Linda Matarasso's View

Blogging before Breakfast

2009-11-12T07:25:00.003-05:00

It seems like my new habit is becoming Blogging before Breakfast. Think i need to change that. I woke up at 6am and instead of taking a shower or having breakfast I have been busy blogging. I really should be doing the other things first but it seems as though I have more energy to blog in the morning. It's kind of like writing your thoughts as soon as you get up so you can get them out of the way before you start your day.

Well today's blog is about the night after the Reel Asian Film Festival. Last night I attended the Opening Night of the Reel Asian Film Festival at the Bloor Cinema. I went to film Harvey for the Doc I am doing on him. I saw a lot of people I knew at the Opening and it was a packed house so that was great for the festival. Harvey was a FOHA, front of house staff for the festival instead of a volunteer which means he didn't have to wear a volunteer tshirt for a change. He actually showed up wearing a suit and had the official looking headset to go with it.

There was a party afterward but unfortunately my life seems to keep getting in the way of me enjoying parties because I wake up so early in the morning and am busy all day long that by the end of the day I am too pooped to party. So off I went home while everyone else went to the party. I guess they don't have day jobs... Well I must now do the shower thing and will get breakfast later and then off to work to make some money to fund more documentary filmmaking.

Breakdown on a Bridge

2009-11-06T06:11:00.004-05:00

Hey, check out my latest 30 second short film "Breakdown on a Bridge" and Vote for it on the www.lovethephone.com website.

This is for the "You're Breaking Up" contest.

I need your Votes and Comments for this film so that I can WIN a TRIP to SUNDANCE. Why is this important? Because I am trying to win a trip for Harvey "You Know Harvey" to go to Sundance so that I can film him there for the Documentary. So this film was made to try and get him there.

So i need YOUR HELP!! PLEASE!!! VOTE and Pass it On...

There are lots of entries that have been on the site for a while so I need to catch up so please forward the link to all your friends..

If I win you will see what your Votes did in the You Know Harvey Documentary...so consider yourself a Producer when you vote because it's like money invested in the film if we win.

thank you all for supporting my projects.

Fame versus Success

2009-11-04T10:03:00.001-05:00

Do you want to be famous or successful? Anyone can be famous in the 20th century but only a small percentage of people are truly successful. What’s the difference between fame and success? Andy Warhol said everyone would have their 15 minutes of fame. Fame is defined by people knowing who you are but that doesn’t necessarily come from doing something successful. Recently people have achieved fame by creating sex tapes and scandals, creating a fake event like Balloon boy and gaining widespread media attention. Other people have cheated and lied their way to fame. Others have failed in the glare of the spotlight because of addictions, indiscretions or excess. People that achieve fame at the expense of success become famous for a short time and do not get the respect that true success brings.

A good example of fame versus success was demonstrated by the Osborne family when they had their first reality show. Ozzy Osborne’s success and Sharon Osborne’s management skills created the reality show but the family paid the price that fame brought with it. Kelly and Jack Osborne both became the famous offspring of Ozzy and Sharon because of the reality show but neither one of them was prepared for the fame it brought into their lives. Both Kelly and Jack suffered under the glare of the spotlight with both developing serious drug addictions in front of the television cameras. They both became famous just for being the children of Ozzy Osborne and without earning or demonstrating any sort of talent or success. But success and stability came later for Kelly and Jack when they both had success at rehab and turned their lives around. Jack has gained success and respect from challenging himself to perform extreme sports for his own tv show while Kelly has been demonstrating her dancing abilities and her passion for performing on the Dancing with the Stars Show. They both have success with their fame now and the credibility, respect and happiness that goes with it.

People such as John and Kate Gosselin, Octomom, balloon boy and others only achieve fame and the misery of judgement seems to go along with it. They are being judged by the general public at large who are shining a very hot and bright spotlight on them. They will never achieve success and respect because they did not earn their credibility through accomplished goals.

There are others that have sustained success and fame in sync and those are the people that have the most power and respect. People like Oprah Winfrey who is famous but has achieved her fame through hard work and good deeds and in turn has the power to influence a whole generation of the public and her peers. Richard Branson has achieved business fame and success by creating credibility in his business and challenging ideas and the limitations of himself and others. He has built a huge corporation, broken some molds and given back to the world in the process.

