Screen South very kindly agreed to give me a grant to facilitate my attendance of the NYIIFVF and its sister event the Los Angeles International Independent Film and Video Festival this coming September. I believe that these are the two main cities of American film making and thus attending these festivals could have the potential to be very beneficial to myself and the film. I was also very eager to attend these festivals as they had the most expensive entry fees that I had ever paid. $525:50 combined fee but I felt that would guarantee (if selected) a screening in the two most important film cities in the states. The NY festival ran from April 2nd through to the 12th. Screenings started at mid-day every day on two screens and ran until mid-night each night at Village East Cinemas, Screens 1, 6, 7 at 181 2nd Avenue @ 12th Street, Manhattan, NY USA. The festival itself was sponsored by ITN Distribution and Independent Film Quarterly Magazine and ran jointly with the New York Music Festival. The events kicked off with a party on April 2nd at Madison Square Gardens.

I invited many of the fellow film-makers that I had met from previous film festivals to the launch party. Diane Longo from the Directors View Film Festival in Connecticut went to the party and kindly handed out many flyers detailing the date, venue and time of Summer Rain’s screening in NY. She also used the Director’s View press & contacts data-base and also sent out over 200 e-mail press releases to the New York Tri-state area press and production companies. In advance of flying to NY, I contacted many of the New York based film makers that I had met. I invited Robert De Niro as I was his Character Research Assistant on FRANKENSTEIN. I also invited controversial documentarian Michael Moore, James Schamus the writer-producer of CROUCHING TIGER, HIDDEN DRAGON and Rick Sands, head of production at Miramax.

The festival was also sponsored by Manhattan East Suites Hotels – a chain throughout New York who offered a 10% discount film-maker rate. However, I found that by booking my hotel through www.expedia.com I was still able to stay at a festival hotel with a 25% discount at an even greater saving than offered by the festival. I stayed at the Dumont Plaza for the week. The advantage of staying at the official festival hotel was that it very close to both the cinema’s and central Manhattan. It was only five minutes to the Empire State Building, ten minutes to Broadway and twenty minutes walk from Greenwich Village and the cinema.

As the grant took care of the hotel room I was able to invite one of my leading actors, Charlie Watts, who played Michael in the film. Since filming Summer Rain Charlie went onto spend a year as Christopher Wren in THE MOUSETRAP on the West End. He then went onto understudy Vincent Van Gogh in Richard Eyre’s VINCENT IN BRIXTON, which led to him starring in Channel Five’s soap opera FAMILY AFFAIRS. As Paul Vaughan Evans had been to the Director’s View Film Festival, I thought it was fair to let another member of the cast, who worked for free on the film, experience the buzz and excitement of a big film festival.

Charlie and I both flew from Heathrow to JFK thanks to www.cheapflights.com The cheapest flights we could find were with Air India and even the in-flight meal was a curry. On the flight over Charlie read my brand new screenplay TSAVO.

Getting from JFK to the hotel required a yellow cab, costing $45. It took nearly an hour in the NY rush-hour. But from the taxi I grabbed my first sight of the Manhattan skyline.

Charlie and I were in room 1306 in the Dumont Plaza, 34th and Lexington, and as soon as we arrived we started to prepare the Summer Rain promotion items to take to the cinema the following day. After eating we planned our campaign for the following day.

Monday April 7th 2003

Charlie on Broadway by "Vincent in Brixton"

The very first thing we did was write out on 100 sticks of Brighton Rock, the date and time and venue of the film on the Summer Rain label. "Screen 7 - Village East Cinemas - Wednesday 9th – 2pm”

The freezing, biting, chill wind ripped through our clothes as did the sleet and snow as Charlie and I trudged our way around Broadway trying to find the Sande Shurin Acting Studio on 311 West 43rd Street.

On our way there Charlie stopped off at the Golden Theatre, 252 W.45th St where VINCENT IN BRIXTON had transferred to Broadway. He tried to leave a message at the stage door for Jochum Ten Haaf and Clare Higgins and had the following conversation with the ageing native New Yorker doorman.

CHARLIE: Can I leave a message for Jochum and Claire please?

DOORMAN: Are you Dutch?

CHARLIE: No, I’m English.

DOORMAN: Then why do you have a Dutch accent.

CHARLIE: No, it’s an English accent.

DOORMAN: Are you an actor?

CHARLIE: Yes I am.

Charlie writes a note to Jochum

DOORMAN: Jeez... You should have been an accountant.

CHARLIE: But, I wasn’t any good at maths.

DOORMAN: I’ll tell you what you should have been.

CHARLIE: What?

DOORMAN: You should have been a doctor.

CHARLIE: Why?

DOORMAN: Cos your writing is so Goddamn awful.

