A jury of five industry professionals voted to not advance your project.  The judges were in agreement your production had a decent idea but the execution was below average.

Where your film scored the weakest was in performance.  One judge was impressed with the opening titles but continued they weren’t a big fan of ‘poop humor.’  Another judge thought the music was a bit forced in places that didn’t need music.  A third judge “enjoyed the intended quirky humor of this film but the sluggish editing couldn’t support the pace needed for the cartoonish story and characters.”  Two judges agreed the writing snowballed downhill getting worse at the end.  All in all the consensus was the film had it’s moments but failed to sustain interest.

The Golden Sombrero in baseball is the inglorious feat of striking out 4 times.  We’re beyond that now.  Marathon is 0 - 5.  Most of these aren’t suprising, but still a bummer.

REJECTED TO:
CineVegas - a Tier 1 festival that only accepts 20 shorts.  this was expected.
Cannes - really?  i thought we’d get in.  no. we never had a chance but it’s free to submit so i did it anyway. 
Santa Cruz FF - this one i was holding out hope for.  it’s a tier 2 festival that’s been around for about 10 years.
London Indy FF - i thought we’d get into this one for sure.  they love micro-budget films.
NYC Downtown FF - i don’t know much about this one, but we didn’t get in.

NOOO!!!!!!  Just heard back today from our first film festival…London Independent Film Festival.  The response?  Not Accepted.  It feels bad to get off on this step but we’ll keep hoping for the best.  I said I would report the good and the bad.

Let’s hope the future holds better news!

I never liked London anyway.

Today I compiled a list of the film festivals where Marathon has been sent - 32 total festivals.  I’ve ranked them by Tier 1, Tier 2, and Tier 3.  Tier 1 festivals are very difficult to get into - if we get into 1 or 2 of them I would be ecstatic.  Tier 2 festivals are well known but not major - I’m hoping for a 50% acceptance rate from them.  Tier 3 is new film festivals that are just emerging.  I’m hoping for a 90% success rate to those festivals.

We haven’t heard back from any of them yet…

Tier 1 (8 submissions - 25% of entries)
CineVegas (Las Vegas)
USA Film Festival (Houston)
New Orleans Film Festival
Cannes Film Festival (France)
CFC Worldwide Shorts Fest (Toronto)
Palm Springs International Shorts Fest
Los Angeles Film Festival
Austin Film Festival

Tier 2 (12 submissions - 38% of entries)
Dance With Films (Hollywood)
Malibu International Film Festival
Santa Cruz Film Festival (CA)
Sidewalk Moving Picture Festival (Alabama)
Santa Monica International Film Festival (CA)
Over the Fence Comedy Film Festival (Australia)
St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase
San Diego Film Festival
LA New Filmmakers at Sunset Gower
Hollyshorts (Hollywood)
Big Bear Lake International Film Festival (CA)
Route 66 Film Festival (Illinois)

Tier 3 (12 submissions - 38% of entries)
Red Rock Film Festival of Zion Canyon (Utah)
The Iron Mule Short Comedy Screening Series (NY)
DC Shorts Film Fest
The Other Venice Film Festival (CA)
What the Hell Did I Just Watch Comedy Festival (Seattle)
NYC Downtown Film Festival
London Independent Film Festival
Hollywood Ultra Fest
Central Florida Film Festival
15 Minutes of Fame (Florida)
Indie Fest USA (CA)
SoCal Independent Film Festival 

We would be happy to be accepted into any of these festivals - the reason they were chosen is because they are all well run and have a history of putting on great festivals (especially the Tier 3 festivals).  It’s easy to decide to send your film to Palm Springs but deciding between Indie Fest USA and Woodstock FF is where it gets tough.

Another consideration was region.  15 of the 32 submissions are within 3 hours driving distance of Los Angeles and we can attend without buying a plane ticket or hotel.

Breakdown by Region
Local (LA) - 15 (47% of entries)
South - 6 (19%)
International - 4 (13%)
East - 3 (9%)
Midwest - 2 (6%) 
West - 2 (6%) - not including LA 

So hopefully we can achieve our goals, but if not we can always try again.  I’m afraid there’s a few things holding our film back for festivals.  One being that it’s 15 minutes (we’d like to keep the next one under 10 for sure) and the other being that there are a lot of characters and locations for such a short film.  But we’ve learned from our mistakes.  It’s still a good movie regardless.

I started watching HBO’s The Wire thanks to a high review from PASTE Magazine.  I watched the first episode of season 1 last night.  It wasn’t amazing, but it wasn’t bad.  I’ll give it a few more episodes and see where it goes…

I’m also in the middle of season 2 of 30 Rock.  This show is amazing so far!!!

I’ll give more thorough updates when I complete the seasons.  All I can say now is that I love Tracy Morgan.  That’s all I’m watching right now besides The Office and LOST on real TV (what a drag!  It’s much better to just get things on DVD) and I occasionally watch a Doogie Howser episode on Hulu.com.

Marathon has now been submitted to 23 film festivals and we won’t be hearing back from any of them for a few months or so…I’ll report how we do (good or bad).  We submitted to some major festivals (LA, Cannes, USA FF, and Palm Springs) and some smaller festivals so who knows???

As far as books go — I’m completely obsessed with “Bowerman and the Men of Oregon” right now.  The stories from the early 60’s are amazing.  Not only running stories but Bowerman tinkering with types of track surfaces, mental aspects of coaching and treating different runners, and founding the company we know as Nike.

Musically, I’ve been listening to “Dark was the Night” - it’s a compilation album including Andrew Bird, Bon Iver, and The National - and “Elvis Perkins in Dearland”.

Here’s a video by Elvis Perkins that a secret source led me to: