In Your Eyes, written by Joss Whedon and directed by Brin Hill

We need to watch Brin Hill and Joss Whedon's new film In Your Eyes on the online video Web site Vimeo. This film was produced by Kai Cole and Michael Roiff.

I love the mission behind Joss and Kai's company Bellwether Pictures. Their purpose is to bring micro-budget films directly to an audience, bypassing "the classic studio structure." I've been wanting to do this for years and sometimes I'm able to do it, but not as successfully as I'd like. So the attention Bellwether is bringing to indie film distribution is a huge step in the right direction.

Renting this film on Vimeo will help all indie filmmakers take control of their own distribution. I can't stress how important it is for us to find a viable distribution path to our audiences whereby we actually see the revenue from our hard work. 

Building a direct path to our audience is what we need to do. So let's support the filmmakers behind In Your Eyes because their success if our success. And no, I do not know anyone personally on the filmmaking team behind this film. I would like to know them - I will have to reach out. I am highlighting their work because their efforts to self-distribute will help us all. We need to support them. And hopefully they will support us too. 

The more audiences are familiar with these other platforms for watching movies, the more indie filmmakers will actually have a means for making money on the films they make. It's only five bucks to rent which means lots left over for some popcorn and Whoppers! 

Here's the link to the film: http://inyoureyesmovie.com/

And here is a teaser:


In Your Eyes - Trailer from Bellwether Pictures on Vimeo.

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Our Film The Diary of Preston Plummer Is Now on Hulu!

We are super excited to announce that our film The Diary of Preston Plummer is now on Hulu! The film is now on Netflix and Hulu as well as other Internet sites like Amazon and iTunes.

The great thing about Hulu is that it's free for you to watch the film on that platform. We hope you check it out. We had such a great time making this film.

Here's a little bit about the film:

On the day of his college graduation, Preston Plummer cannot think of a single thing he really loves. Adrift, Preston follows a beautiful but troubled young woman to a small island town where he begins to fall for her, but it all threatens to fall apart when he uncovers her family's dark past.

And here are just a few of the awesome comments from our audience:

"The Diary of Preston Plummer - it was beautiful I cried"
"The Diary Of Preston Plummer is hands down one of my new favorite movies"
"Just watched The Diary of Preston Plummer on Netflix. Wow, just wow. So many feels."
"The Diary of Preston Plummer was just so absolutely perfect in every way."

We hope you feel the same. You can watch it here:

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The Road to Tribeca 2014: App (a short), directed by Alexander Berman

APP follows Paul, a shy engineer who desperately needs venture capital for his virtual wingwoman app and sets out to prove that his app works. The film was the recipient of the 2013 Alfred P. Sloan Production Grant and is the AFI thesis film from Harvard University graduate, Alexander Berman.

What made you decide to become a filmmaker?

My father is a novelist and playwright so I grew up surrounded by his stories. When my family moved from Russia, my father wrote to preserve the life and identity he left behind for another country, but I was too young to feel Russian and too foreign to feel American. I started filmmaking at a very young age as a way to make sense of my environment – to insert myself in proxy into a place I didn’t belong.

Tell us about your film (include title of film and category your film will play at Tribeca). What inspired you to make it?

My film, “App” (in shorts competition at Tribeca), was inspired by an ugly breakup experience as so many films are! My girlfriend and I had one of those mutual/amiable/bullshit breakups that leave you with a nagging feeling that there is an untold story. Out of jealous curiosity, I used her passwords to search through her email, Facebook, twitter, instagram – the entire contents of her digital mind – to see if she had every cheated on me. When I told her about it later, she laughed and said she had done the same too me. The real data apocalypse isn’t NSA spying or high frequency trading…it’s when we confront our fear of rejection by destroying the uncertainty that is fundamental to love.

What do you love about your film?

I love its prescience. While I was developing the film a year ago, Tinder, LuLu, Zoosk, and other location based relationship startups were slides on an investment deck and not the multimillion-dollar companies they are today. The film is a comedy if you think, “This is so ridiculous and impossible!” It’s a horror film when you realize the future is now.

How long did it take you to make your film?

My producer, Edouard de Lachomette, and I started developing the idea for the film in January 2012. The American Film Institute has a long development process, so we started shooting in November, wrapped reshoots in January 2013, and delivered in June 2013: a total of 1.5 years.

What was the most challenging part of the filmmaking process and how did you overcome it?

My favorite films are the sci-fi movies that feel like they can happen the day after tomorrow. Trouble is…you start developing a film a year before you shoot it so you run the risk that whatever technology you are satirizing feels too stale or too unbelievable by the time you finish. We went through a ton of drafts of augmented reality, computer implants, etc… until we settled on “Sexy Siri”. My animator on the film, Benjamin Berman, is an app developer himself and really helped me conceptualize what the dating apps of 2014 will feel like back in 2012.

