Remember last year when THE HURT LOCKER won Best Picture and you felt all cool because you saw it in theaters before anyone else way back in July? Here’s your chance to feel that cool all over again.
2010 Sundance Grand Jury Prize winner WINTER’S BONE played a few weeks at the AMC at Quail Springs, but now gets the posh treatment of a weekend at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Click here for times and ticket info.
deadCENTER Film Festival is now accepting entries for the 2011 festival, which will be held June 8-12, 2011. Submitting your film or short screenplay is easy and free. Clicky on the link above to check out categories, deadlines, and entry rules.
Happy submitting! Read More »
deadCENTER Film kicked off our 2010 Fall Education program at Jenks High School. Under the leadership of film teacher Clifton Raphael, Jenks High School has become one of the preeminent programs in Oklahoma, creating the first and only entirely high-school-produced program to air on Oklahoma statewide TV: Behind the Lens with Oklahoma’s Future Filmmakers on OETA. Mr. Raphael started each class with a class critique of a short doc, followed by a presentation from the deadCENTER Film staff about the process of entering a film into festivals, how the film festival circuit works, the advantages to filmmakers of screening in the festival atmosphere and examples of great student films that have done well on the festival circuit. The session then focused on the education and feature film experience of Executive Director Lance McDaniel and COO Kim Haywood, providing an overview of the various Oklahoma collegiate programs and an outline of career paths within professional filmmaking. The classes ended with a look the film Rainbow Around the Sun, produced by Kim Haywood and co-directed by deadCENTER Film Program Director Kevin Ely. For info on how to get deadCENTER Film to present at your school, please email lance@deadcenterfilm.org.
Beginning this week, every Tuesday we’ll be pointing out a new film in theaters, on demand, or on DVD that we think you should know about. This week Program Director Kevin Ely looks at 2009 Best Documentary Award Winner OFFICIAL REJECTION. Got a pick of the week? Post your picks in the comments below.
In 2006, writer Paul Osborne and director Scott Smith brought their indie thriller TEN TILL NOON to deadCENTER, walked away with the Jury Prize for Documentary Feature, and hit the festival trail in search of fame and glory. In 2009, Paul and Scott returned to deadCENTER with a new film and a huge chip on their shoulder.
OFFICIAL REJECTION tells the sordid tale of Scott and Paul’s death march through the highs and lows of the independent film festival circuit, debunking the rags-to-riches myths perpetuated by festival behemoths like Sundance, and providing a firm-but-loving slap in the face to delusional filmmakers around the world. Did I mention that it’s hilarious?
Somehow director Osborne manages to create an unflinching, (semi) sober and jaded look at the politics of the festival process without losing the enthusiasm and love for movies that brought him there in the first place. Maybe it’s the genuine camaraderie between him and TTN director Scott Storm that comes through in every scene. Maybe it’s the good experiences they have along the way in places like Phoenix (and Oklahoma City, sadly relegated to the end credits). Maybe it’s the drinks. Whatever. Paul Osborne made a great doc that should be seen by indie-film lovers everywhere, and should be required viewing in every film program in the country.
Get OFFICIAL REJECTION on Netflix starting today, or purchase your own copy here.
Join the always amazing Fred Jones Museum of Art in Norman and deadCENTER Film Festival as we preview some of our best festival short films this Friday at Art a la CART. All films and art activities that evening are free. Say what?! Yep, it’s free. Stop by and say hello from 6-9pm.
Head over to the Fred Jones Museum of Art website for more info, http://www.ou.edu/fjjma/home.html.
And, as always, stay awesome.
Over at The Candler Blog, friend of the festival Jonathan Poritsky is lamenting the recent demise of Google Wave, which is something a lot of people have been doing. What he’s thinking about, though, is the impact on filmmakers – what does this mean for the future of filmmaker collaboration on the web? Why did no one use Google Wave to actually make a movie?
