NEW JERSEY INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
Sunday 6/3
7PM
Scott Hall #123, 43 College Avenue (Near the corner of
College Avenue and Hamilton Street)
College Avenue Campus
Rutgers University
New Brunswick, NJ
$10 - tickets only available at the door
http://www.njfilmfest.com/
Wednesday, May 30, 2007
Saturday, May 5, 2007
Hollywood Reporter
Check out this review in the Hollywood Reporter that calls TWISTED: A Balloonamentary, “one of those wide-grin quirkster documentaries one hopes to discover every festival season”. The review says the film is a “thoroughly winning feature” with “tons of charm” that “could hold its own theatrically in the feel-good docu niche.”
Link to Hollywood Reporter Review
Friday, May 4, 2007
How ‘Bout A Hand For Michigan!
We were just informed that we will be screening at the Waterfront Film Festival in Saugatuck, Michigan. The festival is June 7-10th and we will let you know our screening date as soon as we do!
Wednesday, May 2, 2007
Grandma Time
The Independent Film Festival of Boston was, as they say, wicked ahhhsome. Naomi prepped for the weekend by working with Rob Balchunas, Sara Krakauer, Charlie Fogarty, and others to create “Balloons On Parade”. Eight stores in the greater Boston area agreed to allow balloon sculptures advertising the film. The sculptures, each designed to look like a different character in the movie, were a huge hit! Much thanks to the Somerville Theatre, Wainright Bank in Davis Square, Mr. Crepes in Somerville, Sherman Café in Somerville, JP Licks in Brookline, Herrels Ice Cream in Allston, and the Coolidge Corner Theatre.
Boston turned out to be great for press. We had big spreads in the Boston Herald, The Boston Globe, The Metro, on NPR, and a few others! We also did an on camera interview with a new site called Our Stage, and we taught all of the correspondents how to twist their first dogs. Check out TWISTED in the Ourstage IFFB wrap-up here (search for "OurStage a@ IFFBoston).
One great thing about Boston was that we were able to see a lot of people we’d met at SXSW, including SXSW festival programmer Matt Dentler and other documentary filmmakers. It’s nice to start seeing familiar faces along the festival circuit! We hung out with Aaron Matthews (“The Paper”), Adam Zucker (“Greensboro: Closer To The Truth”), and Jason Orans (“Year of the Fish” producer) --- we even managed to score a fee ride home from Jason – who, for some reason, thought it best not to wear this balloon hat while driving.
The next day we recruited Gowri Krishna, Anuj Shah, Debby Levine, Randy Levine, and Chirs Timmerman to hand out postcards and balloons. It is safe to say that there were balloons EVERYWHERE in Boston.
Funny as it sounds, it’s hard to see movies at festivals because we’re often promoting our film. But, we did manage to make it to a screening of “King Corn” a documentary about corn production in the U.S. that was beautifully shot. It is funny to watch a movie about the evils of corn and corn syrup in a theater with buttery popcorn and soda everywhere. When we left the film, we found Rob Balchunas, still hard at work.
That night, we managed to get our crew invites to the festival’s party. We got both our sushi and our grooves on in, what turned out to be, quite a dance party. As we were leaving, a van from Foxwoods casino pulled up to the hotel where the party was held. Instead of taking a few cabs, we negotiated a deal with the driver, who agreed to shuffle all seven of us back to Somerville.
Everyone returned home exhausted. But, it has now become an accepted fact that Sara does not sleep the night before screenings. While the screenings have become more predictable, it is still exciting/ nerve wracking to have a group of strangers view the movie. It was a sleepy morning, but Sarah Grafman, Erica Naiztat, and Sara Krakauer helped us by filling up hundred of balloons. A week earlier, we’d learned that our pre-sales were going very well, leading the festival to move us to the biggest theater at the Coolidge Corner. This meant, we’d need many more balloons to complete our now regular promise of “Everyone who comes to the screening will learn how to make a balloon dog.”
We got to the theater and saw Dan, who would be introducing our film. Dan was great to us! In fact, the whole IFF Boston team – including Nancy, Adam, and Jason really made us feel very welcome! We also saw some of our favorite people we’ve met while filming. It was VERY difficult to cut the stories of Charlie Fogarty and the Beigel family during editing. They’re both fantastic stories that just didn’t work in terms of timing and flow with the rest of the film (but we hope they will one day make great DVD extras!). It is so nice to get such support from all of them!
