LA Shorts Fest 2005 is now history. We had a great time. The ArcLight Cinemas is quite a place to see your film. Big screens, comfy seats. Some of our new friends from Filmstock came in from the UK to be part of it. Neil Fox, co-creator of Filmstock, came to town as well as Harry Richards (pictured) who had a wonderful film in the festival called "Still Life." Due to the festival being so large, the festival creators had to charge each filmmaker if they wanted to see any program other than their own. Bummer. It meant that I only saw two other programs. I enjoyed Juliette Garrison's film "Chastine." It is a cute throwback to the 20's. She is pictured here with Mike.

When our film screened I felt the volume was too low. I was cringing in my seat because I really wanted the audience to hear every nuance in the music. Phil Smith who recorded the music (and who was there with his S.O. and our Associate Producer LaMar Aguilar) said it wasn't so bad because you could actually feel the audience leaning in to hear the film. I had to agree because that's what I was doing! During the Q and A session that followed the program, most of the questions from the audience were directed toward Red Lion. I felt this was great because not only was our film shown first, which meant it was memorable, but it also stirred up a lot of questions in their minds. That's what I hoped for when we made it.

A word about those groovy little hand key chains which were such a hit in the UK, well, they went over big here too. Gave out a lot of them and because there were celebs at the theater for various reasons, I was able to give one each to Paul Reiser, Peter Falk, Don Johnson, Damien Wayans (not Damon, this is one of the Wayans kids who had a short in the festival), and Paul Dooley. Let's hope they visit our website!

We went to one of the panels held on a Saturday morning because it was run by an old friend of mine from college, Frank Chindamo, who has a company called Fun Little Movies. Frank has been making short comedy films since the late 80's. Way to go Frank! He and I are pictured together.

One of the best things about this festival was meeting other filmmakers (we ran into one, Martin George, just the other day at Target!), seeing ones we met in Luton like Sabrina Rubin and, of course, seeing Neil and Harry. We felt like a part of a community. We were encouraged by some to send Red Lion to other festivals as well. I have. So, keep coming back here for more updates.
                                                          Cheers!   Jesse