DANCES WITH FILMS FESTIVAL (July 23-29) is a newer festival - though you'd never know it from its two organizers Michael Trent and Leslie Scallon. Again this year it was held at the Laemmle 4-plex theater in Santa Monica and managed to attract a very healthy press following for the run of the festival. They hold true to their claim, "No Stars, No Known Directors, No Known Money."

After the lackluster experience we had with the last festival, we wanted to maximize our marketing potential with this one. So Katherine and I decided to hire a professional PR firm to better market our film at Dances. We created dozens of postcards which we didn't have previously and additional posters for advertising. After talking with half a dozen different MARKETING FIRMS Katherine and I settled on RMH MEDIA (run by Jeff and Rita Hollingsworth), who also happened to be doing the publicity for the festival - a good way to gaurantee your being included in all press opportunities.

A few days later Katherine's name appeared with a few other filmmakers in an article about the festival in VARIETY (click here for 'Press Room'). Next a handful of the films were sent to KEVIN THOMAS of the LOS ANGELES TIMES for review in the newspaper. Only two films ended up being reviewed in that article. You guessed it, "The Innocents" was one and the other, "THE HEIGHT OF THE SKY" directed by Lyn Clinton - yes PRESIDENT CLINTON'S cousin. Both films received incredible reviews by Kevin Thomas (click here to read LA Times Review of "The Innocents" in 'Press Room'.)

Talk spread thoroughly enough so that the LA Times review combined with the BUZZ around town got us a telephone call from MIRAMAX. They wanted to see a private screening of "The Innocents". All of this and we haven't even had our first screening yet (click here for full MIRAMAX STORY in 'Latest News'.) We decided to bring them the print after our first screening.

Our first screening was on Sunday, July 25 at 7:30 p.m., it was wrought with technical problems. The projector couldn't be focused and it kept losing synch with the sound. Two problems which do not exist on our print. There was nothing we could do but sit down and watch this technical foul with daggers in our stomachs, praying that the place would catch fire or something to make everyone forget what they had just watched.

Oh well, no fires. Thankfully the problems were resolved and the second screening on Tuesday, July 27 at 2:00 p.m., went perfectly. No out of focus, no out of synch. Most of the distributors RMH Media contacted were unable to attend the screenings but would be able to attend the HOLLYWOOD MARKET screening (see above). We got great press out of this fest and had a great time. Dances is a very FILMMAKER FRIENDLY festival with lots of opportunities to get to know the other filmmakers and the organizers.

<< Previous Festival Main Festival Page Next Festival>>