The whole article is worth your time, but the way he ends it is especially poignant:
“For now, creators will keep on creating. Like anything else, these are just tools. Google Wave was a bold move in the right direction towards central collaboration. There is no way to look at this as a failure for Google, or for any of us. The conversation has shifted. Now we need to take the momentum that Google Wave kicked off and the tools it will leave behind to keep the conversation up so that when the technology falls in line, we will be there to adopt filmmaking methodologies that move us forward.”
The future of filmmaking on the web is definitely an exciting one, and I hope Jonathan is correct in thinking we’re closer than anyone thinks to being able to create films solely online.
For now, though, hop over to his post and join the discussion.
Our good friend Dwight over at The Filmcake published a really interesting blog post we think deserves your attention. Having just finished his first short film, he has begun to reflect on the reviews he’s written from the perspective of a new filmmaker.
Along the way, he touches on several things many of us involved with independent film at any level struggle with – how important are access and funding? To what extent, if any, should those circumstances affect or make themselves known to the viewer? And finally, how should critics approach low or no-budget films?
Read the whole thing here. And when you’re done, we’d love to hear what you think about the subject in our comments section below.
I can’t help but feel all warm and fuzzy when I see a fellow Oklahomie filmmaker making it big. Seriously big. Like being on The Tonight Show BIG. This evening, I plan on taking off my Team Coco gloves (but just for tonight) and sitting down to watch Ben Steinbauer talk about his film, “Winnebago Man”, with the Winnebago Man himself, Jack Rebney.
And what’s über awesome about it all is that “Winnebago Man” was one the first films to go through deadCENTER’s Fiscal Sponsorship. I could tell you all about it, or you could just go to the Fiscal Sponsorship page and read until your heart is content. TEAM COCO! I’ll stop now.
We are pleased as punch to announce that the search for a new Executive Director has found success. Here’s the official word:
Oklahoma native Lance McDaniel chosen to lead state’s largest film festival.
deadCENTER Film Festival officials announced today the hiring of Lance McDaniel as Executive Director.
McDaniel replaces longtime director Cacky Poarch, who resigned earlier this year following the most successful festival to date. McDaniel’s background in marketing and international brand consultation, combined with his filmmaking and passion for education, make him the ideal person to take the helm at this time.
“Cacky Poarch, Melissa Scaramucci and Kim Haywood have transformed deadCenter into a nationally-renowned platform for independent film and an outstanding showcase for Oklahoma creativity,” said McDaniel. “We hope to build on their success by partnering with local universities and corporate sponsors to educate students all over Oklahoma about independent film, and to help groom the next generation of Oklahoma filmmakers.”
McDaniel received his Bachelors in Communication from Stanford University and his Masters of Liberal Arts in Film from Oklahoma City University “Lance brings a high level of experience to the table. He is a past award-winning filmmaker with deadCENTER, he’s volunteered for the last five years in literally every aspect of the event, and his passion for the art of filmmaking is unparalleled,” added board chairman Peter Dolese.
If you attended our excellent panels series this year at deadCENTER, you know something we talked about a lot is the effect the Internet has had on the entire filmmaking experience, not to mention the film viewing experience. During these discussions, one issue kept popping up: the lowering of barriers is great, but it also means there’s just a lot more competition.
One of the best examples of this is the huge number of film projects vying for funding on the Internet. On that front, Film Threat is trying to help by giving a few worthy projects a leg up. Every week, they will be featuring one noteworthy project posted on crowd-sourced funding sites like Kickstarter and IndieGoGo on their site. Which means more eyes on your fund-raising efforts. Which could mean more cash. From the posting:
“That’s right, every Monday, starting July 25, 2010, we’re going to feature one film or film-related project in progress that we feel is worth your and our time. From there, it’s up to our passionate, film-hungry and film-savvy readers to decide whether they want to take that extra step to help make these projects in progress a reality. It’s then up to you, the filmmaker, to live up to the faith we’re putting in you and your efforts by giving you such lofty praise as featuring you and your project as a top story on our site (seriously, you want this; studio films and indies alike routinely angle for space and feature stories on our site).”
For the full post and submission form, click through to the Film Threat post. And if you’re an Okie filmmaker who is going to submit, let us know in the comments, and we’ll keep an eye on Film Threat to see if you’ve been spotlighted.
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