Blog-o-STIFF

I know what you are thinking…

“Your website says that filmmakers will be notified by April 15^th…  WTF is the holdup?!  I haven’t heard anything yet!  Why don’t you guys have your shit together?”

Believe me, I understand your frustration and we have been doing our best to answer emails from filmmakers wondering what the heck is going on.  Rest assured that we have been notifying accepted filmmakers and trying to lock down the print details and hope to have all filmmakers notified by the end of the week.  BUT…  Just because you haven’t been notified yet doesn’t necessarily mean that you will be getting a rejection email on Friday.  There have been a few strange and wonderful developments recently, that I can’t announce quite yet, which have opened up some up some additional screening slots and we need to get everything 100% locked down before we send out the rejections.  A couple of you still have legitimate hope for another day or so.

If you haven’t gotten a phone call yet, there is a pretty good chance that your email is going to carry some bad news. No matter what I write here, it isn’t probably won’t change your opinion of me, but just know that there are some really good films that we weren’t able to screen for a variety of reasons.   Just like casting or editing a movie, some difficult decisions have to be made when programming a festival.  Some movies seem just a little too similiar to other movies that we are screening, some are great, but just need a little tighter editing.  Some are excellent quality and seem perfect for SIFF, but just aren’t a great fit for STIFF.  In my dreams I see Carl Spence and Brian Shelley in some dimly lit parking garage exchanging unmarked paper bags full of these types of DVD’s like captured hostages in a cold war era film. 

I’ll close with these two pearls of uninvited advice…  Don’t Quit!  No matter how many times you get rejected by film festivals, keep making movies.  This is a pretty subjective business and sometimes festival acceptance is little more than the luck of having the right screener grab your DVD out of a bin.  Thank you so much for submitting your work to us and please keep us in mind when you finish future projects as we would love to see them.   We are a lot more willing to grant waiver requests to filmmakers who have submitted to us in the past and paid entry fees than we are to spammers.  Second, make sure to check your spam filters.  Sometimes notifications get lost in them.

Thanks Again,

Clint

Georgetown Super 8 Film Festival

Last Saturday night was the third annual Georgetown Super 8 Film Festival.  Hats off to Laura Wright and all of the organizers for the success.  The last two years, I have had friends make films for the festival (Sean McBride and the rest of the Garfield High School film class of 06-07 & JP Moore and Steve Timlin made one last year).  They all raved about it and it sounded like a lot of fun.  So, when Jessica and I moved to

Georgetown

I knew that I wanted to make a film.  Emmett Montgomery had been talking to me about making a really short puppet movie for an upcoming puppet film festival, so I thought about killing two birds with one stone.  For the Hump contest, I took a stab at shooting super 8 and transferring to digital on my own, and thought that this might be good time to try reversing that process (shooting digitally and transferring to film).  Jessica (my wife) said that I was cheating and violating the spirit of the festival by shooting digital and transferring, but I talked to Laura and she said that people did it every year and it didn’t matter.  I really wanted to do the exercise.

Emmett spent a few weeks making some puppets out of brown paper sacks and I met him at Rebar to shoot it.  The editing was pretty simple and I was able to crank it out in an hour or so.  Doing the transfer turned out to be a little more difficult though.  After I made a DVD and tried to shoot it from a TV, GS8 coordinator Laura Wright called me the next week to tell me that it looked really bad, but that I had time to re-shoot it if I wanted.  Fortunately, I had also put a little test footage shooting it from a computer monitor at the end and since that seemed to look a little better, I figured I’d give it a try that way.  I turned the monitor brightness way up and she called to tell me that looked better, but you could still see the control bar at the bottom.  I shot it big figuring I’d have to crop it a bit anyway, so I wasn’t too worried about it.   

My mom and step-dad came into town for the weekend and we took them to the screening, but we had to leave about half way through to make our reservations for her birthday dinner.  It was really cool to see so many people coming down to support the event either by making a film (mid-forties) or watching them (looked to be over 400).  I thought that the venue was neat (one of the old Ranier brewery buildings that managed to survive the recent demolition).  Quite a few of the films that I got to see were really entertaining.  I wasn’t crazy with how the film version looked on the DVD because you could tell see the video controls on the computer in the shot, but I was able to crop it down and it looks a little better here.  The transfer also slowed down when played back from film, so it threw the synching out a bit.  I had to really adjust the audio on this version afterwards to make it work. 

If you are interested in the differences between Super 8 and Mini-DV, this should give you some idea, although keep in mind that these are both pretty compressed versions for Youtube and the film version has gone from video to film and back to video again.

Snipers are Bad People!

