While we work on 2010's La Grande Summer Film Project make sure to stay in touch with all of the film related discussion, events, and goings-ons in La Grande. A great way to do this is to keep and eye on http://www.lagrandelife.com. This site is set up to be a collaborative thought engine for La Grande, OR. A place where we can get current events and information, resources but also a place to communicate, discuss, dream, and help shape our community.

Labels: 48 hour film, film project, filmmakers, la grande, lagrandelife.com

The results are in from this weekend’s first-annual EASTERN OREGON FILM FESTIVAL. Last Friday and Saturday the Mt. Emily Ale House played host to an event combining independent films and live music. If you weren’t there, perhaps you were out mudding in your oversized truck— in any case this is how it went down:

Audience Choice Award/ Peter Directed by Samuel Kuhn

Audience Choice Runner Up/ I ran with a Gray Ghost Directed by Levi Abrino

Best Production Design/ Peter Directed by Samuel Kuhn

DIY Award/ Peter Directed by Samuel Kuhn and Team Picture Directed by Kentucker Audley

Best Screenplay/ Quitter Directed by

Mike Surber and Jaime Gustavson

Best Cinematography/ I Ran with a Gray Ghost Directed by Levi Abrino

Up-and-Coming Director/ Sam Kuhn

I’d Buy this DVD Award/ Peter Directed by Samuel Kuhn

Best Doc/ Rip: A remix Manifesto Directed by Brett Gaylor

Thanks again to all of our sponsors for supporting EOFF’09:

www.lagrandelife.com

www.incproductions.org

www.coldcoffeemedia.com

www.fujifilm.com

www.ompa.org

www.mtemilyalehouse.com

www.johnjhoward.com

Visit www.eofilmfest.com for more info.

Labels: 48 hour film, awards, eastern oregon, EOFF

Below is the official response from our jurors for 2009's La Grande Summer Film Project. The special jurors were Benjamin Morgan (Summershine Films) and Ian Clark (Inc. Productions). We were grateful for there attendance and participation in this project. The Jury Award Winners will also be shown at next weeks EOFF!

LGSFP Jury Award Winners

August 23, 2009

Overall, we were very impressed with the lineup this year. Making a film in 48 hours is a daunting task. All five teams stepped up to the plate and delivered, much to the delight of a supportive and enthusiastic hometown audience. Well done!

Jury Award: Vampire Pioneers from Lake Terror / Brian Wallace
A crowd favorite, we chose this campy horror film as a jury award winner for its successful execution of the genre, and effective Scooby-Doo'esque humor and dialog.

Jury Award: A Moment / Chris Jennings
We loved this avant-garde slice-of-life. Great night exteriors, controlled camera movement, and convincing cinema verite performances. This film was the most intellectually and artistically driven work screened during LGSFP.

Special Mention for Best Story: How to Love a Quitter / Mike Surber
This unique love story, based on Jamie Gustafson's amazing, original hand-crafted book, was a well executed and very compelling romantic-comedy. Great use of special fx, strong soundtrack, and overall solid execution of concept.

We also really enjoyed the film from team Western, which featured some very compelling locations, costumes, and overall strong production design; and Crime Spree, a humorous, yet convincing portrayal of a half-baked, recession-inspired bank robbery. Kudos all around!

We look forward to seeing next year's entries.

After the weeks exhausting and exhilarating activities it has come down to this. The films were are all great - the screenings were wonderful. We had close to 300 people check out the films and we had about 100 votes cast at the screenings. The Audience Choice award was a TIE! "Vampire Pioneers from Lake Terror" (Brian Wallace) and "How to Love a Quitter" (Mike Surber) will both be shown at next weeks EOFF! It was great to watch all of the viewers during these films, they were so involved, invested, so bowled over with these two charming films. Congratulations!

Labels: awards, EOFF, jurors award

what a wonderful experience. during the scramble of the art show, screening logistics, marital bliss, and severe exhaustion I some how managed to kick my film on to DVD and strut across the street to Mt. Emily Ale house where "Collander Films" was dressed to kill. Everyone was in great spirits and as predicted we packed the place. WHOOP!

Labels: events, screenings, success

I have to say I am very excited to see what the teams have come up with. I hear snippets and rumours from people working on the projects and all of it sounds very intriguing and exciting. Here's to some great films being shown tonight!

We here at Positronic Films have completed a fantastic little western that will do for LGSFP 2009 what "Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid" did for a little film festival in Utah.

This has been a heck of a wild ride. I have been writing screenplays for over seven years, and have made a couple of little shorts. However this was the first time that I ever had to plan and execute. Wow! We planned in advance and had a finished script, storyboard and production schedule a week in advance. We were fortunate to get Nathan Smutz for our secondary actor and helper and he was invaluable to our team.

We shot in over 20 locations around the valley. We ended up with 167 clips of footage, almost 20 GB of data, shot on a ten-year-old Sony Handycam. I have recieved a total of five hours of sleep in the last two nights, and that was a luxury I almost couldn't afford.

Well, I will add more about this later today. Fratello del Mago has just finished rendering and it's ready to be in transit for delivery.

Labels: Fratello del Mago, Positronic Films

This is all I really have to say.  See you tonight!

It has been a bit of a battle managing to pull my film together. After multiple battery pack malfunctions and the first 3 shots of the film taking me nearly 24 of the 48 hours - we have managed to put all the images on the camera that we are going too. I just finished a session with MEGA BEARD getting them to put some serious score below the cloud of footage I have.


The wind decided to start howling as soon as I began shooting. So because I am tired and have to start editing I just have to say that I may incorporate the originally abandoned genres of "silent", "experimental", and my prescribed "drama". I am excited to cut this all up into some cohesive thoughts...

NOTE: As for the 4 - 7 minutes rule, seems that it just may take a little sacrifice, but you should save your current cut and then make a new one widdled down even further. I think it is important that we do our best to stay within the guidelines, but - first time around I am more concerned about a film being created - s I am eager to see them all.

Labels: drama, Eye Spy Pictures, megabeard, production

The pictures you see before you are the result of a 14 hour continous shoot that left the crew and cast haunted by ghoulish nightmares of mosquitos, sunburn, and ponds that contained flesh eating catfish. The result of this shoot and subsequent EPIC editing session is a film that must be seen to be believed. We arrive at our finished film with a conundrum facing us, however....our film has a running time of 15 minutes. We have chopped and chopped all that we can, any more cuts and the story would be lost to the etheral nonesense of jibberish.
We beleive that the suggested length was mentioned as 7 minutes, we have obviously missed that. Therefore we throw ourselves upon the mercy of the court. We ask only that we be allowed to show our film at the screening. We would accept being removed from contention for the festival or any other thoughts the Festival has. We truly apologize, on the pages it seemed so short and easy, once began though the journey took us further than we expected. If allowed to show our film we would also agree to go last so that any who do not wish to see such a long short film can depart. We shall not be offended. What say you fellow filmmakers? Will you forgive us in all of our coveralled glory? All we are guilty of is having to much fun!