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| Winner! Winner! Chicken Dinner!! |
To say yesterday was a big day for Walk Softly Films would be like saying Ryan Gosling has done a couple of films this year: major understatement. It's the smallest scale of rags-to-riches that's humanly possible, but we'll take it. Here's how it all went down:
-But this minor inconvenience was nothing that a little Kirchhoff's deli couldn't take care of, right? Wrong. The "old part" of Paducah is not only nostalgic in looks, but also business practices. I.e., when we got there, already tasting some delicious club sandwiches as we walked down the sidewalk, we discovered they are closed on Sundays. Dirty, filthy, stinky rags...
-We did, however, discover a little gem of a mom-and-pop burger joint epically called "Burgers-&-Cream". Great hamburgers, and even though we discovered that the "cream" was actually "custard", it still passed the taste test. Plus, you can't even imagine how many juvenile jokes we can come up with for "Burgers-&-Cream" on a couple hours sleep.
-When we got back to the actual "film" portion of the festival, it continued to impress. We finally got to check out a film called Finding Jenua by Alison Mason; a new, good friend we made over the weekend. Her film ended up winning "Best of the Fest" and it wasn't difficult to see why. Great story with great acting, and as the film's writer and director, she made some very interesting choices and took some big time risks with its timeline, and they worked. When this film gets distribution, check it out. Plus, you will not meet a sweeter person ever than Alison. She deserves it.
-After two years of having films in River's Edge, we finally got an opportunity to see our work on the coveted Maiden Alley Cinema screen. They run 3 different viewing venues downtown, but the only one that is an actual, full size cinema screen is at MAC. And when we saw what Bizarnival looked like on it, you could not have knocked the smiles off of our faces. We all looked like Marsha Brady when she got to meet Davey Jones. That's when the "riches" portion of the day really started to pick up steam.
-We went into the awards ceremony with literally zero expectations. "We're just happy to be here" is usually so cliche and rarely true, but that's exactly how we felt. We made Bizarnival in 2 days with very little script (the puppet scene is the only thing we had on paper when we started shooting) with a 2 week window to get it finished so that we could have an entry for the Danville Lawn Chair Film Festival. We were stoked just to be invited back to our favorite festival after our Cannonball experience the year before. So when it was announced that we actually won "Best Narrative Short", we were as shocked as we were ecstatic. And we are planning a parade. It will probably take place in late December and may or may not involve Santa Claus. But make no mistake, it's for us.
This was a huge shot in the arm for us. To walk away from this festival with so many quality films with an award has lifted us up more than I can tell you. Couple that with the constant support we get from our family and friends, and let me just tell ya, the Walk Softly ball is rolling as fast as it ever has. We can't wait to get going on the next project.