I thought I would use this blog for my Guerilla Marketing class to talk about my trip to Austin, TX for FANTASTIC FEST 2012. This is the largest and most prestigious genre film festival in America, and my short film SÉANCE was an Official Selection, a rare and distinguished honor (they select only 50 shorts out of the hundreds of submissions each year.)
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| A scene from SÉANCE |
DAY 1:
My producer (Susan Williams) and I arrived in Austin about 4:00pm. We decided that before getting to the house we were staying at, we would case out the theater and pick up our Badges. The theater was the Alamo Drafthouse on South Lamar, which has 6 theaters. For the entire week, the theater is dedicated to the festival. We picked up our badges and were surprised to find gift cards for both Susan and I for $60 each, to be used for food and drinks during the festival. Already this was way better than any festival had treated us. There were two big screenings that night: Frankenweenie and Dredd 3D, both of which were sold out by the time we arrived. After dropping our stuff off at the house we were staying (Thanks again Andrea!) we headed back and decided to hang out and mingle.
We are shy people, so there was not much mingling. We got some amazing food truck tacos, but before that, we did go to the Dredd Slo Mo Booth!
DAY 2:
We arrived back at the theater at 11:00am for the shuttle to Tim League's house for a very special lunch for the filmmakers. We were then treated to amazing food (WHOLE HOG!) and got to meet a few of the filmmakers.
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| YK Kim runs onto the table. Susan and I are visible in the background (Tall guy and Red head) |
After lunch, we headed straight to the Guest Services table, where Madison Pope and Johnny Martinez worked tirelessly to make sure our stay was amazing and we got into every screening we wanted. These were amazing people! They got us tickets to two sold out films that night:
THE COLLECTION: Really fun gory slasher film.
MIAMI CONNECTION: One of the worst films I have ever seen, on par with The Room and Troll 2. Also one of the most fun screenings ever. Tears of laughter. I actually flew in with the cast of this film, all very sweet people.
We decided to skip the live performance of Dragon Sound and go home.
DAY 3:
This was the day of our screening, which played before a wonderful documentary called MY AMITYVILLE HORROR, one of the most anticipated films of the festival.
But before that, SHOTGUNS!
We had a SHOTGUN OUTING! Our group consisted of Me, Susan, Cole Drumb and Jen Luk (POSTHUMAN), James Nunn and Robbie Thompson (TOWER BLOCK) and Matthias Hoene (COCKNEYS VS ZOMBIES). I hit 3 out of 10 clay pigeons. Susan hit 0.
After overheating in the Texas sun, we went back and freshened up a bit before the Premiere of SÉANCE. The audience responded extremely positively to the film, which played before the feature doc MY AMITYVILLE HORROR, directed by Eric Walter, who was also super nice. On top of that, he made a really great film. We meet a writer for TwitchFilm who loved the film and was astonished that it only cost $700. We then went to the screening of THE EXORCIST IN THE 21st CENTURY, which was also very interesting. The filmmakers were extremely fun guys, and talked with us a bit afterwards.
DAY 4:
Our goal was to get into ROOM 237. I wanted to see this more than any other film. We waited in line for an hour for tickets. While in line, we met Michael Stephenson, director of Best Worst Movie and THE AMERICAN SCREAM. He really liked Séance!
We finally got to the ticket desk, but ROOM 237 was sold out. We then went to Johnny and Madison on our knees looking for a miracle. They said to check back around 2:00pm, which meant we would have to cut the outing to Smitty's BBQ short by driving ourselves.
SMITTY'S BBQ: Authentic Texas BBQ. Everything else is poison!
We then raced back 40 minutes to see if we did get the tickets... Then Johnny said we didn't. As the air left our body, a woman on the phone with Madison handed us two tickets! According to Madison, the phone call went something like this:
"Hey, we got two cancellations. What do the Seance people look like?"
"Um... Beard and Redhead."
"... Got em!"
ROOM 237: Very entertaining film that goes against everything I believe Kubrick intended. Still worth seeing!
