Tuesday, February 2, 2010
Take Back the Morning
Tuesday, January 26, 2010
Double with the Bases Loaded
Embrace the Reset
It’s a new year and the weight of hope and expectation is up to it’s usual Gleason-esque proportions. The soul is fIt’s a new year and the weight of hope and expectation is up to it’s usual Gleason-esque proportions. The soul is fattened on the frustrations of yesteryear and the need for timely change. New year, new decade, new hope, new me.
When I decided to write Mamma, it was mostly because of the fact that I was seeing exhaustion and convenience stabbing tradition in the neck before my eyes. One of the primary examples of this was the Italian American cultural pearl, the Feast of Seven Fishes being pawned off by my own family for a tray of cold cuts or worse yet, take out from an Italian Restaurant. I made a promise to myself that I would not only comment on it in my wok, but do my best to stop these heinous acts of cultural bastardization. I would fight this war with an army or I would go it alone. Either way, action needed to be taken.
2009 comes on, I find my voice and I finish my film With Anchovies...Without Mamma. This was never a film that I felt had a message that was accessible to everyone. It’s message is buried beneath beats of the dark and the absurd. I do believe though that the message is woven tightly within the fiber of the story. If the viewer is open and willing, it certainly is there for them. So in essence, I accomplished a modicum of what I set out to accomplish. I stated my case, and I felt very good about it. Empowered even. So what was left for me to do in 09? Finish the year off with an ambitious Feast of the Seven Fishes dinner to wash away the sins of the cold cuts, and the take out. I decided I was going to put together a table of food that would embody all the gluttony of Satyricon minus the young boys and togas. I did this, and I did it tenfold. I stood over a stove, watching through the window in my kitchen as friends fed on shrimp, bowls of mussels, calamari, salted cod and whatever else was slung out there. They smiled, they laughed and they were part of a tradition that brought my family so many memorable holidays. I felt like a chubby happy old Italian lady whose only true pleasure was to watch people enjoy food. It was amazing. Then like all things, the night came to an end. Unfortunately for me, the end came down harder than expected. Shortly after the last guest had left, I was ridden with chills and a lurking fever that was crawling through my system with bad intentions and a refusal to go easy on me. I never get sick, so I have to feel like this virus was a little like the guy that gets fired from his corporate job and comes back with a AK47 and shoots up the office. I was laid out. Christmas was cruel. I ended up spending Christmas Day in the hospital asking “Why? Why can’t this just happen any other time.” Fa la la la la la la la LA.
I felt robbed of my holiday, and worse yet, I felt like God was trying to knock me down a peg and tell me “It is never as good as you think it is, pal. I am going to be on you till your days end.” After I recovered from my 105 fever and violent stomach pains, I realized that I was starting to feel better than ever. The cynicism was finally beginning to dissolve. What I was getting wasn’t kicked in the head, what I was getting was a much needed reset. Better yet, I was getting that reset just in time for the new year. As many changes that were born in 09, I have to feel like they were just a prologue to many, bigger changes to come. Changes that I am fully in charge of. I told myself to embrace the reset and move forward. Finish the trailer for the film, devise new plans to promote the project, and stick to a schedule to finish the script that you have been dragging your heels on for the past three months.
I may have a bad taste in my mouth, but I can’t judge 09 on one bad virus, and one tough week. After all, I made a movie and some mean Christmas calamari. Life is pretty good, but in 2010 life for Mamma is going to be better. attened on the frustrations of yesteryear and the need for timely change. New year, new decade, new hope, new me.
When I decided to write Mamma, it was mostly because of the fact that I was seeing exhaustion and convenience stabbing tradition in the neck before my eyes. One of the primary examples of this was the Italian American cultural pearl, the Feast of Seven Fishes being pawned off by my own family for a tray of cold cuts or worse yet, take out from an Italian Restaurant. I made a promise to myself that I would not only comment on it in my wok, but do my best to stop these heinous acts of cultural bastardization. I would fight this war with an army or I would go it alone. Either way, action needed to be taken. 2009 comes on, I find my voice and I finish my film With Anchovies...Without Mamma. This was never a film that I felt had a message that was accessible to everyone. It’s message is buried beneath beats of the dark and the absurd. I do believe though that the message is woven tightly within the fiber of the story. If the viewer is open and willing, it certainly is there for them. So in essence, I accomplished a modicum of what I set out to accomplish. I stated my case, and I felt very good about it. Empowered even. So what was left for me to do in 09? Finish the year off with an ambitious Feast of the Seven Fishes dinner to wash away the sins of the cold cuts, and the take out. I decided I was going to put together a table of food that would embody all the gluttony of Satyricon minus the young boys and togas. I did this, and I did it tenfold. I stood over a stove, watching through the window in my kitchen as friends fed on shrimp, bowls of mussels, calamari, salted cod and whatever else was slung out there. They smiled, they laughed and they were part of a tradition that brought my family so many memorable holidays. I felt like a chubby happy old Italian lady whose only true pleasure was to watch people enjoy food. It was amazing. Then like all things, the night came to an end. Unfortunately for me, the end came down harder than expected. Shortly after the last guest had left, I was ridden with chills and a lurking fever that was crawling through my system with bad intentions and a refusal to go easy on me. I never get sick, so I have to feel like this virus was a little like the guy that gets fired from his corporate job and comes back with a AK47 and shoots up the office. I was laid out. Christmas was cruel. I ended up spending Christmas Day in the hospital asking “Why? Why can’t this just happen any other time.” Fa la la la la la la la LA.
