The Last Captain

[cranefly]

Yes, very nice.
I can't quite make out the posters on the theater.  Are any of them for The Last Captain?  I could at least review that.

Major congrats.

[Greg]

Poster review!

[Drunk Monk]

Three credits?  You coulda had four for fluf...oh never mind.

At least you're ahead of that other guy who never comes around here anymore.  

[Greg]

I get more credits in the end roll. I took my name off the poster in a couple of places because it was a bit much.

[Drunk Monk]

Guess what I just saw an ad for when I was doing some research on IMDB.  

I'll give you a hint.

There were no fluffers.

[Greg]

I'm in an email exchange withe Peter Westbrook that is beginning to feel like Abbott and Costello's "Who's on First"

Peter wrote to tell me that had seen me in a new documentary about him called "Religion of Sports" I wrote back saying that was HK since it was HK. (HK very excited about his appearance on the TV)

Peter wanted HK's email which I sent him. And then he wanted to know which one I was. Peter asked if Doug was the assistant who came to the house. I said no, we are partners. Peter asked who was the Big Boss, though. I said HK was the director and I was the Producer. Peter asked again who was the Big Boss, though.

I gave up. Point to Westbrook

[Drunk Monk]

We thought you were the big boss.  You got all the hardware.  Ain't HK just there to review where you are eating and answer the interviewees questions off camera so they don't have to?

[Greg]

I'm trying to be diplomatic.

But my ego would give you a different answer.

[Greg]

I am well chuffed!

[Greg]

Or maybe not.

Stay tuned.

[Greg]

I fell asleep last night thinking I would try one more film festival before I released the film on Vimeo for sale.

I've entered the majority of films through an outfit called Withoutabox which is a film festival aggregator and a one stop spot to enter film festivals. At this point, I figured all of my entries had been declined. But just to make sure and see who else had rejected me, I went to the submissions folder.

As I scrolled down, I noticed that one festival had 'Accepted' next to it's name. That's unusual. I've never seen that before. It's either 'In Consideration' or 'Not Selected'

I admit it. I flipped out. We were going to screen The Last Captain at a real honest to goodness film festival. It was like affirmation. It was cool. I put up posts to celebrate. I sent emails to Mark Headley and HK. I DM'ed the Queen. A million questions rushed through my mind. First and foremost who do I send the film to? The Submission section on Withoutabox was a little scant on details.

I went to the Melbourne Documentary Film Festival Website. They had posters for all the films they were screening. I immediately noticed that the poster for The Last Captain was not among them. I felt that small flutter of fear in midsection that something bad was going to happen.

I found the email address for the MDFF and sent then an email asking them what I needed to do now. I then went back to Withoutabox and found the director of the festival's email address. I sent him a letter, too.

I noticed on Withoutabox that then had changed my status to accepted back on May 10. A quick bit of math showed that was almost 24 days ago. I was in Salt Lake City. But I was still checking my email every day. 

Crap. The fear flutter grew in leaps and bounds.

I immediately checked my email to see if I had gotten any email from the MDFF and had accidentally tossed it out thinking it was a rejection letter. There was no sign of any communication on my hard drive from the MDFF. I checked my laptop to see if maybe I had answered it there. No sign of it there.

Today is also the day that I have to take Maeve to get her drains removed. I headed off to the Vets while I wondered what I was going to do.

While I was sitting in the vets, I got an email from the Program Director of the MDFF. Since they had not heard from me, they had selected another film. There was nothing he could do for me at this time. No film festival for me.

I emailed him back begging to see if there was something I could do to get back in the festival. He did not respond. I checked the time in Melbourne. It's 3am. I figure he had gone to bed. I hope to hear back from him later in the day (Hold that thought)

Depression has set in at this point. I feel terrible at this point. I'm also a little angry that the only notice I got was a status change on my submission page. You would think they would have sent me an email or something. And maybe a follow up when I didn't respond. That should be standard operating procedure, right? Right?

I just checked the submission page over in Withoutabox and saw this:



It's turning into a very bad day.

[Drunk Monk]

that's absurd.

fuckin aussies.

[cranefly]

Just what you'd expect from a country where kangeroos run the courts.

Very sorry to hear this.  It does sound incredibly unprofessional of the organization -- or of the guy or gal in charge of notifying winners.  I'm wondering if there's a way to complain to the organization as a whole, or to a higher level, perhaps appealing to them to notify future winners in a more comprehensive way so that their festival can show the best work out there rather than alternates.

[Greg]

I'm going to write a last note to the program director to urge him to be more proactive in the future about notifying winners.

I did just receive an email from him song I was definitely out and they had followed the withoutabox guidelines.

[Greg]

I have now exhausted the Festival circuit. And by that I mean I am exhausted. Time to sell the film.

I'm hoping to put it up for sale and rental on September 14th on Amazon Prime Video and Vimeo. I just went back in and fixed a few things including misspelled names and words. I also pulled the music down a tad since it seemed a bit loud in parts.

Haggis and I spotted the misspelled word (mostly Haggis) probably last January or so. I figured I was going to spend the day trying to find it. I couldn't remember what the misspelled word was I just knew there was one. I bumped into while skimming through the movie in about a minute. I am now well chuffed.

I'm going to redo the trailer to add in the announcement once I get the okay from HK.