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Thursday, July 23, 2009 - 8:00 AM - Tampa Indie Film Log for Filmmaker C. A. Passinault
Underground Film Festivals, HHPS, Domains, and Updates
Well, I have more to say. I've been working on the Tampa Bay Film Online Film Festival and talking to people about what is on my mind. I have a few subjects to address.
Underground Film Festivals
While my official Tampa film
festival properties (the ones marketed to the public) are in the works
and will begin to 
debut
in just over a year (late 2010 for those who are keeping track), 2009
may see the birth of an entirely new genre of Tampa film festivals. Well,
scratch "may". The new film festival genre starts this fall,
and, to my knowledge, underground film festivals have never been done
in Tampa Bay.
In protest of the decline of cooler, smaller, one-day, one-venue Tampa film festivals, I'm going to begin hosting, and having, a series of tiny underground film festivals. These will be invitation only, with friends and entertainment industry professionals in attendance. I will have my model and actor friends attend, too, who are the very people who Tampa indie filmmakers need to do films. Perhaps their input of the reviews of the films of Tampa filmmakers will serve to inspire change; after all, it's hard to get an actor to be in your film when they don't agree with, or like, what you are doing.
I talked to Nolan Canova a few days ago, and I think that he thought that I was joking when I said that, if Danford didn't have a Halloween Horror Picture Show this year, that I would pack some models into my car, go to the beach, and have our own Halloween Horror Picture Show watching indie horror films on a portable DVD player in the car, covering the "film festival" like a regular one. Well, I was not kidding. Consider this a protest, and a rebellion, over what is going on with Tampa film festivals. I will have a series of underground Tampa film festivals, and many people will not be invited. We will watch films, review films, and publish features covering our underground film festivals on Tampa Bay Film, counting the coverage as official film festival coverage. The smaller underground film festivals will be legitimate Tampa film festivals, obtaining equal coverage with the mainstream film festivals.
Since the organizers of The Tampa Film Review publicly gave up the rights to the name, one of those ongoing underground film festival series will be called "Tampa Bay Film Review". It won't be "The Tampa Film Review", but will simply be "Tampa Bay Film Review". Please keep in mind that I do not intend to piggyback off the brand of others, and that these Tampa Bay Film Review underground film festivals will not be open to the public. They will be private film festivals. They will be more fun than The Tampa Bay Film Review ever was, too, despite an "audience" of guests that will probably never exceed twenty people (the attendees will be friends, too, or, at the very least, sincere with each other and professional; there will be none of the shady politics and the backstabbing which plagued the TFR). Each Tampa Bay Film Review underground film festival event will be more like a movie night with a group of friends, and everyone in attendance will review and rate the indie films that we watch (which will justify calling these movie nights Tampa Bay Film Review). For the general public, our Tampa Bay Film Review will be an ongoing series of stories and coverage of indie film parties held in secret locations; they will be unable to attend, and won't know when the next one will happen, or where it will be. So, is anyone out there outraged over the use of the name? Don't be. If you are, get over it. The Tampa indie film scene needs this, and it needs it badly. This is for the good of the Tampa indie film scene (and don't forget, regarding The Tampa Film Review, which has been discontinued and abandoned, I am working on two reviews about it. The first will be the unauthorized review of The Tampa Film Review 2009- the one film festival event that they had. The second will be an overall review for the entire five year run of The Tampa Film Review 2004-2009. Both are due on Tampa Bay Film in 2009!).
