PRAXIS poster ideas

for the past couple of days, i've been developing different ideas for the movie poster. i'd like to think that i have a pretty good working knowledge of both photoshop and illustrator, so being able to come up with new ideas to promote the film is both challenging and incredibly stimulating to the creative side of me. one of my good friends commented that the current movie poster makes the film look more like an action movie versus an art-film. so, i'm developing different ideas for something that may be more in tune with the kind of movie that PRAXIS is. i've come up with about three different ones, and i'd like to come up with at least one more. the plan is to show different people, particularly those who know nothing about the movie, and to get their opinions on whether they would be interested in seeing the film, solely based on the movie poster. it's basically market research, and trying to appeal to the art-house crowd. another friend of mine who works for a design firm is also going to help me out with this project. tho, he said to me that it would be incredibly hard to represent the film in a single image, since the film is so visual and complex. i don't think that the poster has to be the single representation of PRAXIS, but mainly one that would peak enough interest into coming to see the film. so for now, i'm enjoying the process.

i'm also working on two different scripts at the same time. i know that this is kind of odd, the whole multi-tasking and all. but fortunately, both scripts are ideas that i've been working on for quite some time, and they're both completely different from each other, in style and genre and the lot. i noticed that there is a Film Independent Screenwriting deadline in April, so i plan on using this deadline as motivation to get at least one of the scripts done. i don't know what my chances are, but at least it'll help me focus on getting at least one script done by then. tho, it's funny how my mind bounces back and forth between both of the scripts - one of the scripts has more of a developed plot structure and conventional storytelling, while the other still needs more research on the storyline and plot. for that one, i've started doing a little bit of research, and a good friend of mine gave me some really good books that he recommend me read. so, i do like the way that new ideas are developing. but at the same time, it does bounce back and forth. but i think that this process is working well for now - when i get bored or frustrated with one, i can bounce to the other, and comeback to the other one when i get a new idea. so, at least i'm not completely burning out on the single script. for now, at least...

so, as usual, lots of things to work on, and the film is doing really well with Cinequest. let's hope that the film screens at many more places this year.

PRAXIS @ CineQuest Film Festival

2008 has finally arrived, and there's a flurry of new and exciting activity happening with film. PRAXIS has been selected as part of the CineQuest Film Festival, and for a short time the complete film is available for screening on-line in a special competition called CineQuest Vuze Audience Favorites. From now until February 14th, people can view the film and vote online for which films they think should screen at the festival. Either way, it's a great way for people to watch the film, and for us to get some much needed feedback on what audiences might get from watching the film.

Along with being a part of Cinequest, we've completely re-vamped the damagedfilms.com website, and the praxis website. both sites now include a number of streaming media files which include trailers, making of videos, and also complete films and videos of previous work. The cool thing is that now people can view UNFORTUNATE MAN, the short film that was a major influence in the style and content of PRAXIS. we also have complete music videos for The Out_Circuit and Kerosene 454, along with some other new and cool promos and video segments and general non-sense. we've also revamped the PRAXIS myspace page to reflect the new sites and sounds.

We're also in the process of developing new advertising and marketing for PRAXIS, and we may even have an on-line poll to see what movie poster people would like best for the film.

We're also excited that there's a pretty good chance that PRAXIS will screen in the spring, so we're planning to make it a really cool and fun event.

So, tons of things going on. in the meantime, PLEASE vote for PRAXIS at CineQuest:
http://www.vuze.com/details/NTH5KL6XHWFFXTP4XKCRQWUO65ACR36W.html

And check out the new sites and sounds:
www.damagedfilms.com
http://praxis.damagedfilms.com
www.myspace.com/praxis2007

cheers! and stay tuned for more exciting developments!