Tell us about your experience getting into Tribeca.

It’s actually a funny story: I get an email from Sharon (lead shorts programmer) that says, paraphrased, “What is the premiere status of your film? But don’t take this question to mean we are programming you or anything else dot dot dot.” After a nail-biting week of anticipation, I get a call from Ben Thompson confirming that the film was accepted. At the American Film Institute, our entire crew is fellow students so it was an awesome feeling sharing the news with them because we are all starting our careers together.

If you had to make the film all over again, would you do anything different?

If I made the film today, it would be completely different because the technology is so different. I’m very interested in augmented reality (like the Oculus Rift and Google Glass) and have a number of projects on the question of what immersive VR does to our emotional experience of the people we love.

What’s next for your film? Do you have distribution? If so, when and how can people see it and if not, what are your hopes for the film?

Our film has some other exciting festival announcements to make after Tribeca and some distributors have approached us. At the same time, I want our film to be seen by largest audience possible while it’s still relevant so we’ve also been exploring a general Internet release. I hope the success of the short film enables me to make my feature project. Stay tuned!

Can you provide any advice to other filmmakers who dream of getting their films made?

Working in movies a lot of times can feel like a crapshoot. After suffering your first failures, it’s easy to believe the advice that talent and handwork is not enough – that you need to “know” the right people or have a lot of “luck”. That’s bullshit. I truly believe the people who are my role models were the people who had the highest capacity for pain, rejection, and failure. They kept making when others told them it was time to quit. It’s a war for talent out there. But it’s a war won through attrition.

Screening Times: 

New York, New York - Tribeca Film Festival

4.18, 5:30pm @ AMC Loews Village 7, 66 Third Avenue

4.22, 5:30pm @ Bow Tie Cinemas Chelsea 9, 260 West 23rd Street

4.24, 12:00pm @ AMC Loews Village 7, 66 Third Avenue

4.27, 7:00pm @ Tribeca Cinemas, 54 Varick Street

Website: http://www.appthemovie.com/

Trailer: https://vimeo.com/66196560

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RIP Sarah Jones - From Your Film Family

When I heard about Sarah Jones - a young woman who died working on a film set as an AC (Assistant Camera) - I felt like I had been kicked in the gut. I put my head in my hands and thought how sad it was to lose someone so young who was probably living her dream of making movies. I was reminded of the joy I felt walking into a production office for the first time - knowing I'd come home. A home we all believe will care for us - look out for us - protect us.

I didn't know Sarah personally but I knew her, just as I know every member of the entertainment industry. We are one big family who come together all over the world to create stories. Each new project builds a sub-family. We bop around the planet and instantly bond with our sub-family of the moment to create a story we hope will help inspire, provoke thought, make us laugh or cry. This bond never goes away.

A film set is a very emotional, life-changing, awe-inspiring place where creativity and dreams are realized. It's a home for so many of us. Let's strive to protect our home and our family members.

As producers, we need safety to come first always. We are the parents of the family on set. Our crew needs to be able trust their parents.

My heart goes out to Sarah's friends and family. We feel your pain and send our love to you. We come together all over the world to mourn the loss of Sarah - a member of our film family. We will strive to be a better family.

RIP Sarah Jones. You will always be remembered. Love, Your Film Family



For Sarah's Family, From Ours from Sustainable Dave on Vimeo.

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Season 2 of Average Joe Web Series - Ridiculous & Roll Your Eyes Fun

Now for some afternoon fun, you can watch Average Joe. Each video opens with Intended for Immature Mature Audiences. The 13 episodes of this wacky series live up to the intro. If you're looking for a laugh from some ridiculous and raunchy dating sitches and an Average Joe, this Web series is for you.

Here's the trailer:

And to watch all of the episodes, you can go here: Good times! Thanks to my publicist Susan Szotyori for sharing this gem with me - haha!

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A New Novella and Book Trailer for Valentine's Day: Valentine Schmalentine

My writing partner Brandon Trenz and I wrote a really funny romantic comedy feature-length script called Valentine Schmalentine and decided to adapt it into a novella. I handled the adaptation and even made a book trailer for it, starring Sunny Mabrey. My husband Steve shot the trailer.

It's been so fun creating these novellas and the trailer was a blast.

Here's the link to the book on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00ID3K1BY. You should read it if you like rom coms and you like to laugh.

And here is the book trailer - enjoy!!:

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Road to Sundance 2014: Crime: Marcus McGhee (a short), directed by Alix Lambert and Sam Chou

What made you decide to become a filmmaker?

