The Reason I Make Movies: 2012 Phoenix Film Festival (Day 5 – The Last Screening)

Click here to read about Day 1 & 2

Click here to read about Day 3 & 4

Note: Click images to enlarge

Day 5 (Sun – April 1) – Last screening

Christina Rose (@Christinarose12), Susie and I started the morning by quickly going to Starbucks.   My wife needed stronger coffee than the free stuff at the hotel.  Ken Lampl gave us all a ride there as he was going to meet a really cool filmmaker Scooter Downey (@inthebloodmovie IT’S IN THE BLOOD).  We all chatted for a few minutes before leaving the guys so we could head over to a friend’s screening at around 9:50am.

We then had to boogie on over to our own showing at 11:45am.  We had another amazing response. This time the audience pretty much bum rushed the front after the Q&A ended.  The crowd spilled outside the theater when the ushers kicked us out to clean the space for the next showing.  Here’s some video of that:

I also noticed Nathan Cole’s tweet which was awesome

Audience ate up Joe Schermann.The final film looked fantastic.@grking will be a household name soon. #phxfilm

— The Waterhole (@WaterholeMovie) April 1, 2012

After the screening we were starving and headed to eat some lunch with Chad McClarnon (@chadmcclarnon).  It was cool to just hang and take a breather before the Awards ceremony and party.  We all went back to our hotel to rest up, change and get ready for a long night as we knew our shuttle would be leaving at 6:30am the next morning….and it was our last night in town.

We arrived to the Awards party around 7:15pm….the ceremony was to start around 7:30pm.  We went to the VIP Filmmakers lounge to grab some drinks.  Our entire SCHERMANN SONG gang was there, soaking in the last day of the wonderful experience.  As we stood around chatting with new friends, we ran into many film-goers who told us that they simply loved our film and had the songs in their head.  They were listening to their SCHERMANN SONG soundtracks!  A photographer swooped in a took a group picture of us and commented “I’m hearing some great things about your film…”

At the party, we had so many people coming up to us and saying they wanted us to win.  We were very humbled and thanked them — and of course knew there were other great films in competition so it was truly (and honestly) just great to be named as part of the group.

That made me really nervous.  The nerves quickly went away when a very friendly New York based filmmaker Brian McAllister (@brianmcall MAN AT THE COUNTER) said hello to me and had kind words about our film.  He basically said the experience of watching SCHERMANN SONG reminded him of when he was younger and had just seen NEWSIES — and he left his theater doing this!   Yes he actually did it in front of me too.  Then he enthusiastically told me he had the same fist-pumping feeling leaving our movie.  Yeah, that was pretty rad.

The ceremony started up so we quickly took our seats.  So many wonderful films and people had well-deserved wins in many shorts and World categories.  Then they were ready to move into the In Competition categories.

Here was the first award they handed out in this category.

And there it is @grking wins Breakthrough Filmmaker of the Year #phxff

— Stage32.com – RB (@Stage32online) April 2, 2012

Then shortly after here was the next one.

Annnddddd the Cox Audience Award goes to How Do You Write A Joe #SchermannSong #phxfilm

— Phoenix Film Fest (@PhoenixFilmFest) April 2, 2012

Winning 2 prestigious awards: the Cox Audience Award and the Dan Harkins Breakthrough Filmmaker Award had to be one of the major highlights of my career.  I wasn’t expecting either one.  It was surreal to say the least. I had no idea and was truly honored.

After the wins we were on Cloud 9.  We were shaking hands and hugging people like crazy.  We received so many wonderful congratulations and words of support.  People offered us drinks.  We took a ton of pictures!!  Here are a few courtesy of Roxy Lee (@poproxculture):

We couldn’t have asked for anything more.  Except that we want to go back again.  As a nice bookend to all this, SCHERMANN SONG played 2 encore screenings as the festival showcased its award winning films.  Fans of the film contacted us to let us know they went to see the film again.  And we sold out our final screening.

Thank you to the Phoenix Film Festival and its supportive community.  It was honestly one of the best experiences I’ve ever had in showcasing one of my films.  And because of it, new friendships have been made and doors opened.  Stay tuned.