We finally made it to the Sande Shurin Acting Studio and were surprised that despite our festival VIP passes we had to pay $10 to get into the seminar which was advertised as: The Future of Acting and the fundamentals for casting your film. I felt the panel was too free-form and did not address the title of the event. Renarta from ITN Distribution did speak well about the relationship between film-maker and distributor and confirmed our fears that ‘names’ drive the industry, and of course ‘names’ are hard to get when you have little money to pay for them. The casting director was fairly unhelpful in resolving this question of how to get names with no money.

The panel highlighted a difference in British and American Actors, one actress came in late and raised her hand and simply asked the Casting Director: “Are you taking Résumé’s today? When the event finished all the actors in the audience instantly produced their resumes and headshots, which in themselves were very revealing. Whereas in the UK headshots are quite ‘soft’, ‘welcoming’ taking the ‘hire me I’m friendly’ attitude, headshots in America are glamorized and full of attitude’ film work such as BAD BOYS 2 being highlighted in bold before any theatre work or training. One resume I was handed (once my occupation was discovered) listed the many costumes that the actor owned as well of photographs of him in those very outfits – NYPD Summer, NYPD Winter, NYPD short sleeves, NYPD leather etc… listing in his skills FIREARMS.

Charlie asked the panel if an actor should walk into an audition as ‘the character’ even maybe adopting the costume, or go as himself and then ‘turn it on’. Once again I found the answers vague and contradictory. The general consensus finally settled on a compromise, enter the audition in the ‘attitude’ of the character. The chairman of the group Sande Shurin has recently published a book based on her own teaching called Transformational Acting. Unfortunately Sande did not go into detail about her ‘method’ but I asked a student of hers Jeff Applegate what it was:

“Sande's approach differs from standard Stanislavski Method acting or Meisner's approach in that it is not about coaching yourself to remember comparable emotions from past situations in which you've found yourself (as in Stanislavski), or to draw upon a potential emotion you might feel IF you were this character in this potential situation at some point in the future. In contrast, Sande's approach, with its mysterious title of "Transformational Acting" (which, while accurate, can be off-putting at face value), starts from the basis that the greatest point of truth we can start from as actors is that of the here and now in which we (as the actors) find ourselves at that given point in time. Granted, if you're pissed at the world and have to perform a happy love scene, that may seem inconsistent. So the bridge therefore is recognition that emotion is more of a raw form of energy that is given its shape by our psyche and the circumstances of the moment. If we try to go into that happy scene and pull away from or suppress that anger, then we are actually separating ourselves from the raw truth of the emotion that is going on at this particular moment, and the best that would come out of that process would be a good PRETENDING of the happy moment. But by allowing the anger, handing it off to the character in a way that allows the character to segue the anger into the happiness or whatever based on the character's own circumstance, it will produce a performance that is far more truthful, and will have a wide range of colors of its own that might be subtly different than those that would come through if you came to the set after having found out you'd won the lottery---- no less appropriate or truthful, but tinged with different colors. One of the best parts about this is that it allows for a subtle variety of these colors in performance, rather than one that becomes fixed and stagnant.”

Further details can be found at www.SandeShurin.com

After handing out many sticks of rock to confused Americans and taking on board a vast amount of resumes, Charlie and I met directors Martha Vaga of TRYST and Matt Schaffer the director of PROZAC BABIES; and we promised to attend their screenings.

Charlie and I then retreated to Broadway and saw a pro-life rally outside Toys R Us. We then journeyed deeper into Manhattan towards Rockefeller Plaza, and in a momentary lull in the snowstorm I took this photograph of the only tree I had seen in NY to that point. That night Charlie and I went to Village East Cinema’s and checked out the presentation. We found thousands of posters and fliers on display in the cinema lobby for all the films due to screen. We put out several handfuls of Brighton Rock on the tables and a couple of posters, cast interview sheets and production information. Almost as quickly as I put the information out it was taken, instead of making me happy that just disturbed me as I didn’t have the quantity of promotional materials available to replace the missing items.

At 8pm we went to the New York premiere of CHROMA: directed by Carrie Shultz. 17minute documentary. Colored sound, colored touch, colored letters and numbers. Reviewed as “psychedelic” and “meditative”, CHROMA interviews three women possessing the unique neurological phenomenon of Synesthesia (“crossed senses”) and illustrates their descriptions through a mix of film and digital effect techniques. Best Student Documentary – Independents’ Film Festival, and picked as “Best of Fest” at the Dahlonega International Film Festival. NYIIFVF Award Winner. I found the subject matter fascinating but the execution I thought was far from impressive. A few digital effects thrown over three talking heads was far from dazzling. The subject matter was informative though and unusual so perhaps this is why this film has won several awards.