The ultimate fame and success is president Obama who has achieved fame through his campaign for change and has influenced a generation of people that seek a new direction in their lives. He has achieved the ultimate goal of inspiring people that were apathetic and thought that there was no hope and he has achieved the goal of becoming the first black president through positivity and sheer determination.

So do you want fame or success? I believe we should all strive for success and if we achieve fame in the process we should use it to influence and assist others to change the world. If we ALL strive for success we can achieve and change anything for the better.

Urban Zombies at Mobifest

2009-10-29T06:57:00.002-04:00

I haven't had much going on to Blog about lately since I have been busy with just random things and working on my documentary.

Yesterday i attempted my first pitch session. I pitched to CBC's Doc Zone at Doc Org's Marketplace. Although I was turned down I was told to try the Documentary Channel so I will pursue that avenue next.

Better news was that my short film "Urban Zombies" was chosen as a finalist in the Mobifest Film Festival. The films and awards will be presented at the Revue cinema on Nov 17th.

Nuit Blanche 2009

2009-10-04T10:45:00.012-04:00

Nuit Blanche 2009 - I was downtown all day but waiting around until 8pm to meet up with my friend to check out Nuit Blanche. Seems like everyone was scattered all over the place. We finally hit our first place at 9pm where we checked out the Monopoly game. I didn't find it very interesting watching it on a screen outside the building. We moved on to the How to win the lottery lecture where we listened to stuff about palmistry. After that we met up with a friend who had her face painted and we moved on to the next thing which was the Avalanche ride on Bay street. After that we met up with another friend who ran into another friend so the group got even larger. We headed over to the Scotiabank tower to do an interactive music installation that was the coolest thing of people jumping around and waving hands creating music. After that we we met up with another 2 friends and headed over to City Hall to see the Text installation and some friends when over to say Hey Dave to some guy at Old city hall. From there we went to some boring thing at the Atrium and then headed over to the Bus Station for some Blindfold Boxing.. i don't think they were all that blinded from what I saw.. then we hit a pit stop for Pizza where I finally started crashing... so unfortunately my steam ran out an I bailed before they headed over to the AGO. I could hear the music but knew it would be at least a half hour before we got in and it was already 2am. I was downtown since 2pm so 12 hours hanging around downtown was enough for me. The went to the AGO and then I think the went to College and Spadina and from what i heard when to the Reference Library to do some dancing.. I wish I had the energy to do more. I managed to snap some photos and shoot some video so lugging cameras around becomes tiring quickly. Most of the crazy stuff is on video but everything became a Nuit Blanche installation including my friends so here are a couple of Snaps.

Tiff Wrap Up

2009-09-26T06:36:00.009-04:00

I am still trying to recover from a busy 10 day of the Toronto International Film Festival. 5 Nights were spent at Roy Thompson Hall volunteering with my "Entourage" team.

This is the wrap of the rest of the 10 days.

Parties - I know you want to know. I didn't go to many.

1. Reelworld Indie Film Lounge at the Pilot Tavern

2. My own little Tuff Subway Screening Party

3. Wift - women in film and television party at the Bata Shoe Museum

4. The Canadian Black Film Festival Launch

5. Tuff - Toronto Urban Film Festival Awards

6. TIFF - Volunteer Party.

I walked into the Cole party or a whole 5 minutes. I stood outside the In Style Party and saw the guests arrive.. but that's about in on the party front.

Movies

at Roy Thompson Hall I saw:

Creation

Precious

Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus

Young Victoria

at other theatres I saw:

Ondine

Leaves of Grass

Cooking With Stella

Now what you really want to know is which celebrities I saw:

Oprah Winfrey

Mary J.Blige

Mariah Carey

Tyler Perry

Sherri Sheppard

Vern Troyer

Terry Gilliam

Michael Moore

Christopher Plummer

Colin Farrell

Ewan McGregor

Edward Norton

Keri Russell

Don McKellar

Woody Harrelson

Bill Murray

the Dutchess of York Sarah Ferguson

Emily Blunt

Jennifer Connolly

Paul Betteny

George Clooney

Matt Damon

Colin Firth

Rachel McAdams

Trey Anthony

and I am sure there must have been a few others that I can't remember at the moment.

