — but that would mean nothing if people hadn’t enjoyed it. Fortunately, they did enjoy it; not only that, but they were moved by it, and continued discussing it after the screening was over.  It seems we managed to create a movie that has a life outside of our own hopes and expectations for it.  And that, more than anything, is something to be proud of.

Fauvell sneaks off with four red cups.

My heartfelt thanks to all those who attended the screenings — and especially those who attended both! And if you missed the film this time around, don’t fret; a DVD edition is in the works as we speak. We’re also planning to submit the movie to a heap of film festivals — so with any luck, it’ll be coming soon to a festival near you!  And if you know of a venue in your area that might be interested in hosting a screening, please let us know.

-KB

Best of all: I finally am witness to our film, along with 50 some other NY’er’s friends, families, peers, random’s. The movie looks great and sounds great and I am so proud of everyone, it was so great seeing us all back together again and it is truly sad not having three members of our team there tonight, however you were there in photographs and definitely there in the heart of this film.

For me watching the film brought back memories of making it and for the first 20 minutes it was hard to disconnect from that. Seeing shots and remembering that I shot that, or lit that, or silk’d that, seeing my actual fingerprint on the scene (not on the lens tho) and being proud of all our work from the DVGenius, to Mike’s opening shot of him in the car, to Redfield’s excellently complimentary score, Chad’s guitar pieces, Sumi’s location management, James uber natural acting , and Gabi’s location finds everyone did an amazing job. I want to list out what everyone did and I could but they all know they did amazing, amazing, work with resources and time, and did it with no, to little sleep and it makes me proud to be a part of that team. There is no I in team but it does have the letters for meat, whatever that means.

The biggest moment for me was a small one, where Brigitte and Mike enter the car (woody) and it took less then 10 seconds on screen with a line of dialog between them and my thoughts quickly jumped to the technical aspect of getting two people to enter a car and talk to each other and how seamless it looks but what happens off screen is: lighting, sound positioning, ND filters on the car windows, silk, focus, setting up the composition, costume, makeup, continuity, etc, etc and  this is just for a quick in between scene that runs all of 1/4 of a page, at this moment; I was just sitting there dumbfounded at how we actually were able to accomplish all this in 4 weeks. In actuality it is no small feat and maybe even a miracle that we came out of this with all our limbs in tact. Following this out of body experience I jumped back into the story to enjoy it, and I did, more then I ever anticipated when I set out on this trip July 31st. I really think we made something beautiful, and when we will be tweaking some aspects of the film “fine-tuning” and this film will be great.

I think as a crew and cast there will be so many small moments that we can watch and just be amazed at, I think we all may laugh at a certain line that the public might never see, but overall the room was quite receptive to our film, they laughed and cried with us, and at the end of the day we told them a story, and that is the miracle. The miracle of telling someone a story, to be honest enough to let them laugh and cry, that is why I do this, to impact someone and hopefully they will remember a moment in this story and let it make an impact on their life outside of the Attic Studios.

I enjoyed the Q & A, people asked great questions, we thanked Matt Young for syncing all the sound with out you we would have been making a 5 week feature.

To all who attended thank you.

To all who will attend Sat Night, thank you too

xoxo

Clint

Eat, Sleep, Make a Movie.

PS I uploaded a video to the You Tube of mambo # 5 post screening celebrations so enjoy!

The Screening was a Success

I’m in that netherworld, where I’ve returned but I’m not really here or there. I’m in that space between awake and asleep, the place where I will always love you.

So before I’ve forgotten everything completely, a few images for the road.

Will, Matt: Our abused PAs from L.A.

The Final Countdown

DylanVG

Shine

The line at Brewvies

Rain

Windmills

JESUS CHRIST!

Fauvell at his soberest

Luggage & Brigitte - but which is which???

How to recieve a free thorough pat down at the airport!

Riding off into the sunset...

Thanks for the adventure, team. I sure hope I remember some of this.

Love always,

-ML

Champions

Then Keith left and Lee took a nap in my bed. But James and I woke him up for an important conference call. Here’s that.

Screening tomorrow at 8PM!

-ML

Hell

The latest coordinates, courtesy the darling, unique, irreplaceable LEE GILLENTINE.

620PM CST: We’re stopped at a lovely rest stop with wireless somewhere in Iowa past Des Moines. Keith needs to download the audio to watch a rough cut of Crazy Lake. He’s so needy. I’ll be making a pit stop in Olympia, WA soon

820PM CST: It’s twilight in Illinois. We’re 114 miles east of Chicago.

1020PM CST: Just gassed up outside Chicago. 814 miles to go!

1AM: EST: We’ve passed mile marker 126 on I-80 in Indiana. Keith is driving, and I’m going to get some sleep.

DRIVE SAVE YOU TWO. VERY SAFE INDEED. I’LL BE WAITING FOR YOU BOTH.

-MICHAEL JAMES LAVOIE