I'm Finally Making My Own Movie - "PAPER PLATES"

[PoopaPapaPalps]

You still made a freaking movie! For all of my criticisms of modern films, you actually went out there and DID it! Poured your heart into creating a story. You've got guts, man I applaud you for it!

Echoing Psab keel , it's still an amazing accomplishment! More than most will ever do. I apologize I wasn't able to go. I was working that day but I was hoping to at least go and meet you in person.

Any more festivals coming up?

I really appreciate both of your support. This thing has been trouble from inception to now. I'd be lying if I said I wasn't worried if I had just majorly messed up my life by doing this.

At the moment, no. It's a tough game out there for independent features to get into festivals. Shorts have a far easier time when it comes to selection. Although, I have 94 more festivals to wait on getting rejection letters from for the remainder of this year, and into early next year. I can only hope.

 

[Psab keel]

Well, we're rooting for you!!!

 

[joberg]

Sorry you had to go through that ordeal...but one negative experience doesn't make a negative life! The "festival experience" has opened your eyes to what it's all about (you've hit the nail on the head with your various descriptions of characters and behaviors).
Only your real friends will have the guts to tell you the truth about your movie...not strangers that you'll, hopefully, never see again. That's the worst experience any movie director has to go through; reminds me of the numerous festivals we had attended in Europe when my father, and his team, were presenting their latest short. It's the same species; spewing empty non-committal niceties to a T.

It's true that, to make a movie, any movie, the way you did feels like giving birth; to say that it's visceral and personal is an understatement!
To find like-minded people who will back you up a 100% during that process is rare: "Hey guys, how are you feeling about giving me 10 hours of your time this week-end so we can shoot my film?" Not a lot of these people are around nowadays...and when you find them, please, keep them close: they're precious

This is a teaching moment and you're stronger and wiser for it. Now you know that part of the game and your "Baptême du Feu" was hard, but necessary. On to another script/project and armed with extra knowledge about the process.

Cannot wait for another one of your short

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

If anyone on the boards is in Des Moines, IA, my movie will be playing at Interrobang Film Festival at the downtown library screening room on June 28th at 11am. There's a time allotted to me afterwards for a talk-back session, so anyone want to be bummed/entertained by the awful production stories of this movie, come on by!

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

One of my lead supporting actors, a big-hearted and highly regarded individual around my neck of the woods, has passed suddenly ereyester. He kept the theater and performing arts scene alive and vibrant here for more than a decade when, by any measure, such a thing couldn't survive here.

I'm trying to organize a free showing of our movie, one of his last and most proud projects he was involved with, for his friends and family at our new local boutique cinema as a tribute to the man. If anyone can, please pitch in to the gofundme I've set up. Anything would really mean a lot to me.

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

Update: I'm cutting my festival run short and writing it off as a loss; they suck! I'm hoping now to book screenings at smaller theaters to show the movie.

My first stop is locally (3 hr drive) in Des Moines, again, at the Fleur Cinema and Cafe. On March 21st, "PAPER PLATES" will have its first public screening! For anyone here in the area, please come out and see it. I'd love to meet anyone from here and talk shop with. Any money earned will go towards booking the next engagement.

Speaking of, March 20th and 28th, at the Guild Cinema in Albuquerque, NM will show screenings of "PAPER PLATES!" I currently have a scheduling conflict that keeps me from attending that one in person (I hope that changes), but I hope anyone in the New Mexico area will come out for it!

Should I not be able to book any more theaters, I'm hoping to release PAPER PLATES on VOD for anyone interested in buying or renting it to watch at home. I'm currently uploading to one place at the moment, but hopefully, can get it on some streaming platforms in future. More word on that to come, shortly.

 

[Halliwax]

Wish I lived closer

 

[PropReplicator2]

Wish I lived closer

Me too. I would go watch this in a heartbeat. If it gets released digitally or on DVD, I will happily purchase it. The trailer looks good!

 

[animator]

I wish I still lived in Des Moines! Good luck with the screenings

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

If I can book more screenings across America, or if anyone might know of a local, independently owned theater near them that might book the movie, please let me know. I want as many people to see it in the best way possible: on the silver screen!

 

[JediMichael]

If I can book more screenings across America, or if anyone might know of a local, independently owned theater near them that might book the movie, please let me know. I want as many people to see it in the best way possible: on the silver screen!

While I don't live in Florida anymore, the one theater that friends and I used to go to that always showed cool and rare, artsy type films, was the Enzian theater in Orlando.
Being in Orlando, which has Universal, Disney, and just a big film presence in itself, might be a good to try and get it played there, and could always expand from there.
Heres the contact page, if you are interested.

Contact - Enzian Theater

enzian.org

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

Thanks, JediMichael ! I reached out in a large email blast yesterday to a number of other places. Hope to hear from them, and they bring good news!

 

[JediMichael]

Thanks, JediMichael ! I reached out in a large email blast yesterday to a number of other places. Hope to hear from them, and they bring good news!

Cool. Hope it all works out, and maybe can eventually come to the Boise, Idaho area.

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

If there's an indie theater there that plays indie movies, I'll reach out!

 

[JediMichael]

If there's an indie theater there that plays indie movies, I'll reach out!

Did a google search, and what do you know....this one like 20 mins from me, right in downtown Boise, and in an area I know, just have never seen this. Called, The Flicks.
Heres their contact info.

Contact Us

www.theflicksboise.com

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

Did a google search, and what do you know....this one like 20 mins from me, right in downtown Boise, and in an area I know, just have never seen this. Called, The Flicks.
Heres their contact info.

Contact Us

www.theflicksboise.com

Contacted them and their response was exactly this:

Thank you for your email. We play films that have a distributor.

We do occasionally play very independent films if the filmmaker is local and has a local following. I’m sorry, but your film does not fit into either of those categories. You might enter it into some film festival, where it could get noticed by a distributor.

To which I replied, "If only it were that easy."

 

[JediMichael]

Contacted them and their response was exactly this:



To which I replied, "If only it were that easy."

Well, hoping that something big can still happen.
I had that hope to get into the film business years ago....and around 2009, almost happend...but one guy messed it all up.
Its a long and weird story, some of which I still don't know what fully happend, only can guess what I think all happened.
Since then, I've just had to focus on working whatever job I could, doing any side stuff, which has increasingly become more difficult.
I really don't know how to sell myself.
Would be nice to work on some film project again, but as you know, they don't really pay unless it makes it big.
So hopefully you can get tbis seen somewhere in that right place and right time, to continue forward with more.
And then maybe in more theaters.
I guess I should see if there are any other smaller theaters in this whole area.

 

[PoopaPapaPalps]

It's an even worse situation now with all the corporations trying to squeeze as much out of streaming as possible.

I had a potential lead in getting a distributor for this a month ago, but decided against it, as it was just another mediator snatching up all these little movies like mine for cheap and just selling them for pennies-on-the-dollar in bulk to just be dumped on random streaming platforms. They (the mediators) take their cut once after everyone else gets their cut from your work and you, the film-maker, graciously get 80% of what's left. 80% of ostensibly nothing is still nothing. I didn't want them misrepresenting my movie (had to make it "clickbait" as much as possible and arbitrarily cut 4 seconds out for timing), and the option for theatrical screenings was the DCP in a "miscellaneous" folder sold along with the rest of your media package to overseas markets was unacceptable to me.

I seriously just want to circumvent the current standard model and just get this to the people in the best way possible. It's just seemingly impossible if you don't have resources, though.