Summer Wrap Up 2008

Attendees of 'Serial Fest 2008'. Can you spot 'yours truly'?

Dear Readers,

Summer's almost over, and it donned on me that I never told you how 'Serial Fest 2008' went! Well, I'll get to that in a moment. But, firstly, I'd like to share with you one of my greatest victories in recent times. I finally got 'The Scarlet Avenger' short film listed on The Internet Movie Database, where it so rightfully belongs! But, it was no small feat, I tell ya.

I'd tried registering the Avenger student short a few times in the past, but met with so much red tape that I simply gave up in frustration. You see, while film information is generated by the users of the IMDB, its editors feel the need to prove the "legitimacy" of each new entry, so as not to include every piece of junk someone shoots on their cell phone.

To be a "legitimate" film, IMDB needs for it to have played at a festival they deem to be of "interest to the general public". The problem I faced with this stipulation was that, at the time of The Scarlet Avenger's completion in 2000, I didn't see it as a worthwhile endeavor to enter it into festivals. I viewed the festival circuit as a con game, in which festival organizers would simply pocket your money and either reject your film for completely random reasons, or play it to a non-existent audience. The sad truth is that unless you get into a very high profile festival (like The Toronto International Film Festival or Sundance), chances are that the exposure won't help your career in the slightest. And, perhaps wrongly, I felt entering Sundance or Toronto was pointless, because those festivals would think Avenger wasn't 'high brow' enough for them. Who knows? Perhaps they would have liked it. Either way, after completing Avenger, I was too emotionally drained and financially tapped out to go after such prizes. But regardless of what I thought of festivals in the past, I now realize that most festivals will serve to at least legitimize your film in the eyes of the editors at IMDB. Fortunately, my co-director, Chris Laskowski, did want to see if we could win at least one award. He'd had some luck in high school, screening his shorts at a tiny festival called The Canadian International Annual Film Festival. I'd never heard of it, but we entered and won '3rd Best Student Film'. Not bad, but at the time, I wasn't very impressed with a third place win at such a 'rinky dink' festival. I hadn't even seen the other films, but knew that what we had created with Avenger was so special that only politics prevented us from getting a higher award. It turned me off festivals even more, and we never entered another one after that. However, being a part of that festival would come back to save our butts, when trying to get Avenger on IMDB.

As mentioned in my previous post, this summer I was invited to screen the Avenger short at 'Serial Fest 2008' in Newtown, Pennsylvania, USA (key word being "invited"). After the incredible reaction the film got there (which I'll discuss soon), I decided I simply had to get the film listed on IMDB. It was a real film and deserved to be entered into the database as such. After I got back home to Toronto, I submitted all the data to IMDB, including the dates of the festival screenings at CIAFF and Serial Fest. Serial Fest didn't have any listing on IMDB, so it was only the CIAFF that was recognized and could thus legitimize my film. However, IMDB wrote me back and requested a link to a place on the CIAFF site that stated 'The Scarlet Avenger' had screened there. Well, CIAFF's website was frankly a mess. It took me forever to find the spot where they posted their award winners. And to further complicate things, even though the festival had supposedly been in existence since 1967, they didn't start posting their award winners until 2002 - one year after Avenger screened there! So, there was no online proof! However, after sifting through IMDB's help pages, I discovered that they would accept scanned festival documents as evidence. So, I sifted through my drawers and uncovered the award for '3rd Best Student Film'. I scanned it, put it up on the net and sent IMDB the link. That finally did the trick. You may now see Avenger's IMDB listing here. Rate and review it if you'd like.

The scan of our award for the Scarlet Avenger short that I had to post on the web for the Internet Movie Database, to prove the "legitimacy" of our film.

Okay. Now on to 'Serial Fest 2008'. Well, it was a total blast! Most of the guys there were about 50-80 years old, but they were truly all kids at heart. The older guys had actually seen the serials in the theater in their heyday and the younger guys discovered them on television in the 1950s and 60s. I was completely blown away when I spoke to one fellow who told me he'd actually seen 'Spy Smasher' in the theater in 1942, when he was 8 years old! Amazing!

Most of the people in attendance were there to see the long-lost serial 'Daredevils of the West', not seen in its entirety for over 50 years. The screening was made possible through the hard work of festival organizer, Eric Steadman, and Republic Pictures archivist, James D'Arc. I was very excited to hear that the person responsible for archiving the Republic Pictures library of serials was going to see 'The Scarlet Avenger'. What a dream come true!

Local, Newtown newspaper coverage of 'Serial Fest 2008'.

On Wednesday, May 14th, I flew into Philadelphia and took an hour-long cab ride out to the quaint little town of Newtown, in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. It seemed to be completely in the middle of nowhere, but it was very upscale. Someone said to me "They called it 'Bucks' County for a reason".

