CHECK OUT THE PROMO!

Ok, the time has come for the promo to be up online for the world to see. This 8 minute trailer is what I use to give people a taste of the doc and an idea of the style, the access, the footage etc.

Come one come all and take a peek!

The View from Bellas Luces Promo from Alan Jeffries on Vimeo.

HOTDOCS2010: Opening Gala

I have not written, it has been crazy. However, I am right now at the Hot Docs Documentary Film Festival in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.

Right now I am in the Sales Lounge where there are computers and wifi and tables. Unlike the lonely lounge at the ShowBiz Expo, this one is quite full. And, I am told by the festival volunteer behind the main desk, this one is also quite frequented by commissioning editors; ie. folks looking for docs to aquire.

THE OPENING GALA:

Last night was the opening of the festival. The opening film was Babies, an utterly amazing film made with zero dialogue, no narration and no text except to point out the locations. It is a sidesplitting exploration of how babies (ie people) are the same everywhere, even if their environment may be different. It gives you a chance to truly laugh at yourself as a human being and appreciate cultural differences.

Before, the film, though, there was a small cocktail party to which I was sure I had bought a ticket to. (I have an Industry Pass and can basically go into anything) However my name was not on the list and I was confused and after some back and forth I was let it. I was surely the younguest one in the room. This proved to be quite a good thing, as most of them were older better established induistry folk with whom I got to schmooz. I met some good people and, after following up in the Post Screening Gala, I had a couple of requests for my promo.

Today I have only seen one film so far, Darwin's Nightmare. Did not like it at all! Ok, documentaries are often about the less cheery things in life, but this one seemed to be a sob story for sob stories' sake. If you WANT to find a sad story you can find one anywhere. Just my opinion.

Creative problem-solving with STICKERS!

I get emails every once in a while from Vistaprint offering me the same offers over and over again as if it was news that they have free business cards and return address stickers. However, at this point in time I was looking forward to them re-posting their free stickers as I need them to do some patch up work.

Of the thousands of post cards I ordered for last week's Expo, I still have quite a few left. Maybe 200 of them? I dont know, its hard to calculate. Let's say I have 7lbs left, whatever that means.

I am going to take them to Toronto when I go to the Hot Docs film festival at the end of the month as part of the US Industry Delegation- a title that sounds loftier than it is but whatever. So I am taking all of the postcards with me. The only problem is that they all say:

"Look For Us At The SHOWBIZ EXPO NYC!"





And the Expo is over. So I am going to cover part of it with a sticker that has the logos of Facebook, Twitter, Digg, StumbleUpon and Blogger on it. So it will say:

"Look for Us At

Unfortunately my trials for photoshop and Dreamweaver are over so I had to make the jpg by cutting and pasting all the logos onto Word and then doing a screenshot of them. Not the best resolution so I will have to find another way. For now, though, at least I have a plan. Muhuhahahah