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Thursday, March 12, 2009 - 7:30 PM - Tampa Indie Film Log for Filmmaker C. A. Passinault
Take On Tampa Film Festivals
Well, this is something that
I have wanted to write about for a while. What’s my take on Tampa
film festivals? Well, I’ll give it, although this Tampa Film Blog
post will primarily address my Tampa film festivals.
The Tampa Film Showcase monthly film festival and professional networking
event series (wow, what a mouthful) is still a work in progress. I’m
sure that there will be some out there whining that it is taking too long
and that it will never happen, but I really don’t care what they
think. This will be worth the wait. The Tampa Film Showcase will be everything
that The Tampa Film Review was supposed to be, and more, but without making
people sit through awful indie films and the shady politics. It will also
be a fantastic, and effective, professional networking event, and will
deliver on its promise without the bait and switch of selling Tampa film
workshops. When people experience the Tampa Film Showcase, they will all
wonder why they tolerated The Tampa Film Review as long as they did, and
they will see The Tampa Film Review for the failure that it was.
So, why isn’t the Tampa Film Showcase up and running yet? There
are two main reasons. First, I have a specific business plan for this
Tampa film festival series. Sure, doing it once a year wouldn’t
be that big of a deal. It could be done now. It’s just that, once
it debuts, it has to run consistently every month, and that’s another
undertaking entirely. I will say that I have to respect the organizers
of The Tampa Film Review for keeping their event running almost every
month for all of those years, despite the flaws. It was hard work and
dedication, there is no doubt about that. It’s just that it was
not enough, and, in my humble opinion, did not advance the cause of Tampa
indie film like it was supposed to.
Capping off that first reason, the current economic environment is not
conducive to my specific business plan for the Tampa Film Showcase. That,
however, can be adjusted, and it isn’t the main reason why this
Tampa film festival has not launched.
The second reason, and the main one behind the hold on all three of my
planned Tampa film festival properties, is that I need films of my own
to show. With my current focus on sales and marketing for my service companies,
I wouldn’t have the time right now to make a film even if I did
have all the gear that I needed. Time is more of an issue right now, however,
because the gear which I need to make films is very affordable, and I
have figured out a way to make great, and even groundbreaking, indie films
inexpensively. When I start making indie films, there will be a lot of
films coming out of the pipeline, and my overall indie film production
output will be many times that of most Tampa filmmakers. Within a few
years, I will have a portfolio of interesting indie films larger than
most Tampa filmmakers currently have. Some of those films will gain national
attention, and positive press for the Tampa film scene, and a few of those
films will be, dare I say it, revolutionary. I will be doing great films
unlike any that the world has seen before, and intend to infuse the innovation
and the quality into the Tampa indie film scene which has been needed
for years.
I’ll have to be honest. I am well aware of every Tampa film production
which has been done so far, and most are, what can I say, boring. Nothing
has been done in Tampa film which has not been done anywhere else, and
a lot of the Tampa film productions have not been done very well, at that.
The current Tampa film scene, simply put, is uninspiring.
This will soon change, and it won’t entirely be due to me. There
are some talented Tampa filmmakers if you know where to look, but I will
qualify who they are (and who, in my opinion, is on their way out) in
my next blog post.
I know, I know. There are some out there who will state that there is
an unwritten rule that you don’t use your own film festival to promote
your own films. I disagree. I do believe that it is inappropriate to promote
your films over the other films at your film festival or to be involved
in the judging of your own film if it is in a film festival competition
(this would be a conflict of interest), but it is perfectly fine to use
your film festival to show your own films. It takes an educated mind to
tell the difference, and those who blanket it with a general statement
without qualifying the specifics behind that statement show, in my opinion,
their ignorance (Paul).
I design my film festivals to promote my own films. I intend to use my
film festivals to promote my own films. Nothing shows confidence like
using your own film festival to handle the promotion of your own films,
and this alone shows how serious I am about creating effective, professional
film festivals. If it’s good enough for my high standards, everyone
involved will benefit.
This said, the Tampa Film Showcase monthly film festival and professional
networking event series is officially on hold for now, with a debut date
TBA. I really couldn’t say when it will debut, but I could give
an educated guess and say that it could debut as early as 2011. Trust
me, it will be worth the wait.
For now, we do have the very successful Tampa Bay Film Online Film Festival,
which is currently king of the Tampa film festivals, and has higher “attendance”
and a much greater exposure for promoting Tampa indie film than all of
the Tampa film festivals combined. I’d like to see the Gasparilla
“international” film festival show a fraction of the numbers
that I’m seeing for my Tampa Bay Film Online Film Festival (and
don’t even spit up your milk and sputter about networking opportunities
at Gasparilla, especially with those so-called celebrities. We all know
that those celebrities don’t give a shit about Tampa indie film
or the Tampa filmmakers in the Tampa indie film scene. Please.... Someone
prove me wrong here. Can you prove me wrong? Additionally, has anyone
in the Tampa indie film scene really benefitted from the Gasparilla film
festival? Showing films doesn’t count..... any film deals? More
on my opinions about the Gasparilla International Film Festival in a few
moments....).
