Anyone else tired of the level of discourse that passes for film and theatre criticism? I am impressed with anyone who has the balls to put themselves out there as a performer, writer, filmmaker or any other kind of artist. When interviewed in Heckler, George Lucas talks about wanting to be around the doers who create things, not the destroyers. I couldn’t agree more.

Heckler is a thoughtful, insightful look at heckling in all its forms, from the drunken assholes who disrupt live performances to the self-anointed film experts who savage performers personally rather than offering any helpful or constructive criticism. Director Mike Addis and Jamie Kennedy created this documentary about heckling but it is about much more than that. The lack of civility and empathy that is rampant in our culture has been magnified a thousand times over by the anonymity and lack of filtering that the internet allows. Jamie Kennedy does what many would like to do – talk face-to-face with some of the critics, most of whom don’t have the courage to stand behind the vile things they wrote. “I wasn’t talking about you personally.”  Really? Kennedy’s restraint in dealing with a couple of these guys is admirable.

An affirming and engrossing documentary, Heckler has great interviews with other doers and some unnerving footage of heckling incidents. Nice work Mike and Jamie!

I was disappointed that Greenspoke wasn’t selected for the 2009 Seattle International Film Festival shorts program. Produced in Seattle with a strong local cast and crew, it’s tough to get rejected by the home town.

Going into this project I knew I had several issues to overcome:

1. Greenspoke is long for a short – 27 minutes. This makes it difficult to fit into a festival program and will probably limit our distribution options. It also means that in accepting my film a festival potentially could be rejecting several shorter films that might round out the program better.
2. Greenspoke is a genre piece. The sci-fi nature of the content is a plus in sci-fi  festivals but may actually work against it in more general interest or drama-focused events. SIFF did have a couple of sci-fi selected so I don’t think that is an issue here.
3. Greenspoke, strong as our cast is, has no name talent attached. While we were one degree of separation away from Sandra Oh, one degree can make all the difference.

Feeling a little bitter about it all, I checked out the list of accepted SIFF shorts and found that most of the shorts that were accepted, are, uh, short. All but a handful are under 20 minutes. Unfortunately rejected films don’t usually get a reason for the rejection from festivals. That’s something that would be nice to have – just the scores from the judges and knowing how far it got can be helpful in tweaking and tuning or planning the next project.

We did get accepted to the 2009 International Film Festival Ireland. This was a pleasant surprise because they responded within a couple of weeks even though their notify date is a couple of months out. The festival happens in September in Galway, where the lovely and talented two julias alum  Órla Mc Govern and her pal Miss Nelly reside. We also got a worldwide distribution offer before Greenspoke has even shown anywhere.

So is it pointless rationalization to try and figure out why a festival programmer rejected your work? Probably, but it does make me feel better in a self-flaggelating sort of way. Especially when another programmer thinks you’re the bee’s pajamas.

Good news – Greenspoke is an official selection of the International Film Festival Ireland (IFFI). The fest runs from Sept 8-12 2009 in beautiful Galway, Ireland.

What’s next? Check out our new nonprofit film studio, Smiling Z Studios.

I was thinking about how what I do producing and directing low budget films like Greenspoke is similar to a nonprofit live theatre group like Washington Ensemble Theatre. We raise the money we need (or in my case pay for it myself), hire the cast and crew and create a show. Then we try to get it out to the public, either by ticket sales in the case of live theatre or by festival submissions and distribution for films. The main difference is I have a finished product that can be seen again and again. And the live theatre teams rarely have much cash to pay anyone. I started to see many parallels and ways for us to work together to support eachother’s efforts. Many of the actors and crew I hired were struggling to make ends meet and grateful for even the small amount I was able to pay them. The loss of my day job last year and my subsequent difficulty finding other employment led me to think about alternative means of funding my filmmaking passion. These thoughts all ran through my mind as the idea to create the nonprofit Smiling Z Studios was formed. Don’t know if this is an original idea but it’s a new way of thinking for me.

Here’s the official pitch:

Smiling Z Studios feeds the artists while feeding the art. Local actors and crew often are called upon to work for nothing to help struggling filmmakers. While this may get a film made, it creates an environment where creative work is not valued and compensated. We like to think of what we are doing as fair trade film. Here’s how we are different:
1. With few exceptions, everyone who works on our productions gets paid.
2. We raise enough money to run professional productions even when working with a limited crew.
3. We use talent from many of the local live theatre groups and schedule in such a way as to maximize their availability for other work.
4. We schedule our crew during slow times to ensure we don’t conflict with higher paying commercial and industrial gigs. This has the added bonus of making equipment rentals more affordable.

Smiling Z Studios is a non-profit corporation that evolved out of Tom McIntire’s for-profit concern, Smiling Zombie Productions. We decided to become a non-profit film studio because our focus is on the work and the artists. While many of our colleagues leave the Northwest to pursue their film careers in Los Angeles, we believe we have the talent and the skill base here to do extraordinary work that helps everyone involved in the productions. Quality work that will be recognized with festival screenings and distribution, and ultimately help fund future productions.

Your support now will help us build a stronger, more sustainable filmmaking community here in the Pacific Northwest. To kickoff the 2009-2010 schedule, Smiling Z will produce Tom’s award-winning dramatic feature script, The Smiling Zombie. Successful musical theatre performer Jack Alcott’s career is cut short by multiple sclerosis. With the support of his HIV+ partner, he attempts a comeback of sorts with a featured extra role in a no-budget zombie film. A bittersweet human portrait inspired by actual events, The Smiling Zombie examines the performer forced to turn his attention inward and confront his own mortality.

Official pitch ends here.

So what do you think? Check us out at http://smilingz.org – if you want to help out through donations, helping with fundraising or working on our projects, let me know. We’re going to do some fundraising that puts the fun back in fundraising. Stay tuned.