-a

Sundance and Slamdance

Subject: 2008 SUNDANCE FILM FESTIVAL NOTIFICATION
From:"programming@sundance.org ..(External Utility Mailbox..)"
Date: Thu, 29 Nov 2007 11:07:08 -0700

RE: Film ID#2675 - Praxis

Dear Alex,

On behalf of our programming staff, I would like to thank you for submitting your film to the 2008 Sundance Film Festival. Unfortunately, we are not able to include it in our program this year. We received nearly one thousand more submissions this year (over 8,500 in total) than we did for the 2007 Festival, so many tough decisions had to be made in order to narrow the field down to under 200 films. Please rest assured that your work was carefully considered by our programming team, and the decision was incredibly difficult to say the least.

My sincere hope is that this decision does not discourage you in any way. I would like to wish you the best of luck with your film, and we look forward to having the opportunity to view your work in the future.

Sincerely,

Geoffrey Gilmore

Director, Sundance Film Festival

Subject: SLAMDANCE 2008 NARRATIVE FEATURE SUBMISSION From: Sarah Diamond Date: Tue, 04 Dec 2007 12:09:16 -0800 To: Sarah Diamond

Dear Filmmaker,
We am so sorry to tell you we were unable to include your feature into the 2008 Slamdance program. Thank you so much for submitting. Slamdance is limited by space constraints in Park City to program 15 narrative features, though the quality of submissions would allow us to program many more than that.

Please keep in mind that Slamdance is just one festival out of hundreds of others. Our film program is based on the subjective decisions of our programming committees. Please don’t take this rejection as any indication of the quality of your film, or its potential for a successful, well-regarded future.

We wish the best for you and your film.

Warm regards,
Slamdance Programming Department

a new day

hard to believe that it's december already. the year seemed to fly by, but in reality, there have been lots of really great things that have happened this year. but the cold air is coming really soon, and it's a great time to stay in, and work.

i've been watching a lot of an show called BROTHERHOOD, that's on showtime, and i guess they're hoping for it to replace the sopranos. anyhoo, if you haven't seen the show, i highly recommend it, particularly because the acting is incredible. ethan embry and jason issacs are both amazing to watch, and i think the thing about the show that i find appealing is that the story is told heavily on what's implied, on the visuals, the subtle and umcofortable feeling that develops when you don't know what people are really up to. there isn't a ton of background music to influence how you should feel about a scene, and you end up feeling pretty edgy about what's going to happen next. i love this kind of visual storytelling, and i definitely find it inspiring in the kind of filmmaking that i'm into. anyhoo, if you haven't seen the show, it's definitely worth checking out, and a definite must see for any aspiring actor.

on the film distribution end of things - i picked up a book called the insider's guide to independent film distribution by stacey parks, and so far it's right on target. the film industry is completely different than what it was even only a few years ago. when i first started writing PRAXIS, it was still difficult to make an indie feature, but in the time that it's taken to produce the film, the film distribution market has been flooded by miniDV features that it's incredibly difficult to get your work even shown. it helps to have something screen at a festival, but at the same time, if you think of the number of every film screened at every festival every year, even a distributor has a hard time figuring out what's worth investing in. it's not the distributor's fault - if you just think about it on your own terms, if a filmmaker came up to you and asked you to give up your own money to invest in distributing a film, what would it take? for me, it would be the least amount of risk and a higher chance at return and even a profit.

even though this is all the business side of things, it's the area that i need to do more research on, particularly on promoting PRAXIS. none of this has anything to do with art. it's all business. what it is that it's a new day, and it's important to remain patient and realistic. and also to develop a plan A, plan B, and plan C. in the meantime, i'm also working on some new scripts too, which gives me a good respite.

i think it's important to remember why you chose to make films, and to stick to it.

bela tarr and the AFM

so, it's been a few days from the trip out to l.a., and i've needed almost every bit of free time to recover from the trip. i'm not very good with jet-lag, and i've had a really tough time figuring out what time it is, pretty much as soon as i stepped on the plane. when people ask me how was it, i pretty much respond with, "it was a rough trip." being in santa monica was cool, and there were parts of the trip that were really cool. but the market itself was rough, and not a really fun experience. but i learned a hell of a whole lot from the trip, and it was good for me to get out there and really experience what it's like. and i'm happy to share my experiences and thoughts about the market to anyone out there who's curious about what it's like.