The Tampa Bay Film Online Film Festival continues to dominate, and it’s
about to get even better. I took a break for a few months because I had
other things to work on, but there are plans for the online film festival
for this spring which will add a lot to it. Updates should resume in a
few weeks, and I may end up spending time re-adding films to the online
film festival from the archives. Lonelygirl, anyone?
Besides, I have big plans for the upcoming 2009 review of the Tampa Bay
Film Online Film Festival. We’re going to have a viewing party with
models, actors, and filmmakers sometime this fall, a sort of private invite-only
film festival with the online film festival. The film festival has to
be built up for that.
Alrighty... There was another film festival that I had planned for the
fall, but there is one reason that I chose to delay it for at least a
year. I don’t have any films to show right now! That, and it is
supposed to be a marketing lead-in for the debut of the Tampa Film Showcase
(Tampa filmmakers, I understand if many of you don’t comprehend
“marketing lead-in”, as most of you have demonstrated that
you’re hardly business-savvy. You’re excused.). Well, maybe
fall 2010 will work.
Alright, on to other Tampa film festivals.
We have the smaller Tampa film festivals, the ones which are held for
only one day, and those are the ones that I am most excited about. I plan
on covering those, as they are fun. The larger, multi-day, multi-venue
Tampa film festivals, well, not so much.
Ah, the Gasparilla International Film Festival. They re-branded this year,
adding international to the mix. Alrighty. I’m still not impressed
with this steaming cesspool of pretentiousness. I must admit that I really
don’t understand the appeal of these excessive and overblown film
festivals (then again, I’m not a fan of stuck-up events such as
the academy awards, either). In my opinion, it seems that the Gasparilla
International Film Festival aspires to be the next Sarasota Film Festival.
The Tampa film commission appears to be intertwined with Gasparilla, too,
which smells of politics. Hey, Hollywood, the Tampa Bay area is great
as a location for making motion pictures! Let’s make lots of money
and inconvenience the locals. Oh, Tampa filmmakers, we humor- um, we mean
“support” you, too. You should help us make this film festival
great (and then we’ll kick you to the curb when you help us succeed
in attracting your competition, Hollywood productions, to Tampa. No good
deed goes unpunished.)
Do they support Tampa indie film? That’s B.S. Oh, and don’t
pay any mind to Paul Guzzo’s flip-flopping hype, either. When the
Gasparilla Film Festival started, I questioned Paul Guzzo about his blind
and ignorant support of a film festival which, in my opinion, did not
have the best interests of Tampa filmmakers in mind. In my opinion, his
blind support made him a sell-out, and an ignorant idiot. Well, Paul Guzzo
avoided answering my questions and tried to hit back below the belt by
trying to assassinate my character, and helping to spread slanderous rumors
about me. How professional- when they don't want to answer legitimate
questions and cannot win debates, they try to win that way. Anyway, the
attempt to undermine my credibility failed, and demonstrated to everyone
the real Paul and his small group of friends. When many of my points were
proven to be correct in due-time, Paul Guzzo mysteriously stopped pushing
Gasparilla. Then, just as strangely, this year, he flip-flops again and
starts to publicly kiss their ass. Do we really need more sell-out Tampa
filmmakers, or should we support the ones who stick to their guns and
are smart enough to call them as they really are? One reason that politics
suck is because they make people fake and untrustworthy.
Oh, and another thing about the Gasparilla International Film Festival.
The branding is lame. Why piggyback on the Gasparilla name? Can’t
your forge your own identity instead of taking shortcuts? As a professional
in the entertainment industry, I am so disgusted by some of the shady
things that I see going on that I even quit going to the original Gasparilla
event (although, despite the name branding, I was a judge for the Miss
Gasparilla pageant a few weeks ago, which was fun- I suppose that there
are exceptions to the rule. Also, it’s not a contradiction - it’s
complexity. Only those who cannot comprehend the difference scream foul).
My largest issue with the Gasparilla International Film Festival would
have to be their relationship with the Tampa film commission (did you
know that the former Tampa film commissioner, who helped start Gasparilla,
is now on their staff?) and because some idiotic Tampa filmmakers are
tricked into pushing it down everyone’s throat.
I didn’t go to the Gasparilla Film Festival. I didn’t want
to. I didn’t see the point. A lot of others didn’t, either.
There you have it. It’s too bad, too, because there were two screenings
that I wanted to go to and didn’t, because they were a part of the
Gasparilla International Film Festival, and my schedule did not permit
it (although GASP looked cool, and it probably was because it was an Andy
Lalino event. I respect Andy a lot, and he is one of the ones who has
earned my respect).
In my opinion, the Sunscreen film festival is the real deal, and a much
better film festival. They have always been cool with me, and I’ve
heard great things from qualified people about the film festival. Although,
to be honest, I have no plans to go this year because of scheduling conflicts.
I’m sure that it will be good. Sunscreen is the film festival to
beat with the larger film festivals.
You know what? Why am I the only one telling it how it is? Come on, Tampa
filmmakers, grow some guts. Voice your opinions! Afraid that the others
will blackball you? Who cares! They can try to blackball me all that they
want. What are they going to do? Sooner or later, most of my opinions
will be proven right, and if I'm wrong I'll be professional enough to
admit it, and move on. I know that I am not the only one with these opinions.
Cowards.
Well, I have to go now. I really need to watch the rest of Transporter
3. Hopefully, it will be at least be to the standard of the other two.
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