And the winner is…

From Left to Right: Courtney Cunniff, Cassandra Ketrick, Rebecca Eskreis, Maddie Perry

Noodling! The short USC thesis film I produced over a year ago won its first awards this weekend at the Trail Dance Film Festival!

You really never know if you are going to win these awards. We were up against some talented folks, including a must-see short called After School Special by Neil LeBute.

We were nominated for two awards, and we were lucky enough to go home with two awards. For Best Short Drama and Best Actor/Actress in a Short. Maddie Perry, our lead actress, took home the best actor award. We were so excited for her! She definitely deserved it and it was a nice way to honor her hard work. She is truly a talented actress, and only 17 years old!

Rebecca and Maddie photobombed by festival director, Anthony Foreman.

I LOVE film festivals. They are the best way to get re-inspired and make new friends. We met all kinds of awesome and people and I reconnected with some I met last year. Glass City Films, based out of Chicago, come to Trail Dance every year with a new feature to screen. Not only that, they are award winners. Not only that, they are REALLY awesome people. This year John Klein brought along Cole Simon, an actor turned director. With John and Cole at our side, let’s just say…we had fun.

It was also my boyfriend’s first time to a film fest and he even said it, it’s inspiring. He’s one of the most talented people I know (see!), and Trail Dance even surprised him! I’m tellin’ ya…this is the film fest to go to.

Filmmaker's Brunch= mimosas and cowboys. From Left to Right: Cassandra Ketrick, David Bizzaro, John Klein, and Cole Simon.

I don’t have enough good things to say about this film fest. It’s in a town you’ve never heard of (even if you are from Oklahoma). Duncan, Oklahoma. Duncan prides itself on its Chisholm Trail history. The film festival is run by the most thoughtful, passionate, down-to-earth people you’ve ever met. I LOVE IT. It’s one of the few film fests where I’ve met people I care to keep in touch with and actually have friendships after the fact. It’s really this film fest that makes that happen.

We are looking forward to working with Cole and Simon from Glass City Films in the future! Trail Dance, you made that happen.

Onto the next

I have been chair of the Cinematic Artists of Norman for over two years. And I’m so proud! The group that I helped start is still going and growing! But it was time for me to step down and encourage other filmmaking leaders to take a stab at running the organization.

As an open group, we accept nominations from the masses, but I knew that finding someone to run for a role as big as chair would require some recruiting. There were very few people on the list. I took into account personalities, availability, humility, and location. I was very nervous that at the end of the day no one would want to step up and take over. Then what?

Excited doesn’t really describe how I felt when Adam Beatty contacted me about my email regarding the election. He was a perfect match. I have known Adam since the conception of CAN. He is actually the man that named the group. It was his suggestion, The Cinematic Artists of Norman, that gave this baby a name. He is a talented, outgoing, local filmmaker who really has a knack for connecting with people both on and off screen. He was perfect! In an uncontested race, Adam was elected the new chair of the Cinematic Artists of Norman on Sunday, Jan. 15. In addition to Adam, we also have two new awesome CAN Executive members, Craig Nelson (Special Initiatives Chair) and Sara Brown (Co-Chair). 2012 is definitely going to rock for CAN!

It’s a great feeling to know that something you started is still alive and well. It’s the greatest feeling to know it is in good hands.

Please consider being involved in this amazing group. A collaborative group of filmmakers is hard to come by. Throw in talent to boot, and what are you waiting for? Learn something, teach others, grow, connect, and be amazed at what we can accomplish as filmmakers in Oklahoma!

@CAofNorman

CAN Website

CAN Facebook Fan Page 

Lean/Six Sigma Adventures

“There they are – the Six Sigmas themselves. Each of them embodies a pillar of the Six Sigma philosophy: teamwork, insight, brutality, male enhancement, handshakefulness, and play hard.” -Jack Donaghy, 30 Rock.

My first encounter with Six Sigma was via one of the best shows on TV, 30 Rock. Then I found out that it was an actual REAL thing. A co-worker of mine is a Green Belt in Six Sigma, and I was instantly intrigued. Belts? Like martial arts? Yup. OK. Count me in.

Recently I had the pleasure of taking the Six Sigma Fundamentals class at the University of Oklahoma sans Jack Donaghy. This certification is offered under the College of Engineering, Dr. B.M. Pulat teaches the 5 day course over 3 weekends.

If you couldn’t tell already, I’m the complete opposite of an engineer. Numbers make me nervous. Numbers intimidate me. My worse subjects were always math, and…math. It was never a strong suite. I took one (count ‘em) ONE math course in my entire college career. And that was more than fine with me. But I was about to embark on Six Sigma training, and I knew there was math…lots of it. I was nervous.

To my surprise the math was very basic. Plug in the numbers, add, subtract, divide…square root. Using my (borrowed) TI-83 Plus made me feel like a real math whiz. For the first time in my life I was calculating things that made sense to me. We applied all of our calculations to real life situations, which made so much more sense to me.