We also got to see the best colorist we know, Sandy Patch (aka Sugar Patch) from Final Frame. Sandy came up from NY for the screening!
Another New Yorker in attendance was Sarah Orenstein. Sarah was one of our animators, but we’d never met! All of our work with her was done via phone and internet (the wonders of modern day technology), so it was exciting to finally meet her. Including ours, Sarah actually had animation in two films screening at IFFB!
Then, the guests of honor arrived. We were very excited to have our families come to the Boston screening. But, we were especially excited to have two people there who had never seen the final cut or watched the movie in a theater – Grandma Millie and Grandma Sylvia! We are both very close with our families and we have waited for a Grandma screening for a very long time. For weeks, we’d been talking about how excited we were that the time had come. And – there is no question that the most exciting and important part of the Boston experience was that two of our grandmas were there (Naomi’s Grandma Shel will get to see the film in a few weeks!). The theater filled with 350 people, and it was very emotional to look out and see Grandma Millie and Grandma Sylvia cheering us on! In honor of Grandma Sylvia’s 91st birthday, the entire theater even sang “Happy Birthday”.
The screening was great! It was exciting to hear so many people laughing and crying together. After the credits, we even got a standing ovation! After the film, we got to talk to friends from home and Wash U, family, and many strangers who enjoyed the film. One man told Sara he enjoyed the movie and was a twister himself. He turned out to be Aaron Hsu-Flanders, who wrote the very first balloon book Sara ever saw, when she was just a kid!
We then went to Naomi’s grandma’s building for a lovely party!
After a well-needed nap, we geared up for the closing IFF Boston party. The awards ceremony began and the crowd was informed that the next prize would be an ipod. Sara jokingly told Naomi that they would win this because she always wins ipods (at SXSW Sara entered a drawing sponsored by Apple at the last second and won a nano). Well, wouldn’t ya know it… Two minutes later we were surprised to win IFFB’s first award for best marketing! We each got… a snazzy new ipod nano! The festival organizers said they loved our marketing!
Number of Sara's mentioned in this post: 2
Number of Sarah's mentioned in this post: 2
Boston turned out to be great for press. We had big spreads in the Boston Herald, The Boston Globe, The Metro, on NPR, and a few others! We also did an on camera interview with a new site called Our Stage, and we taught all of the correspondents how to twist their first dogs. Check out TWISTED in the Ourstage IFFB wrap-up here (search for "OurStage a@ IFFBoston).
One great thing about Boston was that we were able to see a lot of people we’d met at SXSW, including SXSW festival programmer Matt Dentler and other documentary filmmakers. It’s nice to start seeing familiar faces along the festival circuit! We hung out with Aaron Matthews (“The Paper”), Adam Zucker (“Greensboro: Closer To The Truth”), and Jason Orans (“Year of the Fish” producer) --- we even managed to score a fee ride home from Jason – who, for some reason, thought it best not to wear this balloon hat while driving.
The next day we recruited Gowri Krishna, Anuj Shah, Debby Levine, Randy Levine, and Chirs Timmerman to hand out postcards and balloons. It is safe to say that there were balloons EVERYWHERE in Boston.
Funny as it sounds, it’s hard to see movies at festivals because we’re often promoting our film. But, we did manage to make it to a screening of “King Corn” a documentary about corn production in the U.S. that was beautifully shot. It is funny to watch a movie about the evils of corn and corn syrup in a theater with buttery popcorn and soda everywhere. When we left the film, we found Rob Balchunas, still hard at work.
That night, we managed to get our crew invites to the festival’s party. We got both our sushi and our grooves on in, what turned out to be, quite a dance party. As we were leaving, a van from Foxwoods casino pulled up to the hotel where the party was held. Instead of taking a few cabs, we negotiated a deal with the driver, who agreed to shuffle all seven of us back to Somerville.
