And So it Begins…
I’ve been selected to my first film festival! “Harbourton” was officially selected for “The Pint Sized Film Festival” at Neshaminy Creek Brewing. It’s not a prestigious affair like Tribeca or Sundance, but my short film isn’t academy worthy either. In all honesty it was a practice rep. It’s nothing special…
At least that’s what I lead myself to believe until I said it out loud to a friend, who instantly reminded me that it’s all special. Rather than argue or continue to downplay it, I thought about what he said. I mean really thought about it and he’s right. It’s extremely special because it’s the first of many film festivals that I'm going to enter. As a matter of fact I’m in pre-production for a 37 hour Short Film Challenge hosted by Kevin Smith’s Smodcastle Cinemas, but I’ll get into that in another post. Anyway, I think it’s important to look back and reflect on the journey every so often, so you can grow and improve. Things you would have done differently, what would have made small improvements, did you handle things properly? It’s a good way to carry those lessons into the next project and implement what you’ve learned. So after receiving this exciting news, while preparing for the next project, I thought it’d be a great opportunity to reflect on “Harbourton”.
As I said in the opening, this was a practice rep. Every morning I wake up and I journal, dumping all my thoughts onto a page until I feel like my brain is empty. Then I figure out what I’m going to do for the day and on this particular morning I wanted to practice my cinematography. Visually telling a story, using different angles and such to convey a feeling. At first I was just going to reproduce shots from my favorite movies, but it’s the middle of the week and all my friends were working and if I didn’t do it that day it was never going to get done. So I thought, “What shots can I reproduce on my own, shooting myself?” and instantly I thought of John Travolta opening the briefcase in Pulp Fiction! Well that should be an easy shot to reproduce, what other shots can I reproduce? Should the shots be tied together? Of course, well then I need to tell a little story. I’d never storyboarded before, so I drew some boxes and one by one started filling those boxes with shots. Always asking myself, What’s next?, quickly followed by, How do I do that?
Well, how am I going to do this? Rather than spend more time searching for locations I made it easy on myself and shot everything on the property, where I live. It’s a farm and has been my practice playground since I started this whole adventure. I chose a ridiculous outfit, grabbed my camera, tripod and notebook with the storyboards and spent the afternoon shooting each frame of the storyboard. Everything in “Harbourton” is a single take, I’m shooting myself and can’t monitor what it looks like anyway so why worry about doing something more than once. Besides, it’s just practice. For all the gear nerds, like myself, I shot the whole in on my Canon EOS R7, Sigma 18-35mm ART lens, Portkeys PT6 Monitor and SmallRig mini Matte box. I can’t remember exactly, but I’m pretty sure I had the PolarPro Peter McKinnon 2-5 Stop VND on as well. I turned the stabilization off on the camera and lens because the camera was always on a tripod and the frenetic movement during the driving sequences would add a bit of energy and tension. It probably took 3?4? hours to shoot, it was a bit of a race because there was a rainstorm rolling in and I definitely didn’t want to get caught in it. I forgot to mention that it was August and it was hot, so by the time I finished shooting I was exhausted and needed a shower badly. There are some other funny side stories that I’m going to leave out of this post, but you can check out the vlog I posted on my YouTube page that goes into great detail.
After my shower, I wanted to look at the footage which turned into me editing almost all night. With only a few hours of sleep I finished the short film within 24 hours. In hindsight, maybe I should have realized how special this short was at that moment but I was too wrapped up in the excitement of it. I couldn’t wait to post it on YouTube and share it with friends. As of right now, “Harbourton” only has 137 views and maybe that’s why I initially didn’t think it was all that special. Coupled with the fact that it was just a fun way to practice. I mean I REALLY enjoyed making it and it fortified my choice to pursue filmmaking full time. Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago, my girlfriend sent me the post for The Pint Sized Film Festival and encouraged me to submit. I initially thought to submit “Echoes” because it had a bit of a view explosion to almost 6k views, which is tremendous for my channel. She told me to go with “Harbourton”, so I decided to have a little fun and get some engagement on my almost dormant Instagram account and put it to a vote amongst the people. I greatly appreciate everyone that participated, but it was a 50/50 split lol. So I just went with Ashley’s suggestion and submitted “Harbourton”. Then the other day I get the email stating I've been selected, I can honestly tell you I was surprised and excited.
This is the first time I’m going to see my work, projected on a screen in front of other people, total strangers. I don’t know what size screen and I don’t know if it matters but it’s going to be different than the 65” TV at my parent’s house. I don’t even care if I win anything, just the opportunity to see my work “in the wild” is going to be just that. WILD. It’s just crazy to think what pulling on a thread could lead too. And because I submitted my short film via Film Freeway, I received a notification for the Smodcastle 37 Hour Short Film Challenge! So I’m just going to keep pulling these threads and see where it takes me. That’s all I got for right now and I’m starving, so I’m gonna go eat. Thanks for stopping by!