The following day, all the festival attendees drifted in from all across the US and Canada, and met in the lobby of our hotel. We yakked on about serials, non-stop for hours, until everyone had arrived. Most of the fellows in attendance were regular posters on the message boards at serialsquardon.com, and all called each other by their nicknames on the boards (the names lifted from their favorite serial characters). These guys were hard-core geeks, but they were my kind of geeks - "cliffhanger serial geeks" - a rare breed indeed!

My name tag for 'Serial Fest 2008'. Notice the nickname...'The Scarlet Avenger'!

On Friday, May 16th, we drove into downtown Newtown, to the theater where we would spend the next two days straight watching serials. Newtown was gorgeous - like something out of a Norman Rockwell painting. And the theater was so charming. I was told it was a live theater in the 19th century. During the festival, the main attraction of 'Daredevils of the West' was interspersed with chapters from other serials, including the three 'chapters' of the Scarlet Avenger student film. Daredevils was pretty good, but I must admit I'm not the biggest fan of western serials, preferring those actually set in the 1930s and 40s. A lot of the other chapters, from such serials as 'Flash Gordon', 'The Phantom Empire' and 'The Green Hornet', I'd already seen before, but it was still great seeing them up on the big screen, in that quaint little theater in Newtown. A couple other modern filmmakers were screening their serial-inspired projects as well, including a quirky fellow named Todd Moore, who made a 12 chapter serial, entitled 'The Dangers of Deborah', which was a cross between 'The Perils of Pauline' and 'The Crimson Ghost'. It was pretty funny. Todd kept trying to force me to buy a copy after the screening. I didn't go for it, but I did buy a copy of his first serial, 'King of the Park Rangers', which apparently stars one of the descendants of the canine movie celeb, Rin Tin Tin. Anyways, finally 'The Scarlet Avenger' screened. It played pretty well, broken up into chapters (at the request of the festival organizers), even though it was originally meant to be seen as one short. I actually got the sense that the audience was looking forward to seeing the continuation of the story after each chapter break.

Me looking happy outside the Newtown Theater

Very fitting that 'Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull' was to play at that same theater, starting a few days after our festival. Too bad it sucked sooo badly (Indy, not Serial Fest!)

The gorgeous 19th century interior of the Newtown Theater.

The balcony. James D'Arc, the Republic Pictures archivist, sat up there and saw 'The Scarlet Avenger'! Wow!

The crowd really seemed to appreciate the Avenger, laughing and applauding in all the right places. Afterwards, many of the festival attendees came up to me and told me how much they enjoyed the film. They told me how smart it was, how much I nailed the spirit of the serials, and how they felt like a kid again watching it. That meant a lot coming from them, because, contrary to what you might think, they're actually way harsher critics of serial-related movies than mainstream audiences. If things aren't 'just right' these guys will spot it. Their knowledge of the genre was surreal, as proven in the bizarre 'Serial Jeopardy' they held that weekend.

Even though it was a relatively small festival, I felt a real sense of closure having screened Avenger there. That was the ultimate audience to see the film. If no one else saw the short but them that would be okay.

Saturday night closing dinner. So sad!

Since the festival, I've been doing a lot of soul searching, trying to come up with a game plan for the future, with regards to the making of the Avenger feature, as well as my filmmaking career as a whole. The biggest decision I've made is to leave Canada. I had always wanted to leave, not because Canada's not a great place to live, but because it's a bad place for many artists to thrive. Canadians simply do not support their artists. There is very little private investment in the arts and many artists often have to find success outside of Canada before they're supported at home. I believe I will have a much greater chance for success outside Canada. I had always hoped to settle in Los Angeles, but that option has seemed less and less realistic over the years. U.S. immigration laws are incredibly tough and geared towards keeping people from Canada and other well-to-do countries out, so as to protect Americans from losing higher paying jobs to immigrants. But even aside from this, the U.S. has become less and less appealing to me over the years. Its corrupt politicians have made America the most hated country in the world in recent years. Also, the country's lack of proper health care is terrifying. I'm just not interested in settling there anymore. So, while the U.S. is no longer a realistic option, I do have an escape route - the United Kingdom. I knew that my father was born in the UK, but he never established his citizenship there, because he simply didn't think he was entitled to it. But a few years ago, I started researching the matter and discovered that my Dad, my sister and I were all citizens. We just needed to get our passports.

Even after getting my passport a couple years ago, I've stayed on in Canada, making as much progress as I felt I could here. However, most paths have dried up. I have to take the plunge and jump across the pond to the UK. While the UK doesn't have the film industry the U.S. has, it's still light years ahead of the nearly non-existent Canadian one. There is private investment in the arts in the UK. The British are highly supportive of their artists and they have a real culture and sense of identity there. That's what I'm looking for...a better place to thrive as an artist. I am so grateful that I have this option available to me. I am planning for a move next year. Wish me luck!

What does the future hold for 'The Scarlet Avenger'? Well his creator is moving to the UK and seeing where the wind takes him, for starters.