Some may say Six Sigma is only for factories and assembly lines. While this is most definitely true, it is not the total truth. Lean/Six Sigma can be applied to any kind of process. Just think about your daily activities and how you waste time and energy. If you did things a little differently you could probably get rid of that waste. Lean helps you figure out where the waste is, Six Sigma helps you analyze and collect data to see if your new process is any better. And ultimately, this method of thinking is all about the customer.

I am starting to use my fundamentals class to make my current job more efficient. I love it!

So my next step is to complete my Green Belt Certification. Wish me luck! Hi-Yaw! (I had to do it)

And the Beat Goes on

It’s the end of the summer, even though it didn’t feel like it at first with the over 100-degree weather continuing into September… However, thinking back about this summer I realized that a lot has happened the way of two films I’ve produced in the past year-ish. It can truly be categorized as the summer of sound. So I wanted to share!

1. 1 in 3 has a talented sound mixer/editor and we went to Philadelphia with 1 in 3 for the Urban Suburban Film Festival.

2. Noodling is almost complete! We had some ADR sessions this summer with the talented RK-1 Productions and music is all composed by Jeremy Bullock and mixed by Amy Reynolds.

Attending the Urban Suburban Film Festival was fun for numerous reasons. I had never ventured (in a car) that north before. Three of us packed up my Nissan Versa with clothes and snacks and hit the road for the 24 hour drive. We drove straight there, taking sleeping shifts to keep the energy up. It was pretty intense but we were determined to not spend any extra money on hotels. Success! (albeit a sleepy one)

The other element to this trip was the reunion of Lagueria, me, and our film professor, Heidi Mau. Heidi taught our film classes over 5 years ago. This class the very same class that I met Lagueria for the first time. A few years later we would reconnect because of my work at the Women’s Resource Center domestic violence shelter, and 1 in 3 was born. It felt very appropriate that we were now taking the film to a Philly film festival (where she now lives) and meeting up with the professor who not only taught us what we know, but is part of the reason we were able to successful make 1 in 3. It was just great seeing her again and being able to reconnect with someone who had made such a grande impression on us.

And the film festival itself was a delight to attend. The director of the festival, George Blackmon, is the most friendly person and really believes in indie filmmakers and showcasing diversity in the arts. His hospitality ranged from recommending the cheapest/best breakfast buffet at the Hilton down the street, to having a never ending supply of Tastykakes on hand. Overall, Philly was a blast! Tiring, but totally worth it. The drive alone was the most beautiful scenery on the way back. Listening to Tina Fey’s book, Bossy Pants, helped too

Currently 1 in 3 is undergoing sound mixing/editing by local audio master, Royce Sharp. We are big fans of his work and when he had an opening in his schedule (which never happens) we snatched him up!

The short USC thesis film that I produced last summer is close to completion! This was the summer of sound, and it’s almost ready for the film festival circuit. We are also working on reworking the title of the film and finishing touches will take place after we hold our test screening on Saturday, Sept. 24 at 6pm in Pauls Valley. We hope to get valuable feedback on the film before we send it out. This is also our toughest audience Pauls Valley is where the film takes place, and where we shot it. We hope they’re proud!

Here is the trailer that Rebecca cut together this summer.

48 hours to make something is hard

I love a good challenge. And when it comes to filmmaking, I love them even more. Working through and figuring out a problem is one of the funnest things…that is, once you have a solution.

A few weeks ago a CAN (Cinematic Artists of Norman) team I organized for the 48 Hour Film Project gathered our creativity, equipment, and patience to make a movie.

So with our genre (horror), prop (stool), and line of dialogue (Now, that’s a problem) all in hand, we were ready to make the best 7 minutes-or-less short!

Before the 48 Hour weekend, our team met twice to discuss the process and team details. Based on crew preferences that people gave me, I delegated crew roles to the the ten team members. This worked out very nicely for this to be handled before the actual shooting weekend. At the end of the day, we had a total of 12 people including our actors.

I handled the continuity and script supervisor roles, as well as the team leader. My goal for the weekend was to be more hands-off. I am the type of person who likes to step in and do things on my own. Especially if I see someone struggling, I always pick up the slack. Not this time, though. My goal was to let others figure it out for themselves and offer limited guidance. And, as predicted, it all went great! We were behind schedule, but not too badly. Nothing crazy happened that put us behind. And to top it off, I felt less stressed about the entire thing. I was able to sit back and let people do their jobs, and trust that they could do them (this is hard for organizing nuts like myself). I also didn’t feel any fear of failure. I thought, if we are  going to fail, at least we will learn a great lesson from it all. I think we all learned great lessons AND we didn’t fail! So here’s the final successful film! We find out in a couple of weeks whether it was chosen as the OKC winner. *fingers crossed and toes wiggled*

You can read more about the team members and the making of the project here.