Everyone returned home exhausted. But, it has now become an accepted fact that Sara does not sleep the night before screenings. While the screenings have become more predictable, it is still exciting/ nerve wracking to have a group of strangers view the movie. It was a sleepy morning, but Sarah Grafman, Erica Naiztat, and Sara Krakauer helped us by filling up hundred of balloons. A week earlier, we’d learned that our pre-sales were going very well, leading the festival to move us to the biggest theater at the Coolidge Corner. This meant, we’d need many more balloons to complete our now regular promise of “Everyone who comes to the screening will learn how to make a balloon dog.”
We got to the theater and saw Dan, who would be introducing our film. Dan was great to us! In fact, the whole IFF Boston team – including Nancy, Adam, and Jason really made us feel very welcome! We also saw some of our favorite people we’ve met while filming. It was VERY difficult to cut the stories of Charlie Fogarty and the Beigel family during editing. They’re both fantastic stories that just didn’t work in terms of timing and flow with the rest of the film (but we hope they will one day make great DVD extras!). It is so nice to get such support from all of them!
We also got to see the best colorist we know, Sandy Patch (aka Sugar Patch) from Final Frame. Sandy came up from NY for the screening!
Another New Yorker in attendance was Sarah Orenstein. Sarah was one of our animators, but we’d never met! All of our work with her was done via phone and internet (the wonders of modern day technology), so it was exciting to finally meet her. Including ours, Sarah actually had animation in two films screening at IFFB!
Then, the guests of honor arrived. We were very excited to have our families come to the Boston screening. But, we were especially excited to have two people there who had never seen the final cut or watched the movie in a theater – Grandma Millie and Grandma Sylvia! We are both very close with our families and we have waited for a Grandma screening for a very long time. For weeks, we’d been talking about how excited we were that the time had come. And – there is no question that the most exciting and important part of the Boston experience was that two of our grandmas were there (Naomi’s Grandma Shel will get to see the film in a few weeks!). The theater filled with 350 people, and it was very emotional to look out and see Grandma Millie and Grandma Sylvia cheering us on! In honor of Grandma Sylvia’s 91st birthday, the entire theater even sang “Happy Birthday”.
The screening was great! It was exciting to hear so many people laughing and crying together. After the credits, we even got a standing ovation! After the film, we got to talk to friends from home and Wash U, family, and many strangers who enjoyed the film. One man told Sara he enjoyed the movie and was a twister himself. He turned out to be Aaron Hsu-Flanders, who wrote the very first balloon book Sara ever saw, when she was just a kid!
We then went to Naomi’s grandma’s building for a lovely party!
After a well-needed nap, we geared up for the closing IFF Boston party. The awards ceremony began and the crowd was informed that the next prize would be an ipod. Sara jokingly told Naomi that they would win this because she always wins ipods (at SXSW Sara entered a drawing sponsored by Apple at the last second and won a nano). Well, wouldn’t ya know it… Two minutes later we were surprised to win IFFB’s first award for best marketing! We each got… a snazzy new ipod nano! The festival organizers said they loved our marketing!
Number of Sara's mentioned in this post: 2
Number of Sarah's mentioned in this post: 2
Thursday, April 26, 2007
Stop the Ignorance: The Beauty That Is New Jersey
Sara is nothing if not a New Jersey lover. Which is why our acceptance to the New Jersey International Film Festival is so exciting! In college, Sara made her midwestern roomates temper their criticism of the greatest state in the union by making a home movie/ guided tour of her home state called, "Stop the Ignorance: The Beauty That Is New Jersey".
We will be screening at Rutgers University on June 3rd. More details to come!
We will be screening at Rutgers University on June 3rd. More details to come!
Tuesday, April 24, 2007
The OC
In our fastest trip to the west coast ever, we just spent the weekend in California for the Newport Beach Film Festival. Our hotel was on Fashion Island, an unusual name for a piece of land surrounded by more land. Everything was very upscale, which played in perfectly for our hopes for a typical Orange County weekend.
We handed out postcards at Edwards Island, where our movie was playing, and met Jack - a local twister who offered to help. These women were traveling to countries affected by the Tsunami and wanted to learn how to do balloons for the kids.
We also got a lot of help from a newbie twister and Naomi's cousin, Lee!
