Kansas City, Here We Come!

Today, we are just over two weeks out from our first screening at a film festival.  We are fortunate to have been invited to screen our film at the Kansas City Urban Film Festival (KCUFF) in Kansas City, MO.  This growing festival (in its 3rd year) takes pride in showing films made “by any means necessary.”  Given our history in making our film on our own dime and time, its sounds like the perfect place for us.  KCUFF… here we come!  

After our series of small screenings in the last month or so, it feels good to be able to get our film to another part of the country and to get more feedback.  We are incredibly happy with the response to our little documentary epic so far.

Not too many have people seen our film yet, but those that have seen FEAR OF A BLACK REPUBLICAN have been moved by what they have seen and experienced.  When about 90% or better of the audience stays after your film for your Q&A (and all the audiences have been made up of various demographics and political persuasions), you know you probably have something special.  And we do.  The questions and discussions have been tough and have ranged from the film itself to current events to personal testimonies backing up much of what we show on-screen.  And those are just the things that are said in public.  Privately, the conversations we have had with some members of the audience have been quite moving and inspirational.

For example, after one of our Wilmington screenings, we met a White Republican City Council candidate who busted his @## campaigning in the Black community (on his own, without Party support – he was  first-timer).  He lost by only 300 votes in a City of 70,000 people.  Just imagine what he could have done if he had some real Party support!  In Greensboro NC, we met a large man who otherwise could be the twin brother of NFL All-Pro Wide Receiver & “Dancing With The Stars” Winner, Hines Ward.  After the movie, I asked him if he liked it.  He promptly told me that he didn’t, primarily because we didn’t interview… RON PAUL???  Where’d that come from?  Wow.  Well, I explained that we never even got in physical proximity to Ron Paul (let alone, I’m not sure Congressman Paul would have much to say on the subject of our film anyway).  We did have an interesting discussion about the two-party system and the media with this man.  Not sure if he ended up a fan of the movie or of us, but we gave him a copy of our movie poster anyway.

In Charlotte, a great moment occurred when a middle-aged lady (who “came out” as a Black Republican a few years earlier) asked the White members of the audience if they had ever been called a “racist.”  Most sheepishly nodded their head, “yes.”  This same women then looked over to four White audience members who were sitting together (she didn’t know that they were members of our family) and promptly told them that they needed to “get over being called a racist” and to “stop being afraid and start coming into the community.”  That was moving, cool and awesome (and a little funny, too).

In Atlanta, we had several people trade in their GREEN LANTERN tickets to come see our film instead after they saw our movie poster in the lobby.  That was… you name the positive adjective.  Unfortunately, these nice folks hadn’t heard about FEAR OF A BLACK REPUBLICAN because their big, local newspaper – the Atlanta Journal-Constitution – refused to cover or review our film.  And this was after their Film Critic (who was VERY interested in seeing our film) asked me to get him a copy of our film RIGHT AWAY.  So, we Fed-Exed-Overnight a DVD Review Copy to him at a cost of $52.00).  Now before you call us naive, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution is the “New York Times of the South” and well, you do have to hope for the best.  Getting our film reviewed or having our World Premiere covered in that paper would be HUGE for a small film like ours.

Unfortunately, the film critic’s Assignments Editor who received our package - sat on the film and ignored our press release, our phone calls and our e-mails after Fed-Ex kindly delivered our DVD to her.  After I e-mailed the Critic to find out if he got the DVD, I received an e-mail telling me to contact his Assignments Editor.  Which I did by telephone and as she didn’t pick up, I left a message.  I didn’t get a call back, but I did get an e-mail from the Assignments Editor that she would try to watch our movie that very night and if it went well – she would meet with a few reporters in the next morning.  Oh, and I should feel free to call her and check in again.  So I did. Then, I did again. And again.  I wasn’t being a pest about it as I spread my phone calls out over the next week.  I even e-mailed the Critic again but heard nothing.  I’m sure he is a nice guy who was just stuck in as a bad a situation with this as we were.   My final phone calls to the Atlanta Journal-Constitution came from a busy truck stop in Northern Georgia as we drove down from New Jersey a few days before our Premiere.  

Long-story short… the Film Critic, who is a well-known and distinguished writer, probably never even got our film.   If the Assignments Editor wanted to hurt our film (and we don’t know if this was her intention or not), she did a good job -  as did others.  Because also we sent the press release, sent e-mails, sent postcards and made phone calls to several other Atlanta Journal-Constitution employees.  No where, no where did a mention of our film make it into their paper.  Even though about 25% of our film takes place in Atlanta and the surrounding area. 

Even without their coverage, we still got the small weekly papers to cover us and they did some nice pieces on us and our film.  We still had a great “World Premiere” Screening/Q&A for those who came, including some of the Atlanta folks who appear in our film.  The crowd would have been a lot larger if the local “newspaper of record” at least mentioned our Screening as a community event listing.  I’m just sayin’.  

Well, the next day (after our World Premiere) and after all our ignored requests – we left Atlanta for our next screening in Charlotte NC, but had to make a little detour first.  Our Co-Producer Tamara, wanted to stop by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution headquarters to get our DVD back from the Assignments Editor.  Now, that our Premiere was over – they surely wouldn’t need our DVD, right?  The nice security guard that Tamara spoke with kept trying to contact said Assignments Editor, but to no avail.  For whatever reason, she fortunately decided to get a Coke or something and happened by the Security Guard booth.  The guard called out to her, then introduced her to Tamara.  After pretending she barely heard of our film before, she promised to send our DVD back.  That was eight weeks ago and we are still waiting.  Go figure.

