Hey, if you’ve ever wanted to take a look through the Telestereoscope, but didn’t want to get rust and playa dust all over your fingers, I’ve got good news: we just installed a shiny (stainless steel!) new one at CuriOdyssey, a very cool science museum in San Mateo! Click through for more photos of the work in progress.
Well that was fun! A bunch of us won an award from the Visual Effects Society for our work on the character of Toothless, from How to Train Your Dragon. Go Toothless!
And here’s an uncut video of the award ceremony. Our part starts around 11 minutes in (and at about 14:40, you can see Raquel in the audience looking very chic!)
The “How to Make a Baby” festival tour continues, starting this coming Saturday with the first annual Stop Motion Film Festival in Los Angeles. This is the first festival I’ve heard of that’s dedicated entirely to stop motion animation. It’s in a tiny venue (55 seats!) in Echo Park, so if you’re in LA and love the medium, be sure to get there early! Here’s the whole schedule for the next few months:
As always, you can see the rest of the schedule on the festivals page.
We received our first official film festival rejection letter this morning via email. It was kind and gracious and encouraging, and beautifully written. I was so touched by the letter, in fact, that I wrote back with a quick note thanking them for the courtesy of letting us know.* I wasn’t expecting a response, it just felt like the right thing to do. Minutes later, I got an answer back from the festival director. They had sent me the wrong letter by mistake. Our film was accepted after all!
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That festival was the Nevada City Film Festival, where How to Make a Baby will play in late August. Over the next two months it’ll also screen in Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, and New York City. It looks like the festival organizers have put together some amazing programs, so if you live near any of those cities, I highly recommend checking them out in person. You can click the images above for the dates and details, and as always, see our festivals page for the whole list of events.
*Many festivals don’t bother to inform filmmakers that their films have been rejected: you have to wait ’til they release the list of accepted films, and then search for your film in the list, a rather heartbreaking process if you were hoping to get in and didn’t!
Two more festivals will be screening How to Make a Baby next Saturday night (May 22nd) in two different cities. The Santa Fe Reporter’s 3 Minute Film Festival (at the Lensic Performing Arts Centre, 211 W. San Francisco St., Santa Fe, New Mexico), and a reprise screening of the Santa Barbara Minute Film Festival (at Samy’s Camera, 614 Chapala Street in Santa Barbara, California). Apparently last week’s SBMFF was so popular that they sold out the entire theater, so they’ve scheduled a second screening for everyone who was turned away at the door the first time.
The film has also brought home some accolades: it earned an Honorable Mention from the Disposable Film Fest, and was voted in the Top Five by the jury at the SBMFF. We’ve submitted it to a bunch of other festivals, so stay tuned for updates. If you want to keep track of the all film’s screenings and awards, you can find the whole list on the
project’s festival page.
The DFF was such an overwhelmingly fun experience, it got us completely hooked on the film festival buzz. So over the past month I’ve been submitting “How to Make a Baby” to various festivals, and we’re starting to hear back from some of them. One of them, the Santa Barbara Minute Film Festival, is right around the corner! It’s happening on Saturday, May 1st at 8pm at the Faulkner Gallery (40 East Anapamu Street) in Santa Barbara, California. I won’t be able to make it to the event in person, unfortunately, but if you happen to be in the area, stop by the screening and let me know how it goes!
Hey “How to Make a Baby” fans: remember that super cool film festival we were in last month? Well, they’ve opened up their competitive shorts program to voting by the public. If you liked our film, please:
If you can see the embedded video above, just click the little heart to let them know you “like” the film. Also, one voter selected at random will win something called a “DFF Survival Kit”. (Personally, I didn’t find DFF particularly hard to survive, but I’m sure it’s a very cool kit, whatever it is!) Voting closes May 31st.
An update on the Disposable Film Festival: apparently tickets for tonight’s 8pm screening at the Roxie are already sold out, so they’ve added a 10pm show! Tickets available here, and other info here.
Good news: our short film, How to Make a Baby, is heading for the silver screen! It will be in the competitive shorts program at the wonderfully named Disposable Film Festival. The big event is Thursday, March 4th at 8pm at San Francisco’s Roxie Theater. Sure, you’ve seen it on the internet. But the Roxie’s screen is, like, a million feet wide! How big is your screen? You can buy tickets in advance if you like, and there’s a party next door after the screening. Come hang out with us and all the other disposables!
A bear, that’s what! Yes, folks, Mykle Hansen’s new novel is finally out in print! You can buy a copy online from the publisher–or if you’re in Portland, Oregon, you can swing by Powell’s Books on Thursday, March 20th, to hear a real live bear* read a chapter from the book in Mykle’s own voice! It’s part of a bigger small publishers’ event from 5-10pm. Mykle and friends will go on around 9pm.
*Disclaimer: if real bear is not available, reading may be provided by man in bear suit.