The Cannes Film Festival Video

I finally had the chance to go over all the little snippets of video footage that Lela and I grabbed at the Cannes Film Festival with our GoPros and iPhones.  Here's a short video of our amazing time at the festival (including our celebrity red carpet walk.)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nSllW851SMY&feature=youtu.be

Going to the Cannes Film Festival!

I'm going to the Cannes Film Festival where "Joint Effort" is screening!

I am beyond excited!  The short film I directed, "Joint Effort" won the top prize in the National Film Competition and in addition to a cash prize will now be playing at the Cannes Film Festival in May!  And I'm going!!!  Every sentence ends with an exclamation point because that's how excited I am!

Our film isn't in competition, we are on the business side of things.  This is the perfect opportunity to try to secure some foreign distribution for our feature film and get some finishing funds.  In addition to winning best film, Gorilla with a Mustache Films also took home: 

Best Writing
Best Comedy Film
Best Actor David Ostergaard
3rd place audience choice award 

We will be wheeling and dealing and living it up on the French Riviera.  I'll take lots of pictures so stay tuned for more.

My Short Film is an International Winner!

I just made a short film "Joint Effort" that was picked as one of the top 15 in an international competition! They are doing online voting for an audience award and you can help by liking the video on YouTube: http://youtu.be/xs7UzQCwCa0 (just hit the thumbs up button) and Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/81675843 (there is a heart in the top right inside the video window.) You have to be logged in to like it.  If we get the most likes, we could win $1000!  It's a pretty funny movie too.  We had a great cast and crew made of entirely volunteers and the whole movie was made in one weekend.  Enjoy the show!

(there is a thumbs up button at the top right corner of the movie here, but you have to be logged in for it to count, you can log in to gmail, google, or youtube to like it in this player.)

P.S. - the film would probably get a PG rating.  There are lots of drugs in it... 2.2 pounds to be exact.

Nosferatooth

Here's my latest short film, "Nosferatooth, " the horror/comedy about a vampire with a tooth ache. WARNING: there's lots of cussing and some blood, but overall, it's pretty funny. Enjoy!

Delivering our 48 Hour Film

This film we have to make for the 48 hour film project needs to be done in one weekend.  Exactly one weekend.  If you are even one minute past the deadline time, you're disqualified.  I was editing and not paying close enough attention to the time. Wanting to do as much fixing as possible, I waited too long to start my export. As I stood watching the progress bar, I knew it was too late. I immediately broke the bad news to the team. Explaining that yes, it would be finished before the cutoff time, but there wasn't enough time to physically drive the file to the drop off location; someone piped in with, "What about Keresey's Ducati?" This was what happened next, recorded by our sound guy Scott Duncan on his iphone:

And yes, she did make it in time :)

The 48 Hour Film Project 2013

I just had the most fun weekend ever!  It was the annual 48 Hour Film Project here in Asheville, were you have to write, shoot, edit and finish a short film in one weekend! They give out a prop, a character and a line of dialog that must be included in the movie and each team picks a genre out of a hat.  We picked horror film, but ended up making a comedy horror called "Nosferatooth" about a vampire with a toothache.  We had an amazing cast and crew and ended up with a really great movie.  If you're in the Asheville area, you should come to the screenings at Asheville Pizza and Brewing off Merrimon Tues at 10pm, Wed at 7pm or Thurs at 10pm. 

If you want to see more photos and behind the scenes stuff go to the Gorilla's Facebook page:www.facebook.com/GorillaWithaMustache

Here's a little sneak peek at the movie:

Principle Photography Wrapped on New Feature Film

Jaime Byrd, Katie Damien, Coco Adams (DP, Director and AD) photo by: Lexi Rufty

I've just wrapped principle photography for my upcoming comedy feature Angel Demon, Stab Stab Stab (working title, it was Touched by Angels.)  The shoot was grueling and glorious.  We did 17 days, with only one day off, working 12 to 14 hours each day.  The movie looks better than I could have hoped for thanks to our amazing cast and crew.  We had great actors all around, crew members that really stepped up and did much more than was asked of them.  I'm really excited about where this movie will go.

We'll be doing a completion fund raising campaign soon, so stay tuned.  This photo is all I have to share at the moment and I have no idea what I'm directing people to do, I obviously had plenty of coffee that morning.

Katie

New Web Series for Comedy Feature Film

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/233019965/touched-by-angels-feature-film/posts

I'm working on a new web series called "The Adventures of K.T. and Mezudio."  It's a comedy.  We started doing the series as a way to promote the feature film I'll be directing in June.  Right now the only place you can watch these is on kickstarter at the link above.

The series stars Matt Shepard (pictured to the left) and David Dietrich (below.)  Matt plays the demon K.T. who is forced to work with Mezudio an angel who is trying to teach the demon his angelic ways.  The webisodes are only a couple of minutes each and there will be 5 episodes.  In the meantime check out the introduction here: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/233019965/touched-by-angels-feature-film/posts/204379

And keep up with the feature film as we release more webisodes and work to raising funds to make out movie in June.

My documentary "My Toxic Backyard" is still in it's slow post production phase.  My editor is back from Ecuador and we're meeting next month to work out how we will transfer footage and share editing time lines over different systems.  I have a great music supervisor Michael Greer O'Shea music producer at Solotechne Records.  I have also been working with Bryan Matthew Warren on computer animation and graphics.  Things are moving along for the project.

In bigger news the CTS site was just accepted onto the National Priority List!  This is huge!  This means the site is a big priority for the EPA.  This is what's supposed to get the site cleaned.  I say "supposed to" because I've been hearing from residents that they will not be getting hooked up to city water like they need.  I imagine this will be a long process and the battling with no doubt continue.  I do feel like this is a step in the right direction and I'll be following the developments and let you know what happens.

Katie

I'm Making a Movie!

I'm making a Comedy Feature Film!

The documentary is still in the works. I'm still editing and there will be just a little more shooting to be done with that. For the past 2 years I've also been developing a comedy feature length movie with a local production company (Gorilla With a Mustache Films) and we're about to start our fund raising so we can shoot this summer.

On Wednesday, March 28th we'll be launching our kickstarter campaign. A lot of you have already given to my documentary and I expect the rest of the group will be doing most of the fund raising. What I'm hoping to get from my friends is $1. Seriously, just $1 on Wednesday will help boost our interest level on the kickstarter site and hopefully get us listed prominently.
I'll be sending a link to the campaign on Wednesday. If you want a copy of the movie or want to give more, that's awesome. Just know that giving $1 right in the beginning will really help our visibility. Thanks everyone!

Katie