As a matter of protest, if Danford does not have Halloween Horror Picture Show 2009, I will take some models to the beach, watch horror films in my car like an old fashioned drive-in theater, and cover it as Halloween Horror Picture Show 2009. My Sony FX820 portable DVD player will do the job just fine (although we may need an extension cord, food, and access to restrooms if we watch several films- Hmmmmm........ Maybe just an extension cord- or maybe I can run my car with the AC and use some gas. As far as food and restrooms, we can watch a film, go to some random location, and then come back to watch some more. We could make a night of our adventure). Also,my car is just as nice as the AMC theaters are, with comfortable seats and a perfect interior- minus the sticky floors. Another option, if I want to make the underground film festival larger than four people and make it more like a horror film party, is have it at a friends house with food and a home theater system. I kind of like the "models in the car" idea, though, because it is cooler (A film festival in a car!), and is more effective as a protest. I also have many, many models (and actors) who are more than happy to do this with me. We'll see.
Oh, and I may even include a surprise guest in the car with us! Their identity is a secret (and it will probably remain so afterwards), and they are as far from a model as you can get. They are also perfect for the overall theme, and my car can fit an extra person, if it has to, although the models may not care for them!
Hmmmm..... What I won't care for is eating, or drinking, anything in my car. I don't even allow myself to eat, or drink, in my car, so that's the latest issue that I can see with having a film festival in a car (although I let Kasey eat and drink in my car a few years ago when we were doing a shoot- only to immediately clean and detail my car after I returned home).
If we have the Halloween Horror Film Festival 2009 underground film festival in a car, there will be more, but the sequels would not be called Halloween Horror Picture Show (to tell you the_truth, I'm not really that fond of that name- it's too much like Rocky Horror Picture Show, which itself has a lame title). This one would only be called Halloween Horror Picture Show 2009 as a protest against Danford abandoning a film festival series with so much promise. How many truly "independent" indie film festival are abandoned before they truly reach their full potential? We have too many film festivals with potential, which are given up on or absorbed by larger film festivals- larger film festivals which do not really support the Tampa indie film scene, despite what they claim. This is going to change.
Rebellion and protesting! Underground film festivals! I love it! People, change will not come unless we start doing something about it. Has the Tampa indie film scene really made any progress in the past five years? Did the people who were organizing film festivals and promoting the Tampa indie film scene succeed? Think about it. The Tampa Film Review as one of many examples, went on for five years. In that time, it did not improve itself or fix any of the mistakes that were pointed out, and really did not accomplish much of anything, in my humble, but educated, opinion. In my opinion, Paul Guzzo and his brother Pete failed with The Tampa Film Review. They never really accomplished a thing, other than having a captive audience every month that they could monitor.
Alas, there will be many, many more underground film festivals. There will be underground Tampa film festival series, and stand alone events. Combined with my publicly marketed, mainstream Tampa film festival properties, as well as my extremely successful and popular online film festival property, I'll have the lead in Tampa film festivals. No one will have as many film festivals, or achieve as much with film festivals, as my people and I will. Our goal is to promote the Tampa indie film scene and to improve it. Remember that.
It looks like I am committed to investing a great deal of time, effort, and resource into the film festival business. I am a professional event planner with a proven track record and a passion for indie film. It's time for me to take charge and do what needs to be done.
Underground film festivals may be useful in promoting and generating buzz for larger film festivals, too.
The Halloween Horror Picture Show - Reborn?
Rick Danford can still save the 2009 Halloween Horror Picture Show. He needs to scale it back to the size and scope of his awesome Ladies Of The Night film festival to do it, however. It would be really cool, and really successful, if he did so. Of course, he'd have no chance at this point in the calendar if he tried to have it at the scope of his latest HHPS film festivals (2006-2008). Oh, and Rick, please, no more Black Devil Doll film festivals where my reporters view samples of the film online and don't feel comfortable covering it. Also, promote it better and keep it at a sane hour.
If Danford abandons HHPS, as stated above, we'll have our own, private HHPS this year, in protest. Next year, it won't matter if The Halloween Horror Picture Show happens or not. Next year, I am planning to debut a large Tampa film festival which serve the market previously targeted by the Halloween Horror Picture Show (and I will not roll it out the same time as Spooky Empire / Screamfest has its event - debuting a new film festival property against a much larger event which caters to the same audience is not smart, and I couldn't even get away with trying to pull that off).