I do this list because I will probably forget by next year. It all becomes a blur after a while.

The nicest person that I got to talk to was Sarah Ferguson. She shook all of the hands of a few of my Entourage team and said "you must be exhausted" I said "does it show" and she replied "no I am projecting" I said "I feel your pain" and she laughed. She was very gracious.

I was able to see Q&A's of Colin Farrell's and Edward Norton's films. I love Colin Farrell he is so cool.

and I did some eating and chilling at the Windsor Arms, Four Seasons, Park Hyatt and One.

I just missed seeing Bono who was at the Elgin but I was on Queen and he was on Yonge street. I also saw the crowd of people snapping photos of the band going into the Hazelton Hotel. That would have made my Tiff if I would have seen Bono up close but at least I did in the 80's when I saw U2 at Ryerson theatre and then again at Massey Hall so I guess I am ok with that.

I got to see some of the hottest actors so I am good for the year. Who knows what I will be doing next year.....

Tiff, Tuff and a Doc

2009-09-26T06:13:00.005-04:00

Last week I was trying to juggle Tiff, Tuff and the Harvey Doc. For 5 nights I volunteered for Tiff with my Entourage Team at Roy Thompson Hall a few of the guys from my team in this pic on the Tiff Red Carpet. When I wasn't volunteering for Tiff I was busy with my Tuff films "Renaissance Men" and "60 words" which were playing on the subway the week of the festival. I had a small subway party to watch the films with a few friends.. see pic on subway platform. Then the day after the festival was the Tuff awards. Unfortunately I didn't win but the party was nice and I got to hang out with my cast/crew Collette Browne and Robert Nolan so free party for us. On top of all of that I had to still squeeze in a little bit of shooting or organizing for the Harvey documentary I am working on so I had to visit Harvey at Ryerson and I took him to the Salon during the week and then saw him at my subway party and then finally at the Tiff Volunteer Party. So needless to say I am recovering from a very busy week. I was still trying to work my day job in between all of that and still find time to hang out with friends so it was non stop for 10 days straight. Now I am going to turn into a bit of a hermit for a while and only work on the documentary and whatever else I need to take care of. I will do my Tiff wrap up in a seperate blog. Are you tired? I know I am..

My mother's hands in the Toronto Star

2009-09-13T12:00:00.003-04:00

In the The Toronto Star saturday edition there was an article about the seniors day program that my mother goes to. They did a photographic series on the clients hands and wrote stories about what they were doing and their backgrounds. My mother's hands sewing is one of a few of the seniors they profiles.

Globe and Mail article about me and my documentary

2009-09-05T08:34:00.004-04:00

There is an article in today's Globe and Mail Toronto Online about the Documentary I am working on called "You Know Harvey". The reporter Anthony Furey met with me and then met with Harvey the documetary's subject seperately. It is my hope that this article assists Harvey in his goals and helps the film gain momentum and some much needed attention.

please pass this along to anyone that can help.

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/toronto/everybody-knows-harvey/article1276788/

TuFF takes 2

2009-08-08T14:27:00.002-04:00

2 of my short films were accepted to this year's Toronto Urban Film Festival (TUFF). The films are "Renaissance Men" orginally created for the MOfilm film festival and a newly created film for Tuff called "60 Words". This will be my third year having films in the festival. The festival was founded in 2007 and my film "Rockstar" was chosen and was awarded the Best in Category Award for that year. Last year my film "Urban Zombies" was chosen as a finalist and this year you will be able to see 2 very different films at TUFF. One with actors and one without.

The films will appear online in a couple of weeks for an online voting competition portion of the festival so please make sure to Vote and tell your friends to Vote. From Sept. 11 to Sept 20th the films will be shown on the TTC subway screens around the downtown Toronto Subway stations. Every day will feature a different category. 77 films will be screened and on the last day the online voting favorites will be shown again. Help my films win some prizes and get some face time in the subways... VOTE< VOTE VOTE.

The past never goes away.

2009-07-31T20:00:00.003-04:00

I got a call today from the wife of the founder of the Tint King franchise. We went to High School together. She told me that her daughter found this old commercial that we did when I was working for Tint King. My friend Keith Penner directed and shot this commercial. We all thought it was funny then but looking at it now is even funnier. She is the blonde woman in the ad and the founder is the guy playing saxophone. See if you can spot me.. don't blink. I have no idea who the lead guy was.. I don't even remember him.. So be careful what you do now because you will hear or see it again in the future. Good thing you can't really see me so it's ok.. This was cool in the 80's... weird looking at it now.