(i wrote the following few paragraphs while waiting at the gate at LAX for my flight back home):

the past few days of attending the American Film Market could be literally summed up in one word: insane. it's hard to describe the how crazy the market has been for the past few days. but because the market is what it is, i wasn't able to vlog about it, which i initially thought i would have the time to do. the sheer number of filmmakers and screenwriters and distributors and buyers and sales agents, it's hard to believe that they all can be at the same place at the same time making million dollar deals to the latest teen slasher flick. but as with any convention type atmosphere, it's difficult to get your worked noticed.

i was able to meet quite a number of people of various levels of experience and professions and the lot. lots of business cards exchanged, and i was fortunate enough to meet with several potential distributors. it's hard to say if anything will result from these meetings - even though i think i make pretty good movies, my pitch isn't always on target. but i'm learning, and that's important.

there seems to be this general conservative attitude to all studios and distributors. the bottom line is that they're in the business of making money. the film itself is not important - the box office is. this attitude has a serious negative backlash to any filmmaker struggling to get their work seen, and i'd like to say that the general feeling i got from most of the people i met at the market was that of a very cynical attitude toward the industry and hollywood. i was able to find commraderie with other east coast filmmakers, either those based in new york or the like. the east coast/west coast attitude was clear to me, and in a way, it helped me re-enforce what type of film PRAXIS is, and what it represents.

PRAXIS is not a specific genre piece. when i describe the work to some as arthouse/experimental, i generally got a blank look on people's faces. but as soon as i mention kurosawa, kubrick, and david lynch, it all of a sudden makes sense. while when i described the project to anyone from the east coast, they totally get it. tho, i did meet a few 'old school' hollywood film people, ones who've been in the town for more than thirty years, making movies back in the early sixties and seventies. they were very cool to talk to, and they were surprised that i should mention names like kubrick and kurosawa. one told me that he was pitching an idea to a distributor, and mentioned 'the french connection', and the distributor had no idea what he was talking about. sad as it is, this is what the industry is, and what it has become.

in a lot of ways, it's a little early for me to attend the market with PRAXIS - the film was only completed this past june, and still needs a good two years of playing at the festivals. after that, then it would a good time to come to the market. but there's also a possibility that one of the distributors that i met with might really get into it, and it can all go from there. ya never know...




on a lighter note, i recently had a friend tell me his thoughts about PRAXIS. i sent him a screener a while back, and he finally let me know what he thought of the film. even though he didn't get it, he compared it to the work of hungarian filmmaker bela tarr. i was thrilled at the comparison. quite honestly, if i could achieve even one tiny bit of the same filmmaking ideals and experimentation that bela tarr has done, i would be incredibly happy.

between bela tarr and the AFM, me and paul have decided to shift the whole marketing and focus of PRAXIS to more european markets and festivals that cater to more experimental/arthouse films. i think reaching out to more of a european audiences versus an american audience may help PRAXIS do better, and really get to people. someone at the market told me that teen slasher flicks and/or huge action or horror gore flicks don't really do well in europe. rather, the artsy dramatic intellectual films do really well. PRAXIS definitely challenges the intellect. so, let's see if this new direction will work.

if anything, the American Film Market experience has totally re-enforced the whole reason of why i make films, and to stick to that mentality. i've always been very punk-rock about this, and maybe that's the approach that the marketing for PRAXIS needs to go. the work needs to get seen by any means necessary. it may not be for everyone, and that's okay. but if and audience can get into it, it can be a totally amazing experience.

so, i'm glad to be home, and i'm glad to be back on the east coast. and, as always, it's back to work...

