Archive for November 2011

Horrible Imaginings Film Festival Survey Results

What San Diego Thinks of Horrible Imaginings Film Festival

It is five days since the doors creaked closed on Horrible Imaginings Film Festival, and the question remains--how did it go? Well, I offered an online survey to audience members and after three days I have collected 38 responses. I have decided that 38 is a pretty good sample size. I really want to thank those of you who took a minute to fill out the survey and let me know what you thought. I know surveys can be a bit annoying, but your feedback means a lot to mean and really will help me to organize and improve next year's event.

First of all, I am really happy to report that 0% of those surveyed indicated that Horrible Imaginings was worse than they were expecting. For 22.7% of those surveyed, the film festival met expectations. The remaining 77.3% indicated that the festival was better than expected, and 45.5% of those said that it was much better than expected. That really makes all the work, money, and emotional anguish worth it!

One of the hardest things about programming Horrible Imaginings Film Festival in San Diego is deciding how many feature-length films to show versus how many short films. After months of consideration, I programmed two blocks of short films and two feature lengths each day, including my two revival series films. A landslide 86.4% of those surveyed thought that was an appropriate ratio. 4.5% said they'd like more shorts and 9.1% indicated they would like more features. Thank you for your feedback on this one--it's definitely going to influence next year's programming.

I also asked for the favorite films of the weekend. I want to mention here that the whole idea of competition has been something I've wanted to stay away from. I intend to use Horrible Imaginings as a spotlight for upcoming filmmakers, not as a venue for pitting them against one another. That said, I still wanted to know which films left the biggest impression. In addition one of the survey suggestions did mention having an audience vote, so who knows? Maybe next year I'll include an audience award. Now without any further ado:

For the Friday night shorts program on Friday, the clear favorite was Craig Macneill's clever Lovecraftian comedy Late Bloomer. Twelve people named that film as a favorite. Mando Franco's Edgewood Drive took second place with eight people naming it as a favorite. Tied for third place was Kody Zimmermann's The Familiar and Ainhoa Menendez's Fabrica de Munecas with 3 mentions each. Others mentioned include Zach Bellissimo's Blenderstein, The Fies Sisters' Scrutinize, and Barbara Stepansky's Road Rage.

For the Saturday night shorts program, Michael Maney's METH got the most mentions with eleven people saying it was their favorite. A very close second place goes to Joshua Long's AXED, with nine mentions. Third place was the Portuguese film Survivalismo from José Pedro Lopes, which got six mentions. Also mentioned more than thrice were Dave Reda's My Undeadly, Marichelle Daywalt's The Many Doors of Albert Whale, and Gijs van Kooten's animated Mac N Cheese.

Of course, almost everybody mentioned the coolness of seeing Gojira and Les yeus sans visage on the big screen. For the feature length films, Drew Bolduc and Dan Nelson's insane The Taint got a lot of great feedback. Seven people mentioned it on the survey. One person said, "The Taint was amazing! It was the only movie that could have kept me awake that late. Never seen anything like it!" Chris Power and Nathan Hymes's mocumentary Long Pigs was a huge hit. Thirteen people mentioned it on the survey, and I've gotten many emails claiming that it was a new favorite film. I really enjoy Long Pigs, and was nervous to see how it would screen to a San Diego audience since it is a more serious film than The Taint. I'm thrilled that so many people realized its merits. HUGE congratulations to these filmmakers--and really all the filmmakers who were screened at Horrible Imaginings deserve my congratulations and my thanks for all they hard work they put into their films. You all deserve our applause!

Finally, I do want to thank all of you for your honesty and candor in making suggestions for next year's art gallery and next year's film festival overall. I really liked a lot of your incredibly imaginative and fun ideas. I do think they would make for a great festival. I want to do my best to make a lot of it a reality. Of course, financing the film festival continues to be a huge challenge, and that greatly impacts what I'm able to pull off. I just want to finish here by saying that Horrible Imaginings Film Festival, the first film festival in San Diego dedicated to macabre cinema and art, will continue to grow and get better over the years so long as the audience is there to keep it alive. This is for all of you, horror fans! Stay scared!

Left to Right: Tim Aldridge, Julia Camara, Miguel Rodriguez, Erika Doss

Horrible Imaginings Film Makers Roll Call!

Tim Aldridge, director of Scream Machine; Julia Camara, producer of Scream Machine

Tim Aldridge has a B.A. in Cinema from Columbia College-Hollywood. He has experience in different areas of the film industry, having worked in the camera department on films like "Twin Falls Idaho" and "18."

Tim produced "Never Odd or Even," a comedy short film written and directed by Julia Camara, which won Best Conceptual Comedy Short at the 2010 New York Independent International Film Festival.

He is also an accomplished still photographer and has also directed a comedy short film "Frankenbabe." Tim often collaborates with his wife Julia Camara on creative endeavors. "Scream Machine" was Tim's second experience directing a short film.

Julia Camara is a Brazilian award winning writer/filmmaker. She has a B.A. in cinema from Columbia College-Hollywood. Julia is also a UCLA Professional Program in Screenwriting alumna. She wrote the screenplay for “Area Q,” a sci-fi drama which stars Isaiah Washington and Brazilian star Murilo Rosa.