Later, after accidentally trespassing on a private golf course, we decided to do something novel at a film festival - watch a movie. We went to see Parker Posey's "Broken English" - but that's not important. What is important is that one of the festival organizers saw us, complimented us on all of our marketing, and offered us two tickets to the John Wayne Centennial Gala. We'd heard about the gala earlier, but had no intentions of going because it was $100 a pop. However, those of you who know Sara are aware that there are few things in life that make her happier than scoring an entrance to exclusive affairs where she really has no reason being. We put on our fancy duds and headed over to the party, which celebrated what would have been John Wayne's 100 birthday.
When we walked in the door, Naomi was very excited to see that there was free John Wayne swag (despite the fact that neither of us have ever seen a John Wayne movie). The giveaway was a giant mug, with a photo, quote and tiny sticker on the bottom, “WARNING: The materials used as colored decorations on the exterior of this product contain lead, a chemical known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm. This warning applies to the State of California only.” Luckily, we both live on the east coast, so the mugs should be 100% safe.
While Naomi admired the scene, Sara immediately made a beeline for someone to hand him a postcard with screening times. Naomi had no idea was Sara had picked this person to aggressively invite to the screening. But this mystery man was none other than relative extraordinaire Randy Spelling. He said he would try to check out the screening, and Sara was excited that the event was already paying off in C-list spades.
We got some food and admired the music of Jennifer Wayne. “God Bless John Wayne” was the song of choice, and we later also invited her to the screening. We thought we made another star spotting, Jason Bateman, but after further inspection (including staring at him and have a full-on conversation) we still weren’t sure. His brothers confirmed that he was not a Bateman, but we decided to not hold that against them.
While we were eating, a woman noticed our balloon bracelets and came over to talk to us. “You’re not from here? Let me show you the real Orange County. Those over there are fake.” She begins pointing around the room, “Those are fake, fake, fake, fake-fake-fake!” She also told us that 10 years of marriage is cause for a big celebration in Orange County, because it means, “Alimony forever!”
We spent the rest of the evening at an after party at the art museum, which included a live art component. One man volunteered to have his leg tattooed, with anything of the artists’ choosing, in front of the crowd
The next day, Larry came out from Arizona to twist for us! We met Larry a few years ago in Las Vegas, when he was working for Michele. We hadn't really kept in touch, but he heard about the film and made a huge road trip so he could see it!
We also made a VERY quick stop at the beach and met a few local teenagers who informed us that our balloons were, "really tight."
While handing out postcards, people seemed to be gathering around one person. He was some sort of local actor - some guy named Adam Sandler.
We gave him a balloon invited and him and his wife to the movie. They said they had to get home to their baby, but Adam seemed to get a kick out of the premise of our film.
A bunch of local friends, family, and even a few Wash U alums who we didn't know showed up and we got ready to screen. We had a nice turn out considering we didn't have much time in CA to get the word out, and the movie was followed by a good Q and A session. After the screening, one woman told us that she loved the film but was upset by the adult balloon twisting because her young son was in the audience. We always tell people there is some subject matter not intended for young audiences, so we were surprised to hear from her that we were listed in the program as a children's film! We apologized to her, as did the festival programmer - and it was very nice to hear that despite being upset by one section - she still really loved the film.
We also met Richard Kraft, a director who loved the film. He was extremely kind in his words about our film and we can't wait to see his documentary, "Kraftland"!
The rest of the day was spent hanging out with friends before Sara jumped on a red-eye home. Naomi had an extra day to enjoy before her flight which, despite previous trends for Naomi, was NOT cancelled!
The inaugual edition of celebrities** we've invited to our screening vs. celebrities who've attended:
Number of celebrities invited to screenings: 4
Number of celebrities who've attended screenings: 0
** Please note, for the purposes of this blog, the definition of "celebrities" will be loose enough to include everyone from Adam Sandler and Paul Rudd to Randy Spelling and Jennifer Wayne.
We handed out postcards at Edwards Island, where our movie was playing, and met Jack - a local twister who offered to help. These women were traveling to countries affected by the Tsunami and wanted to learn how to do balloons for the kids.
We also got a lot of help from a newbie twister and Naomi's cousin, Lee!
Later, after accidentally trespassing on a private golf course, we decided to do something novel at a film festival - watch a movie. We went to see Parker Posey's "Broken English" - but that's not important. What is important is that one of the festival organizers saw us, complimented us on all of our marketing, and offered us two tickets to the John Wayne Centennial Gala. We'd heard about the gala earlier, but had no intentions of going because it was $100 a pop. However, those of you who know Sara are aware that there are few things in life that make her happier than scoring an entrance to exclusive affairs where she really has no reason being. We put on our fancy duds and headed over to the party, which celebrated what would have been John Wayne's 100 birthday.