One of my friends asked me about my last blog post about Howard Schultz.  He asked me if I thought it was responsible to include comments such as “Where is the crazed gunman when you need him?”.   The question made me think a little bit.  I wasn’t really suggesting that somebody should sit on a tower and take out Schultz with a high-powered sniper rifle.  I was merely wondering aloud.  After the initial shock of Columbine, it hasn’t really been a matter of if some crazed psycho with access to assault weapons will snap at a shopping mall, it’s just a matter of when.  The real sad thing is that when evil shit like that happens, it is usually a bunch of innocent people that get shot down.  That really doesn’t seem fair when that crazy fucker could just as easily take out an evil dick like Schultz instead.  Now, once again, I am not advocating this type of behavior.  I think it is deplorable.  I am merely suggesting that an evil act would be better served against an evil person than it would be some unarmed teenager buying a Britney Spears album at her local Sam Goody.   Evidence suggests that we haven’t seen the last random shooting.  I just wish that these folks would set their sights a little higher and try to reduce their evil footprint on the way out. 

This Kid Claims to want to Kill the President I`m pretty sure this kid can be arrested for releasing this. But, it is pretty crazy. Thanks Slog.

All I’m saying is that it’s too bad this kid isn’t a Sonics Fan.  If somebody out there IS a crazed Sonics Fan and you aren’t good at Google searches, let me help you out a bit.  I’ll periodically try to point you in the right direction (just make sure to leave Paul Allen and Mark Cuban alone). Today, we start with Number 1 on the list:

David Stern

645

Fifth Ave

New York

,

NY

10022

Andy McCone wants YOU!

Subject: Call to Seattle Filmmakers

Calling All Filmmakers!
Our production team is seeking filmmakers to document our May Day extravaganza, and we would love to have you join us!

Please join us in celebrating whimsy, dance, and cake in the streets of downtown Seattle on May 1, 2008.

PROJECT DESCRIPTION
The two-hour performance is unabashedly celebratory, evocative of the embarkation of a grand ocean liner of the early 20th century. Ooo La La is a free interactive public performance spectacular! Perfumed by the decorative exoticism of art deco coupled with the surrealist tendencies of the Jazz Age, this May Day confection celebrates sweets, romantic love, and the act of wishing.

LOCATIONS
Occidental Square: the dancers dance and throw a party dressed as bakers. The atmosphere is fun and festive. The bakers give away whole cakes to audience members.

Pioneer Square to Harbor Steps: Led by marching bands of bakers, along with groups of giggling dancing cakes, dancers parade through the city along three different routes from Pioneer Square to the Harbor Steps. At stop lights, dances erupt on sidewalks, inviting pedestrians and cars into the merriment.

Harbor Steps: As described in project description.

CONTACT
Andy McCone at andy@mccone.net or 206-819-5138 (www.imdb.com/name/nm1763677/)
Performance date: Thursday, May 1, 2008 (First Thursday); Occidental Square festivities kick off at 5 pm, Harbor Steps show begins at 6 pm.

Ooo La La is envisioned and created by Lucia Neare, with theatrical direction by Cathy Madden, musical direction by Matt Goodrich. and technical direction by David Verkade. Ooo La La is supported by 4Culture and GGLO.

Get to Know your Program Director

We are coming up on the 1 year anniversary of our Program Director, Brian Shelley’s wedding, which means that I am running out of time to give a wedding gift.  It was my goal to finish editing their wedding DVD before then and since it just went out to the replicator last week, I think I’ll make it by the skin of my teeth. 

One of my favorite things to edit was the slideshow of his bachelor party.  A group of us went to the Austin City Limits Festival and while nobody wanted to bring a video camera around for the weekend, we did end up taking quite a few pictures.   This probably won’t be as much fun if you weren’t there, but it should give you an idea about the man who was in charge of putting together the STIFF 2008 Program.  Yes, as a matter of fact that IS a Grateful Dead tattoo that he shares with two other semi-regretful men and no, I don’t think I ever would have become friends with him had I known about it beforehand.  If you see him at the STIFF this year, please ridicule him ask him to show it to you.  Bass in your face,  Brian.

The REAL Axis of Evil...

Today, the Seattle Times reports that Howard Schultz plans to sue to get the Sonics back.  The article states that Schultz “relied on promises made by Clay Bennett and his ownership that they desired to keep the team in Seattle and intended to make a good-faith effort to accomplish that” and he will be suing to unwind the deal.  Now all of the sudden Schultz cares whether or not the Sonics stay?  Suuuuuuuurrrrrrrre.....

When the sale was announced, people out there wanted to give Bennett the benefit of the doubt.  We all wanted to believe that he would actually make a move to keep the Sonics in town.  I can’t think of one single person who actually believed it though.  Does anyone really believe that Schultz really thought a bunch of Okies wanted to own a team in

Seattle

? 

Either Schultz is the dumbest billionaire on the planet (which is quite possible), or this whole thing has been as rigged as a game officiated by Tim Donaghy from the start.  I can easily imagine a plan hatched by the REAL axis of evil (Howard Schultz, Howard Stern and Clay Bennett) where an owner who is frustrated that his cash-strapped city has decided not to support the standard 200-300 million corporate NBA welfare program goes in with a commissioner fighting for the integrity of the game to sell to a redneck who just wants to feel like one of the big boys for a little while; hoping to scare the city into supporting this broke business model with a very real threat that the team will leave.  Now Schultz gets to ride in to be the hero with some secret side letter to save the Sonics?  This thing smells fishier than Starbucks’ Pike Place Blend. 