Giving Things A Chance
I'm really going to work at having an open mind about things, and give them a chance. Most people are aware that I am not fond of the Gasparilla International Film Festival, and the politics of that film festival; my perceptions of their intentions raise a lot of questions. That, too, is only one of my Tampa indie film peeves. This said, I am going to keep an open mind and give things like Gasparilla a chance. I'm hoping that I'm wrong about them. I'll see firsthand, too, because starting next year, Tampa Bay Film will be covering, and reviewing, all of the Tampa film festivals.
Which brings us to the 48 Hour Film Project. Despite generating many indie films (some which aren't bad), some of which have been on my online film festival, I've never been fond of the 48 Hour Film Project. I have always believed that if you create a film, you do it right. You take your time and create a polished product. 48 hours simply is not a lot of time to produce a film, and most of those films which are done through that contest aren't worth watching. This said, I will try to keep an open mind about it. A few hours ago, Ann got on my case because I did not go to Channelside to see the 48 Hour Film Project viewing. The films were shot last weekend, and the viewing was last night. I would have gone, but the_truth was that I didn't know about it. I spent yesterday morning running from one bank to another, depositing client checks for shoots that I've booked. I didn't get to bed until 11AM, and woke up around 6PM, around the time that the viewing began at Channelside. Had I known about it, I could have woken up earlier and attended, but the event slipped through the cracks. What's that I've been saying about promotion?
At any rate, I intend to give things a chance, and to not cast judgment upon them until I have explored all the facts and evidence.
Domain Name Insanity
We all know about my massive portfolio of domain names. I am planning on buying another ten this year, which will raise my count to around 60 or so. 10 of those will be Tampa indie film-related.
I make plenty of money, even in this economy, so cost isn't an issue right now, although I am renewing domain names on a monthly basis now, and the constant renewals have become a substantial bill. Financially, it could become a problem if I owned over 100 domain names, not to mention logistically. It's simply too much time and work to keep up with that many web sites. Fortunately, a good number of those domain names are for web sites which do not require lots of updates, or are marketing domain names which lead into others.
Although I will continue to invest in domain names and put them to work, I will be doing so less frequently. I am thinking about simplifying matters and merging related projects under single domain names whenever I can. I have thousands of intellectual properties, and this will further increase as time goes on. My investments into domain names are beginning to feel the strain, and there is no possible way that I could .com every property that I own. There comes a time when you have diminishing returns on an investment, and I am beginning to see that now with domain names. It's no longer cost-effective to continue buying up tons of domain names. Besides, I already have alternate plans which are now working for me.
Let's see... 10 domain names slated which are Tampa film-relevant; I now have 5, and 5 more need to be obtained. I may reduced that to 2 more- make that 3, and cut out 2, reducing the number from 10 to 8. Those other 2 domain name slots can then be used for other projects. Then again, the savings isn't that much. I still haven't decided what I'm going to do, but I will be curbing my domain name purchases from now on. Besides, because I am a writer, I'm really good with coming up with effective marketing and operating domain names which haven't been taken. I'm really good with this Internet and webmaster stuff.
Updates (Both made, and coming)
I've updated the Tampa Bay Film Online Film Festival with a few films, and have added some from the archives (see the Online Film Festival Blog for specifics). Right now, I'm busy finishing legal service contracts and doing shoots. Late next month, expect large updates and site code refreshes for many of my sites. I really have to do a lot of updates and add a lot of new films to the online film festival, because I don't want to write a review for it at the end of the year along the lines of "Same old, same old. It's great, but nothing else has changed". Indeed, it's been a slow year for updates, but that will change soon. Oh, and the online film festival is the subject for yet another underground film festival. I'm going to get some friends together from the entertainment industry, hook up a laptop to a home theater system, and make a review of an indie film viewing party of the online film festival. Don't you just love it when ideas merge and take on a life of their own?
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