When we walked in the door, Naomi was very excited to see that there was free John Wayne swag (despite the fact that neither of us have ever seen a John Wayne movie). The giveaway was a giant mug, with a photo, quote and tiny sticker on the bottom, “WARNING: The materials used as colored decorations on the exterior of this product contain lead, a chemical known to the State of California to cause birth defects or other reproductive harm. This warning applies to the State of California only.” Luckily, we both live on the east coast, so the mugs should be 100% safe.
While Naomi admired the scene, Sara immediately made a beeline for someone to hand him a postcard with screening times. Naomi had no idea was Sara had picked this person to aggressively invite to the screening. But this mystery man was none other than relative extraordinaire Randy Spelling. He said he would try to check out the screening, and Sara was excited that the event was already paying off in C-list spades.
We got some food and admired the music of Jennifer Wayne. “God Bless John Wayne” was the song of choice, and we later also invited her to the screening. We thought we made another star spotting, Jason Bateman, but after further inspection (including staring at him and have a full-on conversation) we still weren’t sure. His brothers confirmed that he was not a Bateman, but we decided to not hold that against them.
While we were eating, a woman noticed our balloon bracelets and came over to talk to us. “You’re not from here? Let me show you the real Orange County. Those over there are fake.” She begins pointing around the room, “Those are fake, fake, fake, fake-fake-fake!” She also told us that 10 years of marriage is cause for a big celebration in Orange County, because it means, “Alimony forever!”We spent the rest of the evening at an after party at the art museum, which included a live art component. One man volunteered to have his leg tattooed, with anything of the artists’ choosing, in front of the crowd
The next day, Larry came out from Arizona to twist for us! We met Larry a few years ago in Las Vegas, when he was working for Michele. We hadn't really kept in touch, but he heard about the film and made a huge road trip so he could see it!
We also made a VERY quick stop at the beach and met a few local teenagers who informed us that our balloons were, "really tight."
While handing out postcards, people seemed to be gathering around one person. He was some sort of local actor - some guy named Adam Sandler.
We gave him a balloon invited and him and his wife to the movie. They said they had to get home to their baby, but Adam seemed to get a kick out of the premise of our film.
A bunch of local friends, family, and even a few Wash U alums who we didn't know showed up and we got ready to screen. We had a nice turn out considering we didn't have much time in CA to get the word out, and the movie was followed by a good Q and A session. After the screening, one woman told us that she loved the film but was upset by the adult balloon twisting because her young son was in the audience. We always tell people there is some subject matter not intended for young audiences, so we were surprised to hear from her that we were listed in the program as a children's film! We apologized to her, as did the festival programmer - and it was very nice to hear that despite being upset by one section - she still really loved the film.
We also met Richard Kraft, a director who loved the film. He was extremely kind in his words about our film and we can't wait to see his documentary, "Kraftland"!The rest of the day was spent hanging out with friends before Sara jumped on a red-eye home. Naomi had an extra day to enjoy before her flight which, despite previous trends for Naomi, was NOT cancelled!
The inaugual edition of celebrities** we've invited to our screening vs. celebrities who've attended:
Number of celebrities invited to screenings: 4
Number of celebrities who've attended screenings: 0
** Please note, for the purposes of this blog, the definition of "celebrities" will be loose enough to include everyone from Adam Sandler and Paul Rudd to Randy Spelling and Jennifer Wayne.
Tuesday, March 20, 2007
More Festival Fun!!
We just got accepted to two more festivals!! Newport Beach Film Festival in Newport Beach, CA invited us to screen and we will be making our East Coast Premiere at the Independent Film Festival in Boston!! If you can make either screening, please come! We promise you will NOT be disappointed.
Newport Beach Film Festival--Screening on Sunday, April 22nd at 2:30PM
Independent Film Festival in Boston--Screening on Sunday, April 29th at 12:00PM
Newport Beach Film Festival--Screening on Sunday, April 22nd at 2:30PM
Independent Film Festival in Boston--Screening on Sunday, April 29th at 12:00PM
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