Please Howard…  Haven’t you already molested the city of

Seattle

enough?  Stay down in your tower counting all of the money you made raping Sonics fans.  I’d much rather have Mark Cuban acting as the voice of reason in this situation.  Where is a crazed gunman when you need him?

Rock On!

Rock On!, originally uploaded by Clint Berquist.

Thanks to everyone who came out to the pubcrawl yesterday. The turnout was great and I had a blast. It seemed like everyone else was having a pretty good time too. 8 hours of drinking was a nice reminder that I am no longer in my twenties. But, I am resourceful. Jessica and I took a cab home and had a pizza waiting waiting for us when we got there. The last thing I remember was passing out, I mean falling asleep, in front of Flavor of Love.

This evening, I decided to finally get on this Flikr thing and posted some pics I took. I am pretty bad at labeling the photos and lost steam after the first 15 or so, but from what i understand you can upload your own comments and details if you want. You can check them out by clicking on the badge to your right.

Hopefully everyone had fun. I have really only talked to Brian today, but he said that he hadn't heard of anyone winding up in jail, so we are going to go ahead and call this one a success. If you have any stories or photos of your own I'd love to hear/see em.

Thanks,
Clint

2008 Weekend Film Challenge Wrinkle 1 & 2

Hello everyone. My name is Joe Sexton and this year I have been given the task of organizing the Weekend Film Challenge. I have been corresponding with many of you via email, but I wanted to post a blog so everybody would have a place to get the latest updates and information. I would like to thank all the teams that have signed up this year and encourage anyone who hasn’t done so to contact me about signing up. As many of you know, we have made a few changes this year.

The first change is that we are not going to have just one weekend to make our films. This year we will hold a genre draft on Monday, May, 5th to determine the sort of film each team–will make. Teams will draft in the order that they sign up, so if you are on the fence it is to your advantage to sign up sooner.  Each team will have that week to plan its production. We ask that principle photography take place the weekend of the 9th through the 11th. Each team will then have a week for postproduction, reshoots, etc. The final cut of the film is due on Monday the 19th.

Another change to the challenge this year is the introduction of wrinkles. The wrinkles are replacing the traditional character, prop, and line of dialogue requirements of years past. We have already announced the first two wrinkles with the third and final wrinkle coming at the end of this month. Wrinkle number one requires each team to lend an actor from its production to the team which follows it. The team order is determined by the order in which teams signed up for the challenge. The second wrinkle is much like the first only instead of an actor, each team will also pass along a location from its production. For example, team one may end its film with a character running wildly across a grocery store parking lot. Team two then will have to incorporate the character running wildly as well as the parking lot in to its film. The experiement will be to link all the movies together and have them play as one continuous movie. How will this look when it's finished?  Hopefully cool, but who knows?  It's Experiemental.  I also hope that by promoting greater cooperation among teams and allowing more time to produce a film, we will be able to make a product that everyone can be proud of. I am personally looking forward to the challenge this year as I feel that the past couple of years teams have really raised the bar and this year the trend will continue. I think that with a bit of cooperation and some good teams we will make this year’s challenge the best one yet. Anybody who has any questions or input regarding this year’s challenge should contact me via email. I will be updating information and sending emails as new announcements are made. Stay tuned for an announcement about Wrinkle #3!  I’m looking forward to working with everyone to make this year’s challenge the best yet. Joe Sexton

Who's a Hairy Bear?

One interesting thing about social networking sites is the ability to re-connect with people from your past.  Recently, one of my old friends sent this link to me

http://www.manpaper.com/ViewCelebInfo_18277.html

Before yesterday, I had never even heard of Manpaper but apparently they have heard of me.   After the initial shock of thinking that they had run across some photo from my past, my first thought was that Manpaper had some pretty relaxed standards for what they considered a “celebrity”.  My second thought was, “who in their right mind would seek out nude pictures of my big, hairy butt?”  I would think that gay men looking for nude photos of Tom Welling, Leondaro DiCaprio and Brad Pitt would probably be pretty disappointed to run across photos of me instead. 

Then, I started to put two and two together.  Manpaper must just be scraping data from imdb and Youtube.  It is kind of cool to see recent videos that I have shot posted in one place (despite the fact that they have been posted on several different accounts), but I’m not really sure how Andy Peters would like to see his face above a link to “Check if Clint Berquist has ever posed Nude”.  I guess he’d have a sense of humor about it at least.  Manpaper wants you to pay for the privilege of knowing whether or not there are any nudies circulating.  I’d love to just post the darn thing, but I promised my wife that it would never see the light of day ever again. So, this will have to do. Try not to get your keyboard too sticky J

"Back when drugs were cheap..."

Something fun I shot awhile back just landed on Youtube...