"Time Keeps on Skippin'" at NFFTY! (Reprise)

Check out the highlights from last year's National Film Festival for Talented Youth! Keep your eyes peeled for my "blink-and-you'll-miss-it" appearances in the background of two shots around :41 and :43!

"Time Keeps on Skippin'" at NFFTY!

Time Keeps on Skippin' just had its world premiere at the SIFF Cinema as part of this year's National Film Festival for Talented Youth. My film was listed as third or fourth from the last, but was skipped. At first, I was really worried, and even Matt Lawrence got up and ran back to the projector booth to find an answer. Fortunately, everything was okay, and my film was withheld until the very end of the program because it was submitted on DigiBeta tape, while everyone else's films were on DV tape or DVD. Because it was on DigiBeta and anamorphic widescreen, they had to open up the big screen and change the projector's aspect ratio.

I don't mind saying I was glowing from all this specific attention for my film. Already it was the longest one in the Northwest Scene program, and then its format required unique presentation. And when it blasted onto the big screen for the first time in all its uncompressed DigiBeta glory, I couldn't stop smiling. It looked so incredibly good, so much so that one person in the audience afterwards asked if I shot on film. A lot of people were surprised when I told them it was shot on regular-old standard definition Mini-DV.

It was great seeing it with an audience again. They laughed exactly where I was hoping and it got a huge round of applause. It didn't win anything (though I suspect that's because people like my parents were not aware that there was a chance to vote!).

Even though I've only been back for a few days and I have to fly back tomorrow, I am really glad that I got the opportunity to come to this festival and the world premiere of my most ambitious short film to date.

"Bittersweet" and "Love is the Elle Word" at NFFTY!

Nearly two years later, Bittersweet is still going strong, screening at the National Film Festival For Talented Youth on Sunday March 30th as part of the festival's Family Cinema program. Bittersweet is one of two of my films screening at NFFTY this year, the other being my first independent short Love Is the Elle-Word, which premiered Saturday March 29th.

This is likely going to be Bittersweet's final film festival, marking the end of a long and fruitful run through the festival circuit. My thanks goes out to my friend, fellow classmate, and producer Coburn Erskine, who tirelessly championed this film (and since he was still a high school student, he was able to submit to more student festivals long after I had graduated!)