The Lucky 7

Cucalorus Film Festival

18^th Annual from November 08, 2012 - November 11, 2012
Next Deadline: June 20, 2012

Fee: $25 (FREE for local filmmakers)

Reason for this festival: This is our regional film festival selection.  It is appropriate for our film because the festival is local and supports local filmmakers.  It is unique and accepts a wide variety of projects. And helloooo it’s Cucalorus.

Praxis Film Festival

Just held January 21, 2012

Next Deadline: TBA (Look into 2013 submission)

Fee: FREE

Reason for this festival: Praxis is our free film festival selection.  We are submitting to them not only because they are free but because they love UNCW students  and are also regional. We like them because they are really into supporting undergraduate film students with little resources.

NextFrame International Student Film & Video

Held July 1, 2012 – May 1, 2013 (Year-round traveling festival)

Next deadline: May 15, 2012

Fee: $20 with Withoutabox Account

Reason for this festival: Next Frame is a good choice because they aim to expose cutting-edge student work, and I mean come on, our doc is most definitely cutting-edge student work. They are also a touring festival, so there are opportunities to network with people all around the country. 

Athens International Film + Video Festival

39th Annual from April 13, 2012 –April 19, 2012

Held April 13, 2012 – April 19, 2012

Next deadline: TBA

Fee: $40

Reason for this festival: This festival is good for our film because they look for works that utilize nonfiction material to construct a story, an argument, and/or a statement about the real world.

RiverRun Film Festival

14th Annual from April 13, 2012- April 22, 2012

Next deadline: TBA

Fee: FREE for NC students

Reason for this festival: The RiverRun International Film Festival is a good festival choice for us because it is regional.  It also accepts documentary shorts and looks for films that offer an insight into the lives of people.  Looking at previous film submissions, they selected films with similar qualities to our story.

Ivy Film

11th Annual from April 9, 2012 – April 15, 2012

Next deadline: TBA

Fee: $20 for regular deadline with Withoutabox Account

Reason for this festival: They accept entries for undergraduate documentary productions both short and feature length.   They also offer multiple deadlines to submit your film in case you are running behind and cannot submit it by the regular deadline.

Angeles Student Film Festival

Held October 8, 2011

Next deadline: TBA

Fee: $35-$45

Reason for this festival: Angeles Student Film Festival is a good festival for us because they are looking for documentary entries that “explore, not exploit”.  Our film also contains themes similar to those that Angeles typically programs.

Festival Rollout Schedule

Festival Budget

a producer looks back...

Budget for Doc

245

kickstarter.com

Finalized Shooting and Equipment Schedule

Shooting Schedule:

February 10 – Noon; B-Roll of workers, new additions (bus and office), graveyard and sets

February 17 – Midmorning; B-Roll of bus/ new additions

February 24 – Midmorning; Junkyard tour, B-Roll

March 9-18 – Midmorning; Film inside of Dales house, Junkyard pick-ups, B-roll

April 13 – Late afternoon; second junkyard tour and "less touchy" interview, the "Friday evening gathering" or the Holden Beach men

April 14 – Midmorning; formal/ sit-down/ "sticky" interview

April 20 – Time TBA; Final shoot/make-up/catch-up shoot.

**Note: the exact meeting time will be discussed on a weekly basis, however, we have a general time of day that we will be heading there each visit.

Equipment :

February 10,  -  T2i (w Follow Focus), Tripod (with baseplate), H4N, XLR Cable, Boom mic, Shotgun mic, Wireless Lav, Headphones, Lens Cleaner and Tissues, Highhat

February 17- T2i (w Follow Focus), Tripod (with baseplate), H4N, XLR Cable, Boom mic, Shotgun mic, Wireless Lav, Headphones, Lens Cleaner and Tissues, Highhat

February 24 - T2i (w Follow Focus), Tripod (with baseplate), H4N, XLR Cable, Boom mic, Shotgun mic, Wireless Lav, Headphones, Lens Cleaner and Tissues, Highhat

March 9-18 - T2i (w Follow Focus), Tripod (with baseplate), H4N, XLR Cable, Boom mic, Shotgun mic, Wireless Lav, Headphones, Lens Cleaner and Tissues, Highhat, Arri Fresnel Light Kits 

April 13 - AF100 (w matte box-for interviews), T2i (w Follow Focus), Tripod (with baseplate), H4N, XLR Cable, Boom mic, Shotgun mic, Wireless Lav, Headphones, Lens Cleaner and Tissues, Highhat, Arri Fresnel Light Kits

April 14 - AF100 (w matte box-for interviews), T2i (w Follow Focus), Tripod (with baseplate), H4N, XLR Cable, Boom mic, Shotgun mic, Wireless Lav, Headphones, Lens Cleaner and Tissues, Highhat, Arri Fresnel Light Kits

April 20 - T2i (w Follow Focus), Tripod (with baseplate), H4N, XLR Cable, Boom mic, Shotgun mic, Wireless Lav, Headphones, Lens Cleaner and Tissues, Highhat, Arri Fresnel Light Kits (depending on if we need more interview footage/house pick-ups)

Devotional Cinema Response

By Maryosha

Nathaniel Dorsky’s Devotional Cinema  is a very interesting book! I really loved his description of his first experience of seeing a film and how he felt after the theater.  The soda stains and popcorn pieces on the deco pattern carpet that your eye graze over as you leave the theater because your head is so full of emotion and shock after seeing a film in a pitch black theater that you cannot even hold it up, much less look others in the eyes.  That sense of quiet followed by the parking lot conversation of “so what did you think of the film” and a world that seems completely different after sitting in a theater are all feelings that we have all experienced, however, I personally have become so accustomed to them that I do not think about them in the way that Dorsky so beautifully describes. 

Another thing that Dorsky mentions that really stuck with me was a very simple face of matter that I had never even had the slightest of though about before.  In the section titled Intermittence he states, “On close examination, even our vision appears to be intermittent, which explains why, in film, pans ofter feel artificial or forced. This stems from the fact that one never pans in real life. In truth, when we turn our heads we don’t actually see a graceful continuum but a series of tiny jump cuts, little stills joined, perhaps, by infinitesimal dissolves” (pg. 30).  When reading this, and thinking about my own documentary that I am currently in the production stage, it makes me reconsider some of my own decisions. I do, however, think one or two nice pans that reveals space in a graceful way that calls attention to the technique and art within a shot is perfectly acceptable.  But if the pan is just a graceful or smooth “look” to the right or left of a character within a narrative then it is completely unrealistic and takes viewers out of the story.

Dorsky then continues the Intermittence section with montages which I have always found to be a little cheesy because I personally associate them with Hollywood dramas that have a scene of ‘making oneself better’ or ‘striving to accomplish the dream’ etc. But Dorsky brings up a really great point that when we look back on our lives, our day, or even that last task that was accomplished we remember it in a montage format. Look at the cliché “life flashing before your eyes” right before you die or have a close encounter, your entire life “flashes” before your eyes like a montage in a movie.

Overall, Devotional Cinema is a beautifully written poetic journey through film.  Nathaniel Dorsky has wonderful ideas and opinions on how to get the most out of films, making and viewing them. He concludes the book with a fabulous sentence, “the more film expresses itself in a manner intrinsic to its own true nature, the more it can reveal for us.” So I take away the overall mentality of stressing the importance of capturing the true essence of the story and sculpting my light in time.