press kits

having finished all the digital output of the film from the avid to the digibeta deck that i subrented last week, i've shifted my focus on putting together a decent press kit. everything worked quite well last week - and i didn't have any technical hang ups or probs, and i was able to make several copies of the movie on digibeta, and even dumped the trailer onto a couple of digibeta tapes as well. putting together the press kit is turning out to be a little more complicated than i expected, but so far, i think it's coming together really well. i'm taking my time and focusing on every aspect to make sure that everything that's going into it looks cool. my friend is helping me write a decent press release, which is essentially the most important part of the kit, but i'm also including publicity materials, stills, postcards, and i'm even putting a CD-R with production and publicity stills in both a 300dpi (print) and 72dpi (web) format, along with the trailer and a promo interview comp of everyone talking about the movie. the promo interview seems to be the most complicated so far, there's a ton of material to go through, and it's just a question of deciding what material to include to make it as short and concise as possible.

the screening is in june, which is coming up really soon. i've gotten a really good response on the people i've invited so far, and i think it'll be really great to see everyone again. though, there's still a lot of loose ends that me and paul have to work out so that the screening goes smoothly.

i was able to rent a DVD series off of netflix called A Decade Under The Influence, which was a documentary film series that aired on IFC. i haven't seen it in a long time, but i do remember enjoying the amount of content that was in it: pretty much every major director inside and outside of hollywood is covered, and there are a ton of interviews of famous directors talking about their influences, and who they learned from, and who they looked up to. it's pretty incredible. so far, i think the most important aspect that everyone goes through is that certain directors and filmmakers just went ahead and made the movies that they wanted to make, regardless of everything else - pure independence, and an amazing drive to challenge all the everyday norms of a typical hollywood movie. i started to remind myself that the point of being an independent filmmaker is that you can challenge an audience and express things that a typical hollywood movie can't do.

that's the point of being independent. but sometimes, you can get caught up in all the logistics that you can forget the true reasons of going out and making a movie.