Tint King Commercial on You Tube

1st Radio Interview

2009-07-30T06:17:00.003-04:00

Today I am going to CIUT FM to do my first radio interview for the show Take 5 with Michael Yarde. I go way back with Michael to my days of volunteering at Rogers Television when I was doing makeup for the shows Goldhawk Live and Auto Talk. Michael is going to interview Harvey Lalonde and I about the Documentary "You Know Harvey" that I am working on about Harvey's life as a volunteer at film festivals. I think this is Harvey's first radio interview as well and I hope it's not his last. He is becoming very media savvy so I can't wait to see how things go.

It is a pre taped interview so it will air in August just before Tiff. I will post the date and time as soon as I know when it is.

Images

2009-07-25T21:40:00.006-04:00

One thing that has remained consistent in my life since High School is my love of photography. I can always count on a camera to help me focus in on something i wouldn't notice otherwise. I love to take photos of friends, nature, musicians and the odd found in real life shot. I don't photoshop my images and prefer to just see them as they are but maybe with a closer look or a different view. Photography is the one thing in my life that I never lost interest in it was always there when I was bored or feeling creative. It's easy to just pick up a camera and just wonder around taking photos. You don't need anyone else to do it. Just you and a camera. I guess that's why it has always been consistent for me. It doesn't require planning a meeting time with anyone or waiting for someone before you can start. Just pick up a camera and shoot something. I always have something that can take a photo with me...whether it's my cell phone, my pocket camera or my bigger camera. It doesn' t matter sometimes...all that matters is that you capture great Images. In the end al that matters is a GREAT SHOT. Photography is an art that you can share but you can do it for yourself. I like to do it by myself and then share the images with friends. When people ask you what you want to be when you are a kid my answer when I was in school was a photographer. Nobody thought I could do that for a living so I was re-directed into another direction, but all the while with a camera in my hand. Now I make my own decisions and I am finding that I am happiest when I have a camera in my hand... either a still camera or a video camera. It doesn't matter as long as I am being creative and capturing beautiful images whatever they may be.

So I will continue to take Images wherever I can. I took some of these today while waiting to do an interview. You can be creative anywhere. You just need to have a camera in hand and your eyes wide open.

It's been a while

2009-07-19T20:49:00.002-04:00

Well it seems like it's been a while since I posted anything here but I have been busy blogging on my other 2 blogs. My Integrity Films Blog and on the Blog I created for the Documentary I am working on Film Fest Addict. I have been really busy trying to wrap up 5 short films for a submission to the Toronto Urban Film Festival. It's my 3rd year submitting to the festival. I hope I get in again this year. While working on the shorts I have also been working on a documentary about a film festival volunteer. The title keeps changing so who knows what t will end up as. i have done about 25 interviews with people in the film festival world and I still have a few more to do. I am trying to get as much done before the Toronto International Film Festival madness when sleep, free time and energy become the thing you want the most. I will be waiting for some answers from festival submissions soon but keeping busy in the meantime. Seems like there is something to do every minute of the day these days, and when I am not doing something I feel like I should be. Hopefully it will all pay off with a great film that other people like too... Only time will tell.. keep checking in to see what happens.

Reelworld Networking Night #1

2009-06-26T07:05:00.005-04:00

I had the pleasure of attending Reelworld Film Festival's 1st of it's monthly networking series at Harlem Restaurant in Toronto. It's a great idea to get people out on a regular basis and hopefully connect people that can create future works for the festival. Tonya Lee Williams the founder of the Reelworld Film Festival was on hand to launch the monthly event. Each networking evening will feature an artist that will talk about their experiences. The first artist was Music Video director RT who has worked on many of the big Hip Hop artists music videos and has been nominated for MMVA awards. Some of his clients include Cardinal Offishal and Danny Fernandes. He spoke about living life and looking at things differently through the lens of a camera. Something I can relate to. The networking evenings will be held on the 3rd wednesday of each month at Harlem restaurant so I hope you can check it out next month.