I felt robbed of my holiday, and worse yet, I felt like God was trying to knock me down a peg and tell me “It is never as good as you think it is, pal. I am going to be on you till your days end.” After I recovered from my 105 fever and violent stomach pains, I realized that I was starting to feel better than ever. The cynicism was finally beginning to dissolve. What I was getting wasn’t kicked in the head, what I was getting was a much needed reset. Better yet, I was getting that reset just in time for the new year. As many changes that were born in 09, I have to feel like they were just a prologue to many, bigger changes to come. Changes that I am fully in charge of. I told myself to embrace the reset and move forward. Finish the trailer for the film, devise new plans to promote the project, and stick to a schedule to finish the script that you have been dragging your heels on for the past three months.
I may have a bad taste in my mouth, but I can’t judge 09 on one bad virus, and one tough week. After all, I made a movie and some mean Christmas calamari. Life is pretty good, but in 2010 life for Mamma is going to be better.
Sunday, December 13, 2009
Lost Things and the "Go To Guy"
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Beauty and the Bitch
I guess there is no point in creating a blog like this if you aren’t going to report the good and the bad. This entire filmmaking process is one of extreme emotions. You struggle to get the ideas out, and that struggle hurts. You finally get those ideas out, and that flow of thought is satisfying. You no longer doubt yourself. You could be, you should be, YOU ARE A FILMMAKER. The project takes shape on page and you work as hard as you can to see it through to screen. Schedules weigh you down, finances, scenes you thought made sense don’t make sense anymore. Then it happens. Suddenly it seems to start breathing, taking on a life of it’s own. The project is up on it’s own two legs and not only is it walking, but it is strutting like disco’s back.
You have a finished product, and you screen that product for an audience. People respond. They tell you their feelings, and those feelings match up with your reasons for making the picture in the first place. The timing is spot on. Your vision has gone from one small idea to one very big screen and life could not be better...... Then it’s festival time.
You come to the realization that you truly don’t have a name to push to these selection boards. Not one to be recognized and certainly not one to be sold to their ticket buying public. There is always that hope against hope. Good filmmaking shall overcome. Then you step back, take a look at your local multiplex, or the thousands of one star Netflix pariahs that you come across daily while building your que, and you know that is just not the case. Not the case at all.
I received rejection letters this week from Sundance and Slamdance. Neither was unexpected but neither failed to disappoint either. As I mentioned, there is always that hope against hope. You talk to yourself over and over from submission to notification and you whisper to yourself a bunch of soothing maybes and possiblys, but you know what happens in the end. If you’ve got no press, you get no selection. Seems to be that simple. You can spend a great deal of energy blaming festivals for their politics but in the end you have to take a long look at your film, and yourself. First off, “Does the film fit into the festival?”, and secondly if it does, “What do I do to push it in?”
So here it is: I am taking full responsibility for my rejections from these festivals. I rushed these submissions out without having any sort of gameplan. I am not saying that if I had a plan I would have gotten accepted to two of the most prestigious festivals in the states, but I would have given myself a better chance for sure. It all comes down to promotion that should have been done, that wasn’t even considered at the time. I think I was too busy patting myself on the back for successful screenings and one audience award. I should have had a press kit for Mamma tattooed on my back when I finished the film but instead, I had no press kit at all when I sent out those submissions. When you make a film there is no time to slow down. There is the need to be a oneman studio and to be honest, my marketing department was not only closed but was never open in the first place.
So that’s off my chest and quite a relief. Take it from me, it is easier to blame yourself for your films shortcomings than some invisible festival heads or theories that exist about an industry that no one can quite figure out.
Listen to Mamma!
I had a vision for this film, which was greater than the short film that exists now. The story was much broader before I felt the need to pare it down. I knew that to shoot the original script it would call for more money than I was equipped with. In the end, I felt that the best way to approach this journey was with one first small step. I structured a project that I felt retained the soul of the original film, but also helped me develop a vision that was tangible before trying to inspire the confidence of external investors. With the original vision in my back pocket for a future feature length picture, I went into production.
The process was cathartic in a sense, helping me deal with loss within my own life, as well as the loss that existed within the lives of my characters. These factors made everything surreal and hyper-real at the same time. Whatever the case was, I was making this film one way or another. There was no chance to turn my back on it now.
Mamma’s roots stretched for miles in various directions. From a need to speak up about a culture that I felt was fading, to the loss of some people very dear to me, there was no shortage of material to draw from. As I worked in various pizzerias to earn money for school, it all became clear to me. Martin Scorcese’s “Mean Streets” were ridden with mafia while mine came covered in Mozzarella. This was my story to tell.