Sunday, March 26, 2006
Film making is such a marathon. Writing, raising money, producing, editing, mixing, and now marketing and promoting Stomp! Shout! Scream! has taken well over three years and the first dollar of income has yet to come in. Making tons of money was certainly NOT the impetus for taking on a project like this, but investors are involved and I feel a great responsibility to make this film as financially successful as possible.
And it’s really just the beginning of the public life of Stomp! Shout! Scream! Films can run on the festival circuit for a year or more. The plan has always been to travel with the film and sell DVDs after each screening. I knew it would be a 5 or 10 year project when I started, but being right in the middle is exhausting.
Actual income will start at the Sarasota Film Festival when Stomp! Shout! Scream! screens Saturday, April 1 at 5:00 pm (& again Sunday, April 2 at noon) and the just-finished DVD’s are sold for the first time. Like most everything on this film, the DVD was self-produced and will be self-distributed at festival screenings and RIGHT HERE.
This will be a really special screening for several reasons. Stomp! Shout! Scream! will be seen for the first time ever in High Definition. I try to not evaluate or judge the film because I’m just too close to it, but I am certain that it will look BIG and BEAUTIFUL on that Regal Hollywood 20 screen. This will also be the first time for the Florida contingent of friends, family, volunteers and crew to see it. Investor, actress, band-namesake and my grandmother-- Theodora Viola-- will be there, too. I’m thrilled that she will be able to see it on a big screen, with a big home-town crowd.
The DVD is chuck-full of goodness. It has commentary from writer/director/me, DP Evan Lieberman, Producer Arma Benoit, actors Ned Hastings, Jonathan Green, Mary Kraft, and Cynthia Evans. There’s over an hour of behind-the-scenes vignettes, interviews, raw footage and deleted scenes—all with commentary from cast and crew.