Case in point, we didn’t use a slate at all on WHAT’S UP LOVELY (2-person crew) and I thought of this video to give me the confidence that it could be done.

Having directed and edited previously helped me shoot SCHERMANN SONG myself with the cuts in mind.  But it was Rodriguez’s video and his philosophy that instilled that mindset for me — where now his lesson and my hands-on experience are major contributing factors to becoming an economical filmmaker during production.  I’m proud to say I’ve never gone into heavy overtime (12+ hours) on any of my film sets.

Enjoy!  Now go make your film.

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.

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.

Note: Click images to enlarge

Day 3 (Fri – March 30) – First screening

We woke up early…realllly early (5:45am).  Chris LaMont (Festival President @thechrislamont) had told us the day before that he would be appearing on the NBC morning news (click here to view the clip) to promote the festival — and that SCHERMANN SONG would be one he’d mention on the air.  We were excited to see our film on live TV!

After seeing the show, we grabbed a bite – a free complimentary breakfast courtesy of the hotel and headed over to the theaters to participate in the Educational Outreach Program (run by the passionate filmmaker Bob Marquis @bizmarquis) that had us speaking with middle/high school kids who were interested in film.   Christina Rose (@Christinarose12) and I showed clips and talked to the kids along with filmmakers Scott Storm (@stormwatcher6), his lead in the film WE RUN SH*T James Di Fiore and filmmaker Bivas Biswas (“PARANOIA”).  It was fun to talk about the different paths that everyone had taken to get where they are. 

After the talk ended, it was around 11:30am.  Everyone was anxious as we had our very first screening at 3:30pm. We took a quick lunch break, then met up with Joe Schermann (@JoeSchermann), composer Ken Lampl and actor/producer Daryl Ray Carliles (@DarylRay) to situate ourselves before the screening.  We had Playbill type programs to hand out to our ticket-holders.  I wanted to make it feel as if they were attending a Broadway show.  People seemed to like them.

Here’s a peek at what happened before the screening (with a surprise special guest making an appearance):

Our screening came and went so fast.  The projection and sound in the state of the art theater blew my mind.  I couldn’t believe how great it looked on the big screen (yes kids, the 5D can look great with a nice projector) and the 2.0 sound was pretty amazing, in that it sounded much more than just a simple stereo mix when you have literally 10+ speakers going on all around the auditorium.

The Q&A went very well.  People seemed to like the film, but we couldn’t tell just yet as it wasn’t a very vocal audience.  Then I was off to sit in on a seminar with other filmmakers (Annie Howell “small, beautifully MOVING PARTS“; Kurt Kuenne “SHUFFLE“; Zachary Rothman “ALCHEMY AND OTHER IMPERFECTIONS“) talking about the challenges and learning lessons about bringing your script to the screen.

Afterwards, the cast/crew and I did an interview with Nerd Repository.   When it finished, we went to support a friend’s screening and then it was off to the party to close out the night.

Day 4 (Sat – March 31) – Second screening

Buzz was growing.  Our screening was fuller than the day before.  The best part was at the end, during our Q&A, we mentioned we had soundtracks available and Roy (a man at least in his 70s) leaped out of his seat and rushed the stage to get one.  It was a sight to see. 

We also had Kasim, a volunteer at the fest, come up to us after and tell us that he was there at first to make fun of the film with his friend for a few minutes, but soon after found himself sucked in and staying the whole way through.  Here’s his amazing and thoughtful review via IMDB (user “kaslam311″).

When we exited the theater into the hallway, there was much excitement as people wanted autographs from our actors and had so much praise for all the various elements in the film.  We were on cloud 9.  People — young and old, men and women — loved our movie.  Then this happened (this is Roy from our screening):

I also saw this tweet from filmmaker Scooter Downey (@inthebloodmovie) which was very humbling:

loved @SchermannSong from the Phoenix Film Festival.fav film of the fest!congrats guys!@grking @Christinarose12

— It’s In The Blood (@inthebloodmovie) March 31, 2012

Next, Christina Rose sat in on an acting panel with Blayne Weaver (@blayneweaver) and Sean Elliot (IT’S IN THE BLOOD). I helped filmed their discussion (video coming soon) which was entertaining and informative. Man, actors are so damn charming. Once they finished up, Christina, Joe and I jumped into a TRAIN WRECK IN PROGRESS podcast interview with Elizabeth Kennedy Baker. We had a lot of fun answering her questions.

