JUNE 3 - 8, 2008
BEVERLY HILLS, CALIFORNIA

Revolution has been accepted at the 2008 Hollywood Black Film Festival!

HBFF, dubbed “The Black Sundance,” is an annual, six-day celebration of Black cinema, serving as a forum to showcase the talents of Black filmmakers and enhance appreciation for Black filmmaking. The festival has become a focal point for Hollywood ’s African-American creative community, attracting producers, executives, screenwriters, film and television personalities, aspiring artists and diverse audiences from Southern California and around the world.

The slate includes 51 shorts, 11 student films, 2 animated films and 2 music videos… Revolution will be competing with Give It To Me (featuring Timbaland, Nelly Furtado, and Justin Timberlake) for Best Music Video.

This is an exciting opportunity and arose only one week after Revolution’s nomination for Best Short Film at the Arizona Black Film Festival! Revolution is already getting some attention so we’re excited to see what happens in two months at the Hollywood Black Film Festival!

We should have more info on our HBFF screening time soon, but until then…

Revolution will be screening at the following 4 film festivals:

LA United Film Festival: April 18th - 20th in Beverly Hills

Rincon International Film Festival: April 22nd - 26th in Puerto Rico

Sweet Auburn International Film Festival: May 7th - 11th in Atlanta

Florida Music Festival’s Indie Film Jam: May 14th - 17th in Orlando

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Revolution will be screening at the Los Angeles United Film Festival on Sunday April 20th at 8:10pm

Fine Arts Theatre
8556 Wilshire Blvd.
Beverly Hills, CA 90211

Tickets are $10 per screening or $35 for an all access pass

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Revolution received an official nomination for Best Short Film at the 2008 Arizona Black Film Showcase. 40 short, feature, and documentary films were screened this year, a record in AZBFS history. Revolution was one of three films selected for Best Short Film, and received a a roaring applause when a clip from the final scene played in the awards ceremony in Phoenix on the evening of Saturday March 29th.

Revolution will be screening again at the LA United Film Festival on Sunday, April 20th at 8:10pm at the Fine Arts Theater - 8556 Wilshire Blvd. Beverly Hills, CA. If you’re in the Los Angeles area, come for the screening and stay for the after party!

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You know when they say, “and the nominees for Best Short Film are…” at the Oscars? Well, this time they said, “Revolution!” and there was a little clip of our video that played while everyone clapped. I admittedly had high hopes for our video, but seeing the nominee clip play at an awards ceremony solidified my faith in our work. From there, I was hoping to hear, “Re.. Rev.. Revolution!”, but instead this other film, Hollywood Jerome, won Best Short Film, and worst of all the creators weren’t even there… they ghost-robbed me of my acceptance speech!

It’s all good though. I had hella fun at the Arizona Black Film Showcase. I saw some great films, met some amazing folks, and had a chance to talk to all different types of people about our film and the message behind it. I realize that that’s why we do this… we love the experience of people feeling what we do. It makes it all worth it, for me at least, and best of all, it encourages me to keep making videos.

I found out that How To Build A Rapper will be screening with Revolution at the Sweet Auburn International Film Festival, so hopefully we’ll have a chance to link up with the guys from Anacost Productions again. Everyone uses Withoutabox, so my guess is that I’ll start seeing even more familiar faces within the coming months. I’m also hoping to run into some of these cool folks from Phoenix again. I had never been to Phoenix, and they really showed me love down here. I came down here expecting to do a lot of forced “networking” and made some friends instead.

This was a great experience, and I made sure to tell the event staff repeatedly. Everyone here was so friendly that they felt like family; I’ve got an excuse to come back now… Phoenix has my vote and I’m down to come back whenever it’s not 115 outside. I hope we get accepted to this festival next year, and I’m excited to see how things go for us at the LA United Film Festival on 4-20.

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Woke up this morning and headed back downtown to the AMC theater for a full day’s worth of screenings.

I had a chance to see a romance drama feature titled, Second Chance, which follows a father seeking joint custody of his child. This was definitely one of the better independent black romance films I had seen a while… the production quality was good, the script was unique with occasional hints of comedy, and the actors certainly did it justice. Our screening followed directly after the Second Chance talk back.

Watching your own video on “the big screen” is a trip. This was the first time I had seen Revolution at that size, and it definitely felt much different than the video I had edited in my bedroom a few months ago. After the screening, during the “talk back” I had a chance to explain the process of making our video and answer some audience questions. I actually had a chance to talk with the facilitator the night before, at length, so I felt like she knew how to ask all the right questions. She also made it a point to let everyone know that our video was more than just a music video repeatedly stated that it was “deep”… glad it wasn’t just “cool”

One audience member asked if I had ever considered casting children in any of our videos. When we were planning the video, we wanted to have the class made up of actual high schoolers, but felt that we wouldn’t be able to get them to stay at a shoot all day and be patient… especially if we couldn’t pay them. So now she’s got me thinking about how we could cast 10 - 20 high schoolers for our next shoot. Sure, people do it all the time, but it’s not as easy for me to do it if I can’t just include them in a mass text message… “Please come to our shoot today… and bring high schoolers with you!” She and some other 40+ audience members spoke with me afterwards, and it was so rewarding to hear them say that they felt like we were speaking directly to them with out video. One of them even asked

A mockumentary, titled How To Build A Rapper screened right after our video. I won’t bother to give the break down, but if you like rap music and you like comedy, check it out.

After leaving the theater, I did some more interviews with the TV and documentary crews here. The first interview was a longer interview with BigTv1.com. The host was real cool, and she had been outside doing interviews all day, but still had great energy. I’m really impressed with their production setup too… they had scheduled me in ahead of time (last night at that) and everything. I walked over to the filmmakers lounge right after that and did an interview for the documentary on the AZ Black Film Showcase. Again, the host was real cool, but she kept having trouble pronouncing my last name… she finally got it though after a few takes… I’m curious to see how all these interviews come out, so stay tuned for some video clips… I’ll get them up here eventually.

The awards ceremony is tonight, so we’ll see if we can get our first award at our first festival!

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