A new approach

this past week, there were two very different events that had a profound influence on my general outlook, and a new way of approaching PRAXIS and the American Film Market. on saturday, i got a chance to go see a screening and performance of Bob Mould and his film Circle of Friends at the Lincoln Theatre as part of the Reel Affirmations Film Festival. initially, i was very indecisive about going, since it was a relatively odd time slot, saturday around 11:30. anyhoo, the crowd was very small and intimate, but it made the film and performance all the more enjoyable. after the screening, i got a chance to formally meet bob, and he was very kind and he signed a copy of the dvd for me. needless to say, i found the music and performance absolutely incredible - there was so much heart and straight up raw emotion in the music. there was no posing, or bullshit. bob was up there pouring out his heart, and it was incredible to share this event, and feel such a connection. it was beautiful. because bob used to be in the bands husker du and sugar, his music has always been rooted in the punk rock ethos. it reminded me where PRAXIS came about, and really how i should look at the film and the AFM. PRAXIS is an incredible film, and i shouldn't be pandering to the potential distributors at the AFM, it's the other way around. anyone who doesn't take notice of PRAXIS is losing out. it's their loss.

the other event was that i got a chance to watch NO RESTRAINT, a documentary about Matthew Barney. up until this point, i had never got a chance to see an on-camera interview with Matthew, i had only read interviews in magazines, seen some of his work, and read reviews in newspapers and such. in any case, this documentary was about his process of making his new film/performance/exhibit with bjork on a whaling ship in japan. this was incredibly beautiful, and so visually compelling...it's hard to describe in words. but i think that the coolest thing about this documentary was that Matthew seemed like a genuinely nice guy, very personable, very passionate and focused about his art, but also no pretention or ego there. he just makes things, and has been fortunate that other people have supported him throught out his career. but i think the main thing that i got from the doc was that matthew's work has always been about disconnecting the analytical mind to reach a higher state of experience. basically, it means that people should approach his work with an open mind, and not one that is purely there to make specific sense or reasons for what things represent. instead, let the work speak for itself, and let the experience take you to places that you couldn't attain without letting go of the analytical mind. i totally feel that PRAXIS is like this in it's experimental narrative - let go of the analyical mind, the need to make specific sense of it all, and let the visual experience take you to higher states of experiences.

Both bob mould and matthew barney have reminded me what PRAXIS is really all about.

thank you bob for reminding me about the punk rock ethos and that PRAXIS is all heart.

thank you matthew for reminding me that film is art, not science.

Realistic

for the past few weeks, i've been preparing a ton of stuff to get ready for the American Film Market, which is a couple of weeks away. i'm excited about the trip, and have done a lot of research into a lot of the companies that are attending this year, trying to target the ones i think would be interested in a film like PRAXIS. but i'm also trying to be realistic about it. there are literally hundreds of companies and projects, and scripts, and vendors, etc. that are attending - how can you make your project stand out?

i'm definitely trying to be realistic about the market - it's not the end all be all. what it is is a strarting point, a chance to network with potential companies, meet other filmmakers, exchange war stories, etc. the companies are there to not only there to evaluate yourself as a filmmaker with a single projects, but also as a filmmaker with future projects and as someone they can work with. at the same time, you also have to get a feel for the companies and reps as to whether they are someone you can work with, or whether they're some sort of scam. basically, you have to be a total professional, and everything you do, including any after parties and such, is a reflection of you, and your potential as an overall creative filmmaker.

i've definitely posted a ton of questions on different filmmaker message boards to get a feel for what the market is like for other people - generally, the response is a little mixed. they mainly warn against potential scam artists, and companies that deal with way too many projects that they essentially put your project on a shelf. whatever the case may be, you definitely have to be incredibly alert a focused on everyone you talk to, and go with your instincts as to whether they're legit.

again, i'm still being very realistic with the market - i hope to meet potential distributors, but if not, it's not the end all be all.

on a lighter note, i've been attending a lot of the local film festivals and other local filmmaker functions to get a better feel of what a lot of the local organizations may have to offer. so far, it looks really cool, and because they are local, they are more willing to promote something if it was made in their region. it's also easier to get screenings and you have a higher chance of getting featured in a newspaper or magazine. i've just started with a lot of the local festivals, but hopefully they'll find a place for PRAXIS somewhere...

whatever the case may be, it is important to be both realistic, and positive and ethusiastic about the film - PRAXIS is a visually compelling work. knowing that this is it's strengths, and using that as leverage to set the film apart from other indie films that are out there.