SCV FIlm Festival – Opening Night

Last night Dani, her mother and I went to the opening night of the Santa Clarita Valley Film Festival. It was “VIP” night, and invitation only. We didn’t really know what to expect, only that boy|man was showing at some point. But upon entering we were handed a ballot and were surprised to see our little picture selected as one of three “Best of the Festival” contenders. The lobby quickly filled up with filmmakers and local dignitaries and Dani and her mother kept seeing people they hadn’t seen in years. It was pretty cool for me, not having lived in this comunity very long to see her presenting a movie, a very good movie at that, in front of people that have known her most of her life. The festival organizers put on a classy affair with food and wine in the lobby as we mingled and waited for the theater doors to open. I struck up a conversation with a fellow named Champ Williams who enthusiastically informed us that his film, Attack of the Sea Slugs would also be showing.

Finally we headed into the theater and the program started. The first block of films were best college student films of the festival. The first two were CG Animated pieces, both dialog free and very cool. Champs film played third. He was sitting right in front of us. About 2 minutes in the picture began to stutter and finally it stopped altogether. Someone from the festival announced that they would “try anther DVD player”. Which they did, restarting the movie at the beginning. I was cringing for Champ but he seemed unfazed.

This time the film played to completion. It was like a chapter strait out of the awesome BBC series, Planet Earth. Champ had spent almost 4 months diving in the frigid waters of Puget Sound to photograph the “Sea Slugs” and the incredible ecosystem they inhabit. Filmed only at night and using time laps photography Champ constructed an amazing little passion piece of a film and seeing it I was instantly struck by his talent and the massive effort his film must have taken. Please check out the link.

Next was another documentary, Catharsis. This time about a 93 year old Polish Holocaust survivor living in Burbank California. His wife and 4 year old son had died in a concentration camp and when he was finally released he came to America and for the next 60 years or so, in his free time had turned his home into a museum of his crafts. Using only a small saw, a file and some sandpaper he had constructed thousands of tiny houses, buildings and temples, furniture and other props to fill them, all working. Letters, plaques, flags with “over 60 thousand sequins”, all hand sown. It was pretty amazing.

Then was the “Best of the Festival” shorts, taken from all the professional submissions. Boy|man was first and as always had a pretty excellent audience response. It is best seen with a large audience I believe and all the moments were paying off well. Then, about 3/4′s of the way through, just as Champs film had done, it stuttered and then stopped all together. Just before the big climax (if you can call it that). Sigh… Now we knew what it felt like. And it didn’t feel good. They switched DVD players and started over from the top, and although it’s only an 11 minute film, the second play felt like an eternity. But the audience picked up right where they left off and seemed invested and the payoff worked. Its not a movie that panders to the audience, it keeps them guessing and in the end always surprises and this is a huge part of the charm. It was however hard not feel like some of the thunder was stolen by the glitch.

The next two films, His Good Will & Struck were both very good. Very good company to be in. Excellent production value and both with some pretty big name talent in front of the camera. As a producer of boy|man I was just very proud to see our film included in the group and especially proud of Danielle for all the work she did to make it what it is. The other two movies in our category both had pretty large crews by comparison where as Dani did 90% of everything on boy|man herself. And the viewer will never know that and I guess that’s why I’m so proud of the film and her.

I am pretty doubtful we will win but like I said, it’s awesome just to be recognized. It does feel good to show your work in your own local community and these people have built a great little festival with some great films to show.

- Staley Out