We then caught a screening and afterwards headed out to a big dinner with friends old and new: Paul Osborne (@Paulmakesmovies), Leslie Wimmer Osborne (@lwimmer2u), Scott Storm, Chad McClarnon (@chadmcclarnon), Rick Vaicius (@FlywayFilmFest), Nathan Cole (@Clumsy_Monster – yes he drove in from LA!), Justin Hedges (@JustinWHedges), Laura Hedges (@hedgeslaura) as well as some new local friends we met at the fest.

Our group then headed to that night’s party and closed it down around 1:30am.  While there, people were coming up to the cast and me and sharing stories about how they loved our film and how much they were hearing around the fest that it was the “one to see”, a “sleeper hit” and people’s favorite at the fest.  Having put two long, hard years into making it, I was so humbled and thankful on how it was being received.  We were definitely on a high from the screening that day.

NEXT UP: The Last Screening and Awards Night

I can’t describe all the things that happened to us when we screened HOW DO YOU WRITE A JOE SCHERMANN SONG at the 2012 Phoenix Film Festival.  There’s so much to talk about.  The amazing audience response to our film.  The stellar A/V presentation on the big screen via Blu-Ray (the filmmakers definitely appreciated it).  The festival staff and volunteers.  The well-run schedule.  The parties.  The people and filmmakers who we all met. The accolades. Where to start? What’s that? From the beginning? All right…here we go.

Day 1 (Wed – March 28)

I started at the La Guardia Airport early in the morning with a connecting flight in Dallas.  Check out that guy at the end of the line on the right – he’s very happy to be in First Class.  Me on the other hand – Group 3.

The flight was great.  I busted out 14 pages of my next script — something about being able to “clear the mechanism” up there and just concentrate.  It’s probably because there’s not much else to do.   When I landed I had to walk over to another terminal to meet my wife (producer Susie King) flying in from Orlando (she was on a business trip) and then meet Christina Rose (@Christinarose12) who was on a different flight coming in from New York.  We were greeted by Rich – a great guy who was our driver from the airport to our hotel courtesy of the festival!!

We arrived and checked into our hotel.  It was a very comfy place.  We got ready and headed out to the Filmmakers Welcome Dinner (drinks and meal covered!) at Blue Agave.  We finally met a ton of people in person that we’d only met online.  Scott Storm (@stormwatcher6 WE RUN SH*T) was there double-fisting some drinks.  A great guy btw.

We also finally met the Festival head-honchos Jason Carney (@pffjason) and Chris LaMont (@thechrislamont).  I snapped a quick pic (Jason is on the left; Chris on the right) in the dark so it’s not very good – but I wanted to capture the moment.  Really genuine people who love and support indie film.  Chris said some very kind words about SCHERMANN that night that made us all go home with huge smiles on our faces.

DAY 2 (March 29)

This day was all about the opening night party and film.  So we had some time to kill during the day.  First up – the pool!  We were in 80+ degrees and loving life (compared to 50 degrees in NY).

We headed over to the ticket office to grab our filmmaker badges, tickets to showings and meet the staff.  It was great.  Christina also connected with many festival goers trying to decide which films to see — once they saw her they bought their SCHERMANN tickets right quick!  As we were putting up our posters we ran into a filmmaker from Nashville Chad McClarnon (@chadmcclarnon) who was there with his short WITHOUT.   We hit it off and everyone headed back to our hotel rooms to get ready for the Opening Night Party.

Once changed and ready, we headed out for the party.  At the hotel shuttle we met Andrew Disney (@andrewdisney SEARCHING FOR SONNY), Kurt Kuenne (SHUFFLE) and Tim Miller (INTO THE WAKE).  Everyone was very cool and pumped.  When we hit the venue, we saw a huge banner of our film hanging from the rafters. It was pretty incredible to see the festival had them for all the films in competition.  It was a very nice touch and very cool.

The opening night film was ROBOT AND FRANK – a very sweet film which set the tone of the festival to come.  People were excited about the year’s program. When we left the theater, we spotted our poster in the hallway. It really hit us that we were screening tomorrow. We were hoping not to disappoint.

COMING UP: DAY 3 – Our First Screening

HOW DO YOU WRITE A JOE SCHERMANN SONG will be screening at the Phoenix Film Festival. We will be there at all of our showings.

