Alumni - Trailer From Ben Piety's New Short

UCF FILM alumni Ben Piety is making a new short film. Check out a trailer here:

Fest: Sex Machine, Lonely Lights & My Eskimo Friend To Play Rome, Georgia Film Fest

It's a threefer!

SEX MACHINE 2025, directed by Chris Shields ('07), LONELY LIGHTS, THE COLOR OF LEMONS, directed by Ben Piety ('06) and MY ESKIMO FRIEND, directed by Sean Heyboer ('07) have been accepted for screening at the Rome International Film Festival, September 6-9, in Rome, Georgia.

If you're there at the time, the films will be shown at 3:00 p.m. Friday/Saturday/Sunday at the Forum Civic Center in historic downtown Rome.

BTW - the first 2/3s of this threefer was brought to us by the good folks at the Rome Film fest, who looked deep into our Five Stories compilation DVD to find Sex Machine! Good work! Your audiences appreciate that, trust me.

Fest Update - Summer Brings More Acceptances

Just because it's summer, doesn't mean the festival circuit ain't rolling forward. In fact, two more notable Festival acceptance were just slipped under our door.

First off, The Lonely Lights. The Color of Lemons, directed by Ben Piety ('06) has been accepted to the 21st Annual Wine Country Film Festival in the Napa Valley & Sonoma Valleys July 19 - August 5th. Each year WCFF features a most outstanding line-up of critically acclaimed films from around the world and LEMONS will be among the best of the best. This is supposed to be a huge party of drink and nosh. Ben should make plans to attend.

Next up, AMERICAN DELUXE, directed by Aaron Brownlee ('06) has been selected for screening at the FirstGlance Philly 10 Film Festival,10 days and nights of events and screenings happening Sept 28- Oct 7th in the city of Brotherly Love (not Motherly Love, for you Zappa fans). The fest sez: This years FirstGlance Film Fest Philadelphia brought in a record breaking number of entries of the most amazing truly independent projects in our history. You have 3 months to promote your projects and to assist you, our website offers many ways for you to go about the promotion of your project and the film festival. From Co-op advertising with the festival, a downloadable press release and a page filled with local contact webpages to local Philadelphia media. We will be contact you by phone with more information. Some suggestions include starting a MySpace page to promote your film, trailers on YouTube and Veoh and linking to our website with our co-op advertising program, just to start!!

Nice to see these festivals getting on the internet bandwagon, huh?

Congrats to all.

Fest - AMERICAN DELUXE Takes Grand Jury Award @ Scene First Film Festival

We just received this lovely letter about AMERICAN DELUXE, Capstone short of Aaron Brownlee ('06).

Thanks for submitting American Deluxe for screening at the Scene First Student Film Festival. Sorry you could not join us in Wilmington last weekend but I am writing to let you know that your film was selected as the Grand Jury Award winner, the highest award given at the festival.

We had over 200 films submitted from 24 states, 8 countries, and nearly 100 institutions so it is a wonderful accomplishment to have your film selected as the best overall entry in the competition. The Grand Jury Prize includes a $250 cash award and a gift package from Avid. You will also receive a DVD package from Digital Video Labs valued at $5,000

We enjoyed your film a great deal and it was extremely well-received by the other participants at the festival. I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors. I hope you will stay in touch with us and agree to help us judge student films at future festivals.

The REAL Omega 35 released

You may exhale.

We've just received word from the Dastoli Digital World Headquaters and the word is good. The final version...nay, THE REAL VERSION of their explosive Capstone epic OMEGA 35 has been released.

Sez one of the Dastolis: We just released the full final version of Omega 35 at http://omega35.dastolidigital.com. In an attempt to combat the close-mindedness of past years, where everyone at UCF saw an incomplete version of our movies and then judged us completely on that compromised work even though we told them repeatedly that it was not the real version of the movie, I am trying to get the news out to everybody to watch the real version of the movie. We also have a behind the scenes documentary. It's rather fun to watch.



Having watched it all, I can say the Behind The Scenes doc is pretty fun. The guys are happy to trash almost everyone - actors, faculty, their computers, their own incompetence and the film itself. It a curiously post-modern sort of sales pitch. And should you ever have trouble falling asleep at night because you miss working on a UCF film, just loop the extended clips of the Dastoli arguing on set. Ahhh. Good times.



As for the film itself, the Dastoli are right, OMEGA 35 is completely different in the full 18 minute version, compared to the desecrated 15 minute version they were forced to show in April. Turns out this isn't a tribute to direct-to-video, 1980s sci-fi flicks, it's a love story about puppies. Cute little puppies and itsy bitsy kittens. They are adorable. See for yourself. I was shocked.

Look for the Dastolis hosting (and directing) the third season of SHORT FLIX, the best in UCF films, coming soon to an obscure cable channel near you!

Fest - NAKED AS A JAYBIRD To Tour The World With NextFrame

NextFrame: UFVA's Touring Festival of International Student Film + Video has selected The World, Naked as a Jaybird, directed by Tiina Treasure ('06) as a finalist in its 2007-2008 Festival.

Sez NextFrame: As a finalist, your film will embark on a yearlong tour, screening at venues around the world. Additionally, your film is now in consideration for NextFrame's 2007-2008
Awards Program, where it will contend with other finalists for prizes and product grants as determined by noted film/video makers and educators. Winners will be announced at the 2007 University Film and Video Association (UFVA) Conference this August in Denton, TX (USA).

BTW - they're serious about this tour thing. Acceptance here means a film plays in 20 to 30 festivals and special screenings. NICE!

Fests - Acceptances & Awards Rolling In

School's closed for the summer, but the might international festival circuit rolls on. We recently got word that two UCF FILMS made the cut at the 16th Annual Wood's Hole Film Festival, based in Wood's Hole, MA, right near Falmouth, MA. Screening there will be AMERICAN DELUXE, directed by Aaron Brownlee, and THE WORLD, NAKED AS A JAYBIRD, directed by Tiina Treasure. The event takes place at the end of July.

Over on the other side of the planet, the 9th Annual Seoul International Youth Film Festival has accepted THE LONELY LIGHTS, THE COLOR OF LEMONS, directed by Ben Piety, and THE WORLD, NAKED AS A JAYBIRD. UCF has been well-represented at this prestigious event for several years, ever since UCF's Debby Wolfe gave a FIVE STORIES DVD to the festival programmer when she attended a screening of Debby's film, CAT'S BAD HAIR DAY at the Tribecca Film Festival.

The Lonely Lights. The Color of Lemons was also accepted for screening at the 2007 Nevada City Film Festival! The festival dates are Thursday, August 16th through Sunday, August 19th.

American Deluxe has also be selected for screening at the 2007 FROZEN FILM FESTIVAL in San Francisco, California!

Finally, Danny Daneau, UCF FILM grad student, won the Audience Award at the recent Indie Film Jam for his music video of the The Heathens - Dirty Jeans. This was the 2nd year the Heathens and a UCF filmmaker won the audience award - last year it was Ben Piety for his video of the song Stickin Around.

UCF FILM Alumni Seeks PA & Wardrobe For Miami MTV Shoot

Hey Everyone!

I'm here in Miami producing a new show for MTV and I'm looking for a few great PA's. Ideal candidates MUST be local, meaning they have their own car and housing. If you or anyone you know is interested please send your resume ASAP! I'm also looking for a Wardrobe stylist to pull clothes for the guys on the show, so feel free to recommend for this position as well.

Shoot dates are starting immediately through July 31. Also, If you speak Spanish please let me know, as that's a bonus! Day rate is DOE.

Thanks,
Tracy Powell 407.284.7320