Some filmmaker friends in attendance were the talented Charles Officer and Ada Wong and also there to support was filmmaker Suds Sutherland. I met Charles Officer at Reelworld many years ago and run into him every now and then at Reelworld and other festivals and events around town. He is a beautiful man who I am happy to see get some great attention paid to his film Nurse, Fighter, Boy. Although I haven't had a chance to see it yet I hope to see it on DVD soon.

Support Filmmakers and these events and they will return the favour by providing you with some great entertainment in the future.

Worldwide Short Film Festival Wrap Up

2009-06-26T06:33:00.006-04:00

Well it's a bit late but this is my quick wrap up of the Worldwide Short Festival. The festival wrapped up last week and this year seemed to be a very successful year even with the recession people still submitted their short films...myself included. They received 3900 festival submissions this year. That's a lot of short films to watch. I wasn't able to see as many films as I would have liked so I won't review them but I can tell you that a couple of films that stuck out for me on opening night were First Floor because of the masterful technical work. It was beautifully shot and the technical expertise of the shots was amazing. On the opposite end was a heart tugging film called Gone Fishing with a surprise ending that was truly sad and heartwarming. I also got to see the celebrity shorts program and saw the legendary Lauren Bacall who is still beautifully graceful.

The fun part of the festival for me was the Opening Nicht Party at C Lounge. I looked around the lovely patio on a warm summer night and realized how connected the film festival industry is and how many people it takes to support the industry. I was a volunteer a few years ago for the festival and I realized how many people I met through the festival over the couple of years that I volunteered. I had the great job of volunteering at the symposiums one year and met so many great industry people at that time who I have run into at many festivals over the years. One of the people I met at the symposiums when I was a volunteer was Jamie White from the Colorado Film Foundation who remembered me from when I was a volunteer and then on to the World of Comedy Film Festival. It was great to chat with him at the fun Quebec Party. I also met Shane Smith who now programmes for Sundance and also works for Spafax but he was the Executive Director of the Worldwide Short Film Festival when i was a volunteer. I met so many great people while volunteering way before I even thought of becoming a filmmaker myself but I am happy to say that I was inspired and learned a lot from volunteering at film festivals and I know I wouldn't be making films now if it wasn't for the experience I got while I was a volunteer.

The wrap up of the festival was the Awards BBQ at the Canadian Film Centre. It was a glorious and sunny beautiful day at the film centre and some lucky filmmakers were awarded some amazing prizes for their work but I think more than the awards I think they made a lot of friends and future connections at the festival so I know that it will generate more fabulous work in the future. Although my films weren't accepted into the festival this year I will keep trying to submit films because it is a great festival with lots of opportunities for Short Filmmakers.

I hope to attend as a filmmaker next year.. and hope to say I went from a volunteer to a filmmaker at the festival one day.

Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett are gone

2009-06-26T06:20:00.002-04:00

I wanted to post some thoughts about the passing of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett. I will start with Farrah Fawcett. She was a beautiful woman that inspired many hairdos of classmates of mine when I was in high school. Sadly my hair wasn't long enough to do the Farrah Flip. She lived her life with grace and left her life with the same grace. She had the courage during her illness to decided to document her journey through Cancer treatments and I hope that her documentary will help others going through the same terrible disease. She was very strong and had a great attitude and I am sure will be missed by many people. I hope she is in a better place where there is no Cancer or pain. Her spirit will be remembered.

Michael Jackson, I first remember Michael whenI was a kid.. he is only a couple of years older than me so I remember when he was with the Jackson 5 and appeared on the Ed Sullivan show with his brothers. The show immediately caught my attention and I was only a kid but I remember how amazing Michael was and I thought he seemed so professional and amazing at such a young age. I thought he was so cute and talented. I wish Michael had stayed the way god had made him because I think he may have had a different life if he could have accepted himself the way he was. He influenced generations of musicians, Usher, JT and a host of other talented artists were inspired by him. He has a huge fan base around the world and appealed to so many different people. People have been saying that he is on the same level as Elvis was and I think he may have been the King of our generation.
I hope is soul is happy and settled now and if there is a heaven I hope that he is making music in heaven.

It's sad that he wasn't able to do his final shows in London but I think he also went out the way he entered ....With a Huge and Surprising Entrance and Exit the way a showman would.

