Meter recieved a rave review back in October from a still anoyomous source who saw the film at the last festival Meter was selected for. Since then Meter had fallen short of being selected for the short film competition in many small and medium sized festivals in Greensboro, Philly, and California. I was beginning to think that the review had jinxed our winning streak which had before that been four fests, four selections. My other thought is that Meter's small production had been sort of a fluke where my film had been selected to the festivals strictly on the "new" and "made in North Carolina," principle and had been placed to fill the quota of North Carolina Produced films required for their sponsors to let the actual festival take place. These theories may actually still be true, I don't know. Another theory is: We know the four festivals back to back we didn't get into were run by film students. With that said, the technical flaws of our $500 production hurt us in the overall score because TRUST ME, I know film students. Most of them are pretentious, over induldgent, and worst of all, most of them think their piece of shit film they made their junior year would give Alfred Hitcock's skills a run for the money. If nothing else, I have my theory: My film had great aspects from the acting, to the script to even so far as to saying, the editing saved it from being boring. My directing, audio, lighting to mention a few were flawed which has hurt us. On top of those aspects, there is the situation we kind of ran into at the Real to Reel Film Festival where we were not given the Grand Prize, because, the big guys who sponsored and paid for the festival did not like the content and thought it would look bad on all the people involved and image of the festival if a film of this nature was to win, (or even show for that matter,) at the film festival. Who knows? All I know is we went 4-0 to 4-4. Yes, I think with submission fees being anywhere from $20 to $50, we should receive at least a copy of the score card, reviews etc of the judges if rejected from the fest. At least then I could have a better sense of where I failed, but again.... "In a perfect world...."
At the beginning of this year I had my sights set on four more festivals for the year and then with Jeopardy in full swing, was planning to hang up the festival run for Meter. The fests were River Run, Appalachian Film Festival in West Virginia, Charlotte and Asheville. River Run was the fourth on the rejected count, so I was starting to wonder if maybe spending $40 on Charlotte and Asheville would just be burning money I could be using to feed my kids. Then I got an email last night that changed my mind. The little bastard film that could had reached the finals in the short competition at the Appalachian Film Festival in Huntington, West Virginia. The drought was over and we were back to a winning record. I won't be able to attend due to River's arrival and weddings to shoot that weekend, but this push will be enough to get me to fill out two more checks and burn two more copies of my film for the Charlotte and Asheville Festival before graduating Meter to an All Access Internet Pass. I plan to bring home nothing more than a set of steak knives from the show, but can take pride that Meter's record has improved to 5-4. To finish 7-4, I could PROBABLY be content in hanging up the reins on Meter's arduous, but fulfilling two year journey.
My fellow West Virginians in and around Huntington go see my movie. Let me know how it tests.
Click on this picture to view the festival's website although as of April 2nd, they have not updated the information yet.
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