Julia wrote and directed the award winning five-minute comedy short film "Never Odd or Even." The short won Best Conceptual Comedy Short at the New York International Independent Film Festival. She also wrote and produced the award winning short horror film “Scream Machine,” directed by Tim Aldridge. The film won Honorable Mention at the Tabloid Witch Awards and Best Screenplay at BleedFest Film Festival.

Julia’s latest project, “Open Road,” a feature drama and a road movie she wrote, directed by Brazilian TV star Marcio Garcia, starring Camilla Belle, Colin Egglesfield, Juliette Lewis and Andy Garcia, is currently in post production and schedule for release in 2012.

Horrible Imaginings Film Makers Roll Call!

Thomas Berdinski, director of Giant Rubber Monster Movie

In addition to “The Giant Rubber Monster Movie”, Thomas Berdinski is the writer, director and producer of the popular “Zombie Abomination and Zombie Atrocity – The Italian Zombie Movie Parts 1 & 2”. This no-budget, two-part, horror-comedy homage to European horror flicks from the 70s-80s has been a horror convention favorite since it started making the rounds late in 2009. The double-feature has won awards including “Best Sequel, Fan Film or Remake” from Horror Movie Central (2009) and it made Fangoria Magazine's “DVD Chopping List” in May 2010. Mr. Berdinski is a “fiercely independent” low budget filmmaker who lives in Muskegon, Michigan. His next projects include a noir/sci-fi featuring the much the same cast as "The Giant Rubber Monster Movie" called "Noirmageddon", a feature length sequel to “The Giant Rubber Monster Movie” and, not surprisingly, “The Italian Zombie Movie – Part 3”.

Horrible Imaginings Film Makers Roll Call!

Sophia Segal, director of Bypass

Sophia Segal is an award wining director, multi-disciplined performing artist (SAG actor) and production technician. She began her creative journey as a high school stage actor, excelled in stage craft production, then worked in major repertory theaters along the West Coast in various craft and technical positions. She has been employed by well known amusement park art & technical departments, television studios, and various film & scenic studios in Los Angeles and Orange County. Her music videos have been featured on music, film and video blogs and have screened at film festivals around the world. She was recently featured in a three page spread in "The Catalyst Magazine" for their September/October issue.

Sophia is always conjuring up new ideas and working on new projects, whether it is for film, music or art. She recently directed and filmed 4 Halloween Film Shorts inspired by her love for Classic Film Monsters like "Nosferatu" and "The Mummy", with a 5th Film Short on it's way featuring "The Invisible Man", just in time for Halloween! She is now in post editing a new music video and experimental short, meanwhile compiling footage to create her first director's reel in hopes of securing representation for music videos, commercials, viral campaigns and possible feature films. She currently resides in Southern California commuting between San Diego and Los Angeles for her film projects, however projects over seas may be in her very near future.

Horrible Imaginings Film Makers Roll Call!

Michael Maney, director of METH

Michael discovered film at an early age, and began to produce his own work as soon as he was big enough to hold his family’s over-sized VHS camera. After producing a hyper-violent short film in high school, Maney caught the attention of a local production company (as well as numerous deeply offended public access viewers) and his professional career began. Maney has been creating on-air spots for clients such as Visa, Procter & Gamble and Simon & Schuster for over thirteen years. His work has been seen on The Daily Show, the FX network,The SciFi Channel, NBC, TBN, and MSNBC. In 2004, Maney teamed with Ryan Lewis to produce a series of award-winning short films. Maney is currently developing a feature thriller.

Horrible Imaginings Film Makers Roll Call!

Mark Bessenger, director of Candy

Mark Bessenger would never tell you this himself, but he is an exceptionally talented filmmaker, no matter what anyone else says. His recent feature film BITE MARKS has played more festivals than staffers fleeing a Republican campaign, and he is considered a filmmaking god among people who hate movies. His mind is appropriately warped from watching horror movies since he was six (although there is no truth to the rumor that his mother chained him to an armoir and made him watch them incessantly--that was the babysitter), and with a sharp snap of his fingers and a raised eyebrow over a glaring ocular orb, he can chill the blood of the unruliest independent actor asking for more money. His words "You're not giving me what I want!" will shrivel the penis of any male on set, but the follow-up of a gentle laugh will ease the tension before he begins stapling nipples to chins. In his spare time, Mark pretends he is Godzilla, making any three-year-old's Lego city structure fair game. He is currently writing a spec script for an upcoming TV series, the screenplay for his next feature and a novel, but--ha!--don't think he's going to let YOU read them.

His short film CANDY, which was shot with lunch money stolen from school children, was done for a lark but fooled enough people so that it has been shown at a half-dozen film festivals and has found home video distribution. CANDY, making its California premiere at Horrible Imaginings, continues Mark's trend of making gay-themed dark comedies that make you think of innocuous things in new, interesting, twisted ways that may turn you on while repulsing you, thereby forever ruining something you have always found pleasurable. You're welcome.