First Public Screening

I know it's called a "world premier" but the first public screening of "Voices of the Homeless" was held at a library in downtown Ventura, CA, to 70 people and to me it felt like a humble screening I was simply grateful to have.

We started at 10 minutes after because we heard people were having trouble parking, but then people continued to arrive 10-15 minutes after the film began.  Donald McConnel from CAPS-TV and I decided it was better to have people see the film, late or not, so we decided to continue to let people in after the house went dark.  It was disruptive when the latecomers walked in but so were those three attempts I made to get the DVD to play (how hard is it to hit the "on" button?). Thank God I knew today wouldn't be perfect.

But people came.  A lot of people.  The house was over full.  And I was honored to have 3-Dogs Mike, Donna Rogers, and Dan Flowers there; three people who have or still are homeless who wanted to represent the people we are trying to help with this film and to educate the public to the fact that not all the homeless are alike. 

It is early evening now and I have a massive headache from the chocolate cake and wine I ate on an empty stomach directly after the screening.  But I am happy.  I did it.  And I hope it will help.

For ANYBODY who is reading this blog who is interested in seeing this film, I can be reached at tonij@tonijannotta.com  Contact me.  I will show this film anywhere . . . any time.

Thank you again to all who took the time to drive to Ventura from L.A. to Santa Barbara, to see this little 35-minute film that took me two years to make.

Thank you.

And now . . . to the next one.
:-)

Ventura County Reporter Article

Incredible article came out today in the Ventura County Reporter, our hip weekly.

I am so grateful for this.  In print it is a full page article written with warmth and heart by Michel Miller.  Check it out:

http://www.vcreporter.com/cms/story/detail/outside_voices/10114/

Screening SUNDAY 8/26 in downtown Ventura

How I wish I was a couch potato.  How I wish.  But there is so much to do to prepare for the first public screening this Sunday of "Voices of the Homeless."

"Voices of the Homeless," a documentary about a performance where jazz improvisers helped the homeless tell their stories in concert will be held:

SUNDAY
August 26, 2012
2:00 p.m.
at
The EP Foster Library
651 E. Main Street
downtown Ventura, CA
in The Topping Room

Admission is FREE

We will have a Q&A after the screening with a couple of people who participated in the film.


Hope to see you there!

Festival Submissions

I did it!  I was afraid I wouldn't be able to navigate my way around these damn sites but it turned out to be like cake and I did it!

I submitted "Voices of the Homeless" to the Santa Barbara International Film Festival and to Sundance!  So thrilled.  I do NOT expect interest from Sundance but it is exciting to try.

Next screening is for the public at the downtown EP Foster Library in Ventura, California.  That is one week from today.

I think I'm starting to relax.
:-)

First Screening

Finally, at the end of this long week I am sitting in front of my computer, jar of almond butter mit spoon in one hand, glass of 2-buck-chuck in the other (Cabernet).  Finally, I have time to write about my first screening!

I don't know why this feels like just had a baby.  I've never had one.  I don't really know what that feels like.  But I lost sleep with worry before the screening and now that it is over, I carry a DVD of the documentary around with me in my purse!  It makes my already heavy purse even heavier.  There's no reason to carry it around with me.  But I'm afraid to put it down, like I don't want to be too far away from it, as if it will disappear, as if it's really not real.  I'm its protector.  I'm its guardian.  I'm a weirdo.

So today is Friday and it was last Wednesday at 7pm at CAPS-TV Ventura (our local public access station) that I held my first screening to a group of about 20 friends in the studio.  I was horribly nervous, particularly because of all the 11th hour problems we've had.  Then as I sat there with the DVD player, projector, little sound board, etc., etc., I watched it all the way through on a large screen for the first time.  I did this so I wouldn't have any surprises.  And I'm so glad I did because that's when I found out that there were two clips where the sound dropped to one channel and then jumped back to two.  I then remembered a sound problem I had had the day I taped this particular interview.  So this was something we should have heard and dealt with when we were dealing with sound issues during the final fluff and tickle.  And yet there it was -- silence for two clips. 