Even though our media coverage wasn’t the best, we did get to meet a lot of great people, exchange political views with Republicans and many, many Democrats.  And we did start building “word of mouth” on our film.  Having done all this on our own, our Southern Tour was worth it in spades.  There is no feeling like showing your film in a movie theater when the lights go down.  A wide-screen TV or computer screen can’t compete.  It is simply an amazing feeling you can’t duplicate anywhere else and we recommend to any other indie filmmakers out there to do it at least once.  Just for yourself as an artist.  However, don’t count on getting coverage from the bigger media outlets even if you work super-hard to get it.  Make sure you hit the smaller outlets, just do it at least 3-4 weeks out and have plenty of production stills (that gets you extra page space and “visually” helps sell your film).  Trust me, we can’t thank these smaller publications enough.

How will we get to more movie theaters around the country?  We are working hard on that.  All we can say is that word is getting around.  Which is great because we’ve had to prove that there is a market for a film like ours.  The Kansas City Urban Film Festival will hopefully be a capstone for proving that there IS a market for our film like ours and also serve as a great kick-start for the future.  We are working hard sending postcards (200+), e-mails, press releases and this week, making phone calls in order to pack the 150-seat theatre (at the Screenland Crossroads) that we will be screening in.  Tickets will be available soon at http://www.screenland.com/crossroads#Coming

We are expecting a great Screening and Q&A in Kansas City.  If you can make it there, please join us.  If you can’t make it, hopefully you’ll get a chance to see our film in the future in a theater or on DVD.

Take care, be well and please go see an independent film as often as possible.

Slainte.

South of the Border?

Well, we are nearly ready to announce some upcoming screenings down South.  We are tentatively booked for Atlanta, GA for the night of Thursday, June 23rd.  But, we have to finalize the rental of the screening space.  Once that is set, we can lock in the other screenings/dates on our quick tour of I-85 between Atlanta and Richmond, VA.

With any luck we'll be able to do 4-5 screenings over six days, before heading for home.  We are really, really looking forward to this as we have not screened the film for an audience yet.  At least an audience not made up of crew, family, friends, etc.  The Q&As should be exciting and we will do our best to make them so.

To update, the film is making its way out into the world very slowly, but surely.  Up to now, everything has been word of mouth and whatever is posted on the internet by bloggers, etc.  We have been sending postcards to people who have given us their business cards over the years at CPAC, etc. and media we have come across.  Hopefully, these screenings will really help start the national buzz on the film.

We'll let you know when everything is finalized...

This Facebook/Twitter/Social Media Stuff Is Hard! Plus Some Other Stuff.

Sorry, as always, that we haven’t been blogging as much as you might expect.  Doing a blog is hard enough within the content of a website versus something like Blogger.  The Social Media stuff which is SO standard nowadays is even tougher.

We’ve been focusing a good bit of time on learning Twitter and Facebook.  It is funny, but we’ve heard two different schools on these two powerhouses.  More than a few have told us that Twitter is better to promote and get the “word out.”  Others say, at least that Oscar-nominated movie did, that Facebook is the way to go.

Admittedly, I’ve been avoiding Facebook.  It seems like an energy-suck that makes you less “real” to people than a blog does.  At least to me.  Plus, that Zuckerberg guy… I dunno.  I hope Newark really does get that $100,000,000.  Cory Booker is doing God’s work up there and I’m a fan.  Just wish he had a twin brother here for us in Trenton.  And that this twin brother would at least lean Republican.  I can dream, can’t I?

To update everyone, Tammy and I were on the “Tracey and Friends” Radio Show on an AM station in Youngstown, OH.  It went really well for us and Tracey was a great host.  We even got some callers from around the country via the internet and one was a self-proclaimed “progressive liberal.”   We got some great questions from everyone and learned a lot ourselves about live radio in this day and age.  During the commercial breaks, we could hear and speak with the Internet callers from around the country (South Carolina, Florida, etc.).  But unless you were listening on the internet, you would not be able to hear us or the other callers.  Very strange.  And something to be careful about in the future.  Thanks, Tracey!

Before this interview, I was on Midred Gaddis’ “Inside Detroit” show on an AM Station in Detroit.  This was the day after President Obama produced his long-form birth certificate.  Whew!  I was sweating about getting “birther” questions, but none came up.  The big question was whether I actually talked to any Black Republicans and whether they knew that their Party had a racist image.  Mildred kindly played the trailer for the audience to hear, which was cool to hear and I was happy that even without the associated video – the trailer works!  You can hear this short interview at our website, http://www.fearofablackrepublican.com/.

As for screenings, this is coming together at a slow pace.  We are hoping to announce some screenings soon, which will very likely start “Down South.”  How “Down South” we still have to determine, but wherever we screen first will be our World Premiere.  As long as we have enough lead time, we should be able to draw a crowd and hopefully some of FEAR OF A BLACK REPUBLICAN’s participants.  Will let you know as soon as we can.  We were hoping to announce something by now, but booking theatres without a distributor isn’t a cheap proposition.  But, we just can’t wait to screen before an audience.  That is the moment all filmmakers want.  We sure do.

I’ll close with a film recommendation.  DEFINITELY check out the documentary IT MIGHT GET LOUD, which is directed by Davis Guggenheim.  Guggenheim also directed WAITING FOR SUPERMAN.  In IT MIGHT GET LOUD, he gathers up Jimmy Page from Led Zeppelin, Jack White from The White Stripes and The Edge from U2 to talk about electric guitars and being a guitarist.  It is an excellent blend of three eras of electric guitar by some amazing musicians, using great archival footage, music and interviews.  The “summit scene” where all three guitarists get together on a sound stage are something to check out.  They just rolled the cameras and got out of Page, White and Edge’s way.  The DVD commentary is great also.

That is it for now...