My heart goes out to his family which is large and close and I am sure are all mourning the loss of Michael. I wish them peace and love.

They will be missed and are both truly loved.

Code Revival and Simeon Ross shows

2009-06-19T07:33:00.007-04:00

Last week I had 2 shows I wanted to go and check out because I wanted to support the 2 artists that appear on my latest film Homeless Yoga. Kind of tricky trying to be in 2 places at once though.

First I went to Supermarket in Kensington Market...a bar not a grocery store.... to check out Code Revival. It was a charity event for Eva's Initiative. I ran into my Reelworld film festival friend Sasha Stoltz who was doing the publicity for the event so she introduced me to the other artist playing that night. Matt Black opened doing a solo show and then Code Revival took the stage playing tunes from their new CD Moments in Motion. It was great to see them live again and I now support them 100% because they helped me finish my film with their great music. After Code Revival was Sean Jones who looked familiar but I couldn't figure out why until I found out he used to be in In Essence. He is now doing a solo album/tour with some heavier rock music. He has a great voice and is very charming so I think he will do very well as a solo artist.
So as usual I took a few pics of the event so check them out.

After Supermarket I headed over to the Drake to try and catch Simeon Ross. Unfortunately I missed his show but got to say hi at least. I will go see him at Neutral lounge at NXNE on June 20th.. so come check him out. He also has a new CD so check it out.

TTC shoot wrapped

2009-06-10T23:27:00.006-04:00

I finally wrapped the TTC shoot "Rudeness doesn't discriminate" for Tuff

It was a Crazy Train with my cast/crew on board the TTC yesterday.. We had the TTC supervisor laughing all the way. This shoot got rescheduled 3 times.. I was almost ready to scrap it so I am glad we finally did it with a little help from Jonathan another producer that assisted with the insurance so we could do the shoot.

Here's a look at some pics from the set...or should i say TTC subway train.

Renaissance Men

2009-05-31T13:30:00.005-04:00

Renaissance Men is the latest short film from Integrity Films to be submitted to the MOFILM film festival for the Renaissance Hotel Brand. These are mini movie/commercials that will compete at the Cannes Lyon Advertising Awards in June.

Renaissance Men is about 2 business men, one American and one Canadian. They complete a business transaction in Canada and then the Canadian decided to show the American around town. The 2 men enjoy all the sites in the city as if they were seeing them as a child would. They are let loose in the city to play all day. The American gets a taste of Toronto in One Day.

The film stars Robert Nolan and Corey Henry.

3 G's

2009-05-19T15:21:00.008-04:00

Yesterday I broke out my video camera to shoot a new short film in the beautiful sunshine day. I gathered some of my best friends and told them my concept and we had a little fun making a short film called "3 G's" for the MOFILM NOKIA Brand contest.
I will also try and do a silent one minute short cut version for the Toronto Urban Film Festival

Mofilm has a contest to come up with films for 12 different major brands. While I would love to shoot films for all of them I don't have the time, money, creativity and energy to do as many as I would like. Not to mention the fact that my health keeps getting in the way. I felt sick all weekend but pushed myself to complete the shoot because I knew it would be fun. So today I only went to work for half a day and now I should be resting and recuperating but I am typing this message for you so that you can see what I have been up to lately.

I have a lot of projects and ideas in the works but I am still trying to work around a full time job so I am not able to do as much as I would like to do.. but nevertheless I am working away slowly on whatever I can invent.

Have a peek at a few of the still we took on set yesterday..

Homeless Yoga Trailer

2009-05-01T09:48:00.002-04:00

This is the Trailer for my latest short film "Homeless Yoga"

IMDB Votes

2009-04-25T08:16:00.003-04:00

Hello to anyone that is reading this.

I just got my last 2 films onto IMDB so there are now 5 of my films listed on IMDB along with other films I have done makeup for. Each film needs at least 5 votes to be counted in the rankings. So if you have seen any of the films please go to the IMDB website. link here- http://www.imdb.com/name/nm1228224/ and VOTE.

I realize that you won't be able to see POTLUCK or HOMELESS YOGA because they are over 15 minutes so they aren't posted online anywhere but they are going to film festivals so if anyone is able to see any of them at a film festival please VOTE.

