August is Festival Month

August is an exciting month for me because my work will be playing at two significant film festivals in just a few weeks. The first fest is Aeon 2008 in the UK, where my film Keys to Existence will be screening in an open field amidst a giant music festival. The second fest, Youngcuts in Montreal, is an international affair for filmmakers 25 and under.  My short film Give it Time is screening and is in the running for best short film. 

It's a great feeling to actually get some direct feedback (and positive feedback at that) from folks that you expect to rip your work apart. The last few years have been quite a rush playing the young filmmaker festival circuit, and I'm feeling energized and anxious to produce some new work and force myself in some new creative directions. The slightest taste of success only makes me want it more, and it seems like I'm off to a good start.

More about the recent highlights here.

Movie Cliches

I found myself on Roger Ebert's website reading some of his reviews and stumbled onto his movie glossary. Fans have written about common movie cliches and their observations on common plot archs. I found them entertaining so I've shared a few below, but for more you can visit Roger Ebert's site.

The Encore Rule
In any film that culminates in a concert by the characters, the concert audience will go wild with appreciation, even though the "concert" is only one song long.

The Upper Bunk Rule
Any scene in which two adults are sleeping on a bunk bed will inevitably result in the top bunk collapsing onto the bottom bunk. See: "Black Sheep" and the upcoming "Step Brothers."

Who's Your Daddy?
Whenever a couple very much in love is separated by circumstance and happen to make love the night before they split, they will invariably conceive a child whose paternity will never be obvious to the father once they, inevitably, meet again. (See Keri Russell and Jonathan Rhys Meyers in "August Rush," Robert Redford and Glenn Close in "The Natural," Tom Hanks and Robin Wright in "Forrest Gump," Jim Caviezel and Dagmara Dominczyk in "The Count of Monte Cristo," Linda Hamilton and Michael Biehn in "Terminator," etc.)

The Slap That Ends It All
Near the end of any drama about a troubled romance, the couple will have a heated argument, and the man (who has always considered himself civilized) will lose control and slap the woman's face in a rage. In that second, as the man marvels at the depths to which he's sunk, and the woman ponders what a monster she loved up until a moment ago, they both know it's over.

Name Recognition Rule
The trailer for any movie named after the main character must contain a montage of various characters saying that character's name. See "Alfie," "Charlie Bartlett," "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day," "Charlie Wilson's War."

Explosion? What Explosion?
A major character will walk nonchalantly toward the camera and away from a big, napalm-like explosion. Even the Coens use this in "No Country for Old Men." I believe the granddaddy of all such scenes to be the opening stinger in "Goldfinger" in which James Bond is the only person in a nightclub not reacting to a huge explosion nearby, an explosion for which he is responsible.

Car Kaleidoscope

A couple months ago I found out about the 2008 Toronto Urban Film Festival and thought it sounded like an interesting new venue unlike anything I'd taken part in before. The basic premise of the festival is to look at urban life in fresh new ways and submit a film exactly 60 seconds long, with no audio, into one of the varied categories from nature in the city to urban growth. 

I decided to make a film for the Urban Travel category and make a short art film based on the patterns during rush hour using a single intersection. The fest has yet to announce their selections, but I've left out the most intriguing aspect of why I wanted to do this. The whole festival is screened in repetition over 8 days on the TTC (Toronto Transit Commission) which means it screens on the network of 250 platforms of the Toronto Subway. Regardless of whether I'm accepted, I still think it's a neat little project worth sharing. This version has been altered slightly as I've added an audio track and repeated the film several times. You can see the film below or for the full effect watch it in larger HD quality here!