Phoenix Film Festival
phoenixfilmfestival.com/
Harkins Scottsdale/101 Theatre
7000 E Mayo Blvd.
Phoenix, AZ 85054

Screening Times:
Fri (Mar 30): 3:30pm – Theater 5
Sat (Mar 31): 12:50pm – Theater 5
Sun (Apr 1): 11:45am – Theater 2

Official Website:
joeschermannsong.com/

Soundtrack Preview:
joeschermannsong.com/music/

The following cast and crew has also been invited to participate in a few seminars to discuss the various aspects of movie making:

Sat (Mar 31): 3:30pm – Filmmaker Gary King: “Script to Screen: Your Dream and Your Vision, Realized!”
Sat (Mar 31): 4:30pm – composer Ken Lampl: “After the Crew Goes Home: What happens after production wraps?”
Sun (Apr 1): 2:30pm – actress Christina Rose: “Actors’ Roundtable: Life as an Indie Actor”
More Info: http://phoenixfilmfestival.com/seminars/

Oh my!  Can you believe our movie musical HOW DO YOU WRITE A JOE SCHERMANN SONG got mashed up with trailers from THE CABIN IN THE WOODS, THE HUNGER GAMES, BATTLESHIP, THE RAID, PROMETHEUS and more???  Wow!!

I’m simply floored that someone found our trailer and included it with such Hollywood Giants!  I’m freaking out!

In case you’ve missed it – here is our actual trailer below that MovieClips picked up.  They are a huge film site that usually carries only Hollywood movies so everyone involved with our film is excited!  The YouTube viewing stats show that people literally around the world are watching it!

I’ve got 2 free tickets to our Saturday (3/31 – 12:50pm) screening at the PHOENIX FILM FESTIVAL.

HOW TO WIN: All you have to do to win them is find either me or Christina Rose at the festival and sing to us a lyric (just a line or 2…not the entire song) from any of our songs in the film.  You can watch the video above to preview them.

That’s it!  Sing to us and win!  First one to do it gets our 2 passes to the Saturday screening.

I’ll be at the festival with cast members: Christina Rose, Joe Schermann, Daryl Ray Carliles and composer Ken Lampl.  We’ll be at all of our screenings and will have special giveaways as well.

Screening Times:
Fri (Mar 30): 3:30pm
Sat (Mar 31): 12:50pm
Sun (Apr 1): 11:45am
Click here for screening details

We’ve also been invited to speak on the panels to discuss various aspects of filmmaking:

Sat (Mar 31): 3:30pm – Filmmaker Gary King: “Script to Screen: Your Dream and Your Vision, Realized!”

Sat (Mar 31): 4:30pm – composer Ken Lampl: “After the Crew Goes Home: What happens after production wraps?”

Sun (Apr 1): 2:30pm – actress Christina Rose: “Actors’ Roundtable: Life as an Actor” (panel will also include Lance Henriksen of “Aliens” and “Millennium”)

Click here for more details on the seminars

Visit the official film website

Learn more about the Phoenix Film Festival

OFFICIAL TRAILER

If I can steal the time I’ll film quick video interviews that will include your questions from here as well.

The participants will include:
Christina Rose
Debbie Williams
Joe Schermann
Daryl Ray Carliles
Ken Lampl
Keith Ukrisna

QUESTIONS:

@grking Would would win a thumb wrestling contest between @Christinarose12 & Debbie Williams#SCHERMANN Questions (sort of)

— John Hoff III (@JohnHoff3) February 7, 2012

@grking Favorite on-set snacks for @SchermannSong

— Corrie Davidson (@corrietweets) February 14, 2012

Music and Lyrics by JOE SCHERMANN
Original Score by KEN LAMPL

1. “I WANT” performed by Christina Rose (0:00-0:36)
2. “WRITE ME A LOVE SONG” performed by Christina Rose and Joe Schermann (0:36-1:18)
3. “I FELL IN LOVE” performed by Debbie Williams and Joe Schermann (1:18-1:56)
4. “30 DAYS OF RAIN” performed by Debbie Williams and Joe Schermann (1:56-2:22)
5. “I HATE SUMMER” performed by Christina Rose (2:22-2:46)
6. “MOTH TO THE FLAME” performed by Christina Rose and Debbie Williams (2:46-3:25)
7. “HOW DO YOU WRITE A JOE SCHERMANN SONG” performed by Joe Schermann and Company (3:25-4:43)

It features our original songs from the film written by the brilliant Joe Schermann and performed by our talented cast (Joe Schermann, Christina Rose, Debbie Williams).  And you’ll be able to hear the incredible orchestral arrangements written for the songs by our amazing composer Ken Lampl (along with the all-star mixing skills of Keith Ukrisna and Darren Tate).  This truly has been a memorable collaboration.

What I really dig about these songs is that I asked for Joe to create different styles for each lead character.  He took it and ran with it.  I love these songs.  In the film, you will hear his influences of Sondheim, Jason Robert Brown and yes, even Springsteen in them.

Hope you enjoy!