You can see some of the other films on either MOBIFEST.. http://www.mobifest.ca under Integrity Films or some are also posted on You Tube and other sites include http://www.torontourbanfilmfestival.com and http://www.shortsnonstop.com and MOFILM .

A couple are also on here somewhere or on my Myspace page.

films somewhere on the Net are:

Rockstar
Urban Zombies
Getting the Boot
What do you want to be?
Fishman
The Tree Killer
Jeannette's Alzheimers Movie Review.

Not all are listed on IMDB but you can check out whatever films you would like to see somewhere online.

I am working on a trailer for Homeless Yoga so hopefully I can post that soon.

So please Vote.. and I will be your friend FOREVER..

Earth Day

2009-04-22T08:55:00.002-04:00

Today is Earth Day!! It makes me think of all the things I should be doing to preserve the Earth. I made a little one minute short film called Random Act of Tree Hugging where I had all of my coworkers hug a tree to show how much we appreciate the Earth.

This morning I made sure I unplugged everyting I could.. I took the TTC and I haven't had any meat yet.. I am not sure how well I will do all day but I will try and do what I can. Unfortunately I am addicted to bottled water even though I know it's one of the worst offenders. But hopefully I can somehow balance things out or maybe even shift the balance to more good than harm. That's the goal everyone should be trying to achieve today and in the future. MORE GOOD THAN HARM! my new motto I guess..

Here is a cool link in the meantime to check out on Earth Day.. Breathing Earth

Diversity adds a different perspective

2009-04-19T07:55:00.004-04:00

Reelworld Film Festival is celebrating it's 9th year running a film festival that celebrates diversity. I have been to the festival every year since it's inception and have participated in many different ways. I started out as a volunteer doing all kinds of things in the first year as it needed someone to show up and get the work done so i pitched in where I could. In year 3 I became the volunteer coordinator and did that for 2 years. In the second year that I volunteer coordinated the festival it inspired me to come up with a project that would give the volunteers an opportunity to be involved in the making of a film instead of just volunteering for the festival. I wanted to elevate them to creators as well as volunteers. So I decided to put together a film and have them participate. All I wanted to do was facilitate this project but unfortunately I ended up taking on the writing, directing and producing roll as well as many other roles to complete the project. It's been 3 years but I am finally finished the film and I am finally happy with the results being the short film called "POTLUCK". I realized that being a part of Reelworld changed the course of my life. I had spent the past 25 years as a freelance photographer/makeup artist and now i merged into the roll as a filmmaker. I have always been interested in different cultures as in how other people eat and think and speak. When I was a child my mother used to take me to an annual event called "Caravan". We would go to churches and community centres around Toronto and sample the food of many different cultures and view their arts and music and dance. I always found it fascinating and I especially enjoyed trying all the different kinds of foods. So I guess when I look back now it makes perfect sense that I would make a film like POTLUCK. Potluck is a film about a potluck party that celebrates diversity and different foods are brought to the party and everyone mixes together into what is sometimes referred to as a "Melting Pot". I have 2 melting pots in the film.. I like fondue so I illustrated it that way.

I now attend the Reelworld Film Festival and am able to just appreciate the festival and the beautiful films that are made by people all over the world. I haven't had much time this week but I was able to see the Opening Night Film "Gospel Hill" by actor Giancarlo Esposito based on a true story it tells of a small towns fight to keep their town away from developers looking to build a golf course. Yesterday I saw 2 vastly different films. The first film I saw was "SKID ROW" a documentary film starring PRAS from the FUGEER It was a look at Pras living in SKID ROW for around 170 hours and seeing the reality of what people deal with on a daily basis. I brutal and raw look at life on the streets. I then saw a beautiful, smart and funny film called "SHADES OF RAY". I really enjoyed this film. It was about a guy that had interratial parents and wanted to marry a white woman until his father set him up on a date with a woman that had the same cultural background as him. He struggles between what he thinks he wants and what he really feels is right for him. This film had a great cast and very witty dialogue. If you get a chance to see these films somewhere please check them out and support them so these filmmakers can continue to make stories that don't follow the hollywood stereotypical stories.

I realized this week that being a part of the Reelworld Film Festival which has been one of my favourite festivals has inspired me and changed my path in life and has also brought some of my best friends into my life.

Embrace diversity and it will expand your world.