I was lucky.  I found out about this an hour before people started arriving.  I had a mixing board in front of me.  So during the screening I pumped up the sound for those two clips and then turned it back down again. 

But I was fuming.  This was something that we should have, or my "pro" editor should have, caught and had the knowledge to trouble shoot and fix.  Yes, I had become far too close to it.

After the screening we had a 3-person panel for a Q&A period.  That was very, very interesting.  The film seemed to touch people.  I was thrilled, though I still find it hard to believe.

After the screening I had wine with friends and the next day at my day job I felt like a super sensitive 5-year-old who'd had no sleep.  I think it's called a hang over.

Tomorrow I am being photographed for an article in the Ventura County Reporter.  On August 26th, I will hold a public screening at the downtown library.  THAT will be very telling because it won't be a safe audience filled with my friends.  And I am submitting it to the Santa Barbara Film Festival, Sundance, and our local Ventura Film Society -- so far.  Submitting to festivals will be another way to really tell what I've got. 

Right now I can't tell a thing.  I am way, way, way too close to it.

I'm a new mom whose carrying her baby around in her purse.

P.S.  Tonight we fixed the sound problem on those two clips -- I hope.

11th Hour Stuff

There's a process in album making (which, yes, becomes a CD), called "mastering."  It's where the EQ is taken care of and the spaces are placed between the songs, etc., etc.  Sound engineers do this work.  I'm used to the "final" process in making albums but I'm new to video editing.  Once I finished editing "Voices of the Homeless," I asked myself what more it needed to look good and sound its best and decided to hire a video engineer to fluff and tickle the entire project in Final Cut Pro (I edited in iMovie 11) before I started screenings . . . before I considered it done.

The first problem was he took several days to even start when I thought it would have been completed last week.  Then instead of it taking him "a couple of hours" to do the work it took six.  Then when we watched it together, I saw he had made some "improvements," which I had to ask him to un-improve.

Trust me, the project looks much richer in color and much more balanced in sound -- but this was a hassle!!  Then he got sick over the weekend when I expected we'd be done already.  It goes without saying that I started losing sleep.  Last night, Monday, we finally finished.  The first private screening is Wednesday and we weren't finished until last night!  An 11th hour person I am not.

And finally on the list of issues was that his computer would not burn copies of the discs.  It kept crashing.  Three copies were successfully made and he's still trying to burn three more.  So he still has my hard drive!  I miss my hard drive!

But I've got a copy for the first screening and other copies to start sending out to festivals.

First screening - CAPS-TV Ventura, CA where I edited the project, Wednesday the 15th.

Ventura County Star Article

Here is the link to the article in the Ventura County Star:

http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/aug/07/documentary-helps-woman-tell-stories-of-venturas/

Thank you again, Mark Storer, contributing writer to the Star.

33-minute film depicts stories of local homeless

"Jazz leads singer to make documentary"

Those were the two lines at the top of the article that appeared in yesterday's (Sunday's) Ventura County Star.  The story came out in the B Section and was written by contributing writer, Mark Storer.

I was blown away.  I just gave the interview.  It hit the paper mighty fast.  Wowie.

As soon as the story posts to the internet I will find the link and post it here.

Again, wowie.

Ventura County Star

Last night I gave my first interview to promote the documentary to a news writer named Mark Storer of the Ventura County Star, our largest newspaper in Ventura County.  We talked for about 1/2 an hour.  He is writing a preview story on the upcoming screenings for "Voices of the Homeless." 

It still amazes me how lucky I am to have this kind of publicity for this project.  Again, I am not a filmmaker.  I am a jazz singer with a day job who took classes at the local public access station and figured out how to use a video camera and video editing systems.  Then thanks to some very patient mentors at the station, eventually, it all came together. 

And whether or not this project had a huge budget (it didn't even have A budget), and whether or not it took me two years to make it, it's done!  And I believe it is good. 

Now I will see how audiences respond to it.

So as long as I'm promoting, let me say:

"Voices of the Homeless," a documentary about a performance where Jazz improvisers helped the Homeless tell their stories in concert."

More to come . . .