Alix: My name is Alix Lambert, I am a director and producer. I co-created Crime: Marcus McGhee with Sam Chou. I have been directing for 20 years. My background is in the fine arts where I made installation and conceptual work that often involved video. I've always been a visual thinker/storyteller. 

Sam: My name is Sam Chou. I am a filmmaker, Director of Animation and co-director of Crime: The Animated Series. I've been animating by hand for over 15 years, working on Feature films, TV and commercials and eventually started directing. It was a natural evolution to start creating my own stories, and telling them through the medium of animation

Tell us about your film (include title of film and category your film will play in Sundance). What inspired you to make it?

Alix: I published a book titled CRIME. The book is a collection of interviews in and around the intersection of crime and the arts. What do real life criminals think about the way they are depicted on film? What do film directors want to know about criminals when they depict them in their movies? I interviewed bank robbers, victims, law enforcement, directors, writers, actors and many other people. I went on to develop stage plays using verbatim texts from further interviews about crime in specific geographic regions. How does crime differ from city to city? How is it the same? One of these plays, Crime, USA: Hartford, was commissioned by Real Art Ways in Hartford, Connecticut. One of the people I interviewed for the play was Marcus McGhee, the subject of our short film, Crime: Marcus McGhee. Sam Chou had purchased my book and actually contacted me while I was in Hartford working. We talked about our mutual interest in using some of the audio I had from these many interviews and turning them into animated shorts. That is how we ultimately came to make the series together.

Sam: Yes, the book was a great source of inspiration. Throughout my career, I've always wanted to tell stories that are grounded in reality and a bit darker than typical animated films. So after reading Alix's book, CRIME, I was blown away, I couldn't get those images out of my mind. I was like "YES! These are the stories I need to tell!!"

CRIME: Marcus McGhee is playing in documentary short program 1.

What do you love about your film?

Alix: I love Marcus! He is a wonderful storyteller. Pardon the pun, but he is so animated when he tells a story. I think in four minutes he is able to use humor to illuminate a very real problem in Hartford. I also love the animation style of this particular episode.

Sam: I agree, Marcus is a great story teller and I love his enthusiasm when he tells it.  It really helped inspire the quirky animation design and technique.

How long did it take you to make your film?

Alix: Once Sam and I had the idea, the problem always is finding a way to finance a film. We made a trailer and used that to talk about what we wanted to do.  I had a meeting with Emma Reeves from MOCA tv about the possibility of working together. She liked the animated crime series idea and MOCA tv committed to producing the first six episodes. I loved working with them and went on to create a second series, Ambiance Man, with them. 

Sam: All in all, we created 6 episodes of CRIME: The Animated Series in just over 3 months. 

What was the most challenging part of the filmmaking process and how did you overcome it?

Alix: Filmmaking is full of challenges, both practical and creative. For this film, we had to make some decisions in order to stay within a small budget (limited color palette, less expensive animation choices) and we also had a very tight production schedule once the project was green lit. Additionally, Sam lives in Toronto and I live in NYC, so there were a number of virtual meetings. While, it's great that that is possible now, it would have been preferable if we had been in the same city. We didn't meet in person until the night the series screened at MOCA.

Sam: I agree. On the production side, the challenge was creating 6 different completely different visual styles but using the same color palette. Then producing the animation within the schedule and budget was another challenge.

Tell us about your experience getting into Sundance.

Alix: We applied and we got in! Thrilled to be included.

Sam: When we submitted CRIME, we actually submitted the entire series, 6 episodes back-to-back. It was a 20 minute film that thematically worked really well. When the Sundance programmers got back to us, they explained that they loved the CRIME series but a 20 minute film is much harder to program than a 5 Min one. They kindly asked for just 1 episode, Marcus McGhee's episode. We had no issues with that, we were thrilled to be accepted!!

If you had to make the film all over again, would you do anything different?

Alix: I always make mistakes and learn so much on any film that I make, but I never want to go back and make the same film over, I would rather take what I learned and do things differently the next time around.

Sam: Yes, we made many mistakes during production.  If I had to go back, I'd make better mistakes.

What’s next for your film? Do you have distribution? If so, when and how can people see it and if not, what are your hopes for the film?

Alix: The six episodes can be viewed on MOCAtv. We do not have distribution and are currently discussing possibilities in that regard. We hope to make more episodes and continue the series.

Sam: We'd love to continue the series. There are so many CRIME stories to tell!

Can you provide any advice to other filmmakers who dream of getting their films made?

Alix: Kill your babies.

Sam: Just do it. Keep doing it. Don't stop.  And when you are done, do it again but better.

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