We then met the director, Rodney Asher. He was nice enough, but I'm sure he was tired of talking all day, so the conversation was a bit short.
With no other films to see at the festival, we decided to hang out and mingle a bit. We met back up with Eric Walter and Producer Andrea Adams of MY AMITYVILLE HORROR and shot the shit a bit before leaving to see the Austin Bats. They were awesome, but it was a bit too dark.
We had plans to see a 70mm print of The Master at 10:30 that night, but I was way too exhausted. We went home and slept through our last night in Austin.
DAY 5:
We basically just hung out at the theater until our flight. We said our goodbyes to Johnny and Madison, as well as Willita Mahone (Transportation, super cool too). While killing time, we hung out with the Souska Twins again, and met up with Eric Walter again. He assured us he would say nice things about Séance before the second screening, which we could not attend. I have not followed up on this... I'm sure he did it. Then we drove to the airport.
And that was my trip to Austin. I assured everyone I would be back in two years with INTERIOR, my feature. And goddammit I will! It was the best festival I have ever been to and the best weekend of my life.
DAY 3:
This was the day of our screening, which played before a wonderful documentary called MY AMITYVILLE HORROR, one of the most anticipated films of the festival.
But before that, SHOTGUNS!
We had a SHOTGUN OUTING! Our group consisted of Me, Susan, Cole Drumb and Jen Luk (POSTHUMAN), James Nunn and Robbie Thompson (TOWER BLOCK) and Matthias Hoene (COCKNEYS VS ZOMBIES). I hit 3 out of 10 clay pigeons. Susan hit 0.
After overheating in the Texas sun, we went back and freshened up a bit before the Premiere of SÉANCE. The audience responded extremely positively to the film, which played before the feature doc MY AMITYVILLE HORROR, directed by Eric Walter, who was also super nice. On top of that, he made a really great film. We meet a writer for TwitchFilm who loved the film and was astonished that it only cost $700. We then went to the screening of THE EXORCIST IN THE 21st CENTURY, which was also very interesting. The filmmakers were extremely fun guys, and talked with us a bit afterwards.
DAY 4:
Our goal was to get into ROOM 237. I wanted to see this more than any other film. We waited in line for an hour for tickets. While in line, we met Michael Stephenson, director of Best Worst Movie and THE AMERICAN SCREAM. He really liked Séance!
We finally got to the ticket desk, but ROOM 237 was sold out. We then went to Johnny and Madison on our knees looking for a miracle. They said to check back around 2:00pm, which meant we would have to cut the outing to Smitty's BBQ short by driving ourselves.
SMITTY'S BBQ: Authentic Texas BBQ. Everything else is poison!
We then raced back 40 minutes to see if we did get the tickets... Then Johnny said we didn't. As the air left our body, a woman on the phone with Madison handed us two tickets! According to Madison, the phone call went something like this:
"Hey, we got two cancellations. What do the Seance people look like?"
"Um... Beard and Redhead."
"... Got em!"
ROOM 237: Very entertaining film that goes against everything I believe Kubrick intended. Still worth seeing!
We then met the director, Rodney Asher. He was nice enough, but I'm sure he was tired of talking all day, so the conversation was a bit short.
With no other films to see at the festival, we decided to hang out and mingle a bit. We met back up with Eric Walter and Producer Andrea Adams of MY AMITYVILLE HORROR and shot the shit a bit before leaving to see the Austin Bats. They were awesome, but it was a bit too dark.
We had plans to see a 70mm print of The Master at 10:30 that night, but I was way too exhausted. We went home and slept through our last night in Austin.
DAY 5:
We basically just hung out at the theater until our flight. We said our goodbyes to Johnny and Madison, as well as Willita Mahone (Transportation, super cool too). While killing time, we hung out with the Souska Twins again, and met up with Eric Walter again. He assured us he would say nice things about Séance before the second screening, which we could not attend. I have not followed up on this... I'm sure he did it. Then we drove to the airport.
And that was my trip to Austin. I assured everyone I would be back in two years with INTERIOR, my feature. And goddammit I will! It was the best festival I have ever been to and the best weekend of my life.
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