Tyler Gibb

Well that was fun while it lasted, but I’m back from my writing hiatus (contrary to the way it sounds, that’s a hiatus during which I write). In fact I drive out to the country and isolate myself in a somewhat Stephen King’s Misery fashion… The plan was to go up there and empty the proverbial well of ideas somewhat but un/fortunately I was struck with a brand new idea on the drive up and just wrote that instead. Will it be the next production? No idea.

So that’s in a drawer fermenting for the next two weeks while I get reacquainted with the Refrain promotional plan. And heading up that plan at the moment is more back-end on the Refrain Side Project (more soon) and of course the film festival strategy. In fact, I just read this article Independent Magazine article by filmmaker Paul Devlin about his thoughts on film festival strategy. I don’t mind saying that his thoughts line up with mine nearly to eye to eye on this.

No video log this week again because I’m far too furry to get in front of the camera. I’d just look out of focus.

T

So no video blog this week. I’m just not pretty enough to keep up with that kind of commitment. Oh, and also, there’s nothing new to report really, so I figured I’d save YouTube the hard drive space.

Refrain is out to some fests and we’ve got our eye on some others and the Side Project I mentioned last week is coming along nicely. Which means there are pots on the stove. And you know what they say about watching those pots.

So I’m going to put my feet up.

No. Of course not. Who do you think you’re reading? I’m going to do some writing. Been too long and there’s a log jam of ideas  I need to get out of my brain. Refrain’s finished after all - time to make something new!

Been researching film festivals lately as well as preparing to launch the Refrain Side Project experiment… I don’t know why I do these things… You’d think trying to promote a movie about domestic violence and music would be enough of a chore…

Anyway! We’ll see what happens!

Coming up I’ll be taking a hiatus to do some writing. So many story ideas backing up in my brain I can barely think.

T

(Jeez, three posts in one day - I’ll have to check with the judges - but this may qualify as a slew.)

I just wanted to point something out and that is that you can subscribe to the Refrain post-production, talking head, video blog podcast (or vlobcast?) here or any number of additional ways that’ve added to the Refrain hub. I’ve also just spent the day beefing up the hub page with new production stills and a bunch of new music from the film. Definitely worth checking out!

Somehow I’ve also managed to fit in time recently to read a couple articles on the seemingly dire prognostications of people who are smarter than me about the future of “independent” film distribution.

(And for those of you keeping score, “independent film” now pretty well means million dollar movies produced outside the studio system whereas truly independent film has been re-catagorized as D.I.Y. filmmaking…)

One such article is this one here by Jonathan Marlow. The outlook isn’t so much grim as it is no longer what we’ve grown up thinking it to be. One point seems to be that the film fest circuit isn’t such a hot bed of distribution deals anymore. And that’s just as well. In my (finite) experience you’re better to go at it alone than hand your project off to the wrong agent or distributor. I’m hoping to see Refrain in some festivals for no other reason than to find an audience which will hopefully finds its way into our online network. And of course to schmooze. And naturally for the laurels… Not the figurative laurels but, you know, those little laurel graphics to post around my website and feel like a big shot…

Three posts in one day. Crazy.

I put this video together to give you all a better look at Refrain (without giving too much away!) as well as to showcase our fabulous cast. I’m really enjoying this self-promotion that isn’t self-promotion. It’s like self-promotion by proxy. Someday I’ll be saying; “I knew them when…”

Look mom, no cuts!

More on that film fest list when I have time to breathe…

T