The following film was the main feature of the evening. A feature length documentary entitled MAD DOG PROSECUTORS. Directed by Russell Richardson. 67 minutes. Documentary. After an entrepreneur unexpectedly becomes the target of an FBI investigation, he documents the truth behind his investigation, the harsh realities of the American legal system, and an unfair prosecution. I found this film fascinating and it did reveal the ‘trap’ that the American legal system has fallen into. Just for the defendant to mount his case to say “I’m innocent” cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. Then it was easier and cheaper to say “Guilty” to a lesser charge than deny the greater charge; even then to a faceless prosecutor. As the prosecutor did not agree to take part the film felt very one-sided and perhaps did not make certain key legalities clear.

However, it was a huge insight into the unfairness of the American system. After the screening the entrepreneur took a Q&A where he admitted that he had done something wrong, but it was a minor, unintentional infraction that did not warrant the time in jail he had to serve. He smiled when he admitted he had since met the faceless prosecutor by accident. Mad Dog Prosecutors then hosted that evening’s festival party at SERENA’S NIGHTCLUB underneath the Chelsea Hotel, 222 W23rd St, where Charlie and I invited everyone to our film.

TUESDAY APRIL 8th

Charlie and I battled through the torrential rain to the cinema and went to the NY premiere of CANCER DREAMS: Jesse Knight dir. 23 minutes. Science Fiction. In a hellish world, Captain Alonzo Cowart finds out that in death, existence is purely a state of mind and a direction of will. Impressive visual effects, grandiose visuals ruined by a dreary score and an impenetrable story line. It had much to suggest the film-makers had put vast amounts of time and energy into making it. The special effects were quite a marvel on a film obviously made by teenagers, as were the Ninja fighting sequences – and there you discover the failings of the film. Just because it looked good did not mean that it made any sense whatsoever. A true film student, media studies movie, important to the makers only. Perhaps given a decent story the film-makers would stand a better chance of making a good film. However, it did have much to suggest the makers had talent.

That was followed by Matt Schaffer’s PROZAC BABIES: 85 minutes. Drama. A young man refuses to take his Prozac. Like Cancer Dreams before it, there was much to recommend Prozac Babies except for the final product. Charlie was very taken with the truthful style of acting and dialogue, but we both agreed that it had all the hall marks of a low-budget independent film. It was badly shot on digital, my inner director was screaming ‘buy a tripod!’ and ‘light the scene!’. The story had a disappointing climax leading the audience to wonder how some plot lines had been so easily resolved. However, the quality of some of the acting and dialogue was outstanding. Many scenes had a raw, disturbing power that suggested the director would go far given access to decent facilities and an ‘audience friendly’ script, at least one that didn’t feature three genuine vomiting scenes. When asked how he achieved the realism of the vomiting, Matt Schaffer replied that his lead actress was a former dancer and was use to ‘taking care of that kind of thing’. The story followed a depressed young man and his daily trawl through life; hanging out with his ‘intense’ Karate instructor, his junkie friend and his bulimic, obsessive girlfriend. His life deteriorates until he finds himself using his belt on his girlfriend screaming “I hate you!” After an aborted suicide attempt he takes stock of his life and starts using the Prozac. After Charlie and I had congratulated the director we left the cinema, traumatized, and went out for lunch at the Telephone Bar & Grill – an English theme pub, decorated by three red phone boxes. Inside we found that out that there was a film-makers 10% discount on the bill. We were even more excited to find that on TV was live coverage of Manchester United being thrashed by Real Madrid. We also discovered that the Bar ran it’s own mini film festival on Wednesday nights. This month it was the James Bond season. Whilst we ate many of our fellow film-makers joined us.

Charlie added the screening date and time

That afternoon Charlie and I went to the local internet café and copy shop. I sent out final e-mail invitations to the festival and Charlie adapted the Summer Rain artwork. The poster now included the date, venue, time and the legend: “This project has been enabled by Screen South and the RIFE lottery funding programme.”

Charlie then manually cut all the posters to size. We went back to the cinema and put the Summer Rain posters out on display in prominent positions, supported by liberally strewn sticks of Brighton Rock (just to confuse everyone). We went back to the cinema and put the Summer Rain posters out on display in prominent positions, supported by liberally strewn sticks of Brighton Rock (just to confuse everyone).

The cinema manager prevented me from taking further photographs in case I breached the copyright of the other film images on display. I tried to explain that Summer Rain was my film and I was only interested in a photograph of my main actor and my own artwork together for this report; but I was told that the cinema didn’t want to be sued so I had better put my camera away. Hence to view the photograph of Charlie next to the Summer Rain posters that appears alongside this paragraph – please sign the non-disclosure agreement in appendix A of this report.* *No such Agreement exists.

That night we went to see the Broadway musical ‘THE PRODUCERS’ by Mel Brooks before attending that night’s festival party at Café Deville, 103 third Avenue and 13th Street. At the festival party we met as many of our fellow film-makers as possible and spread the word.

WEDNESDAY APRIL 9TH

At last it was the day of the screening. I was very nervous, partly because I was unsure how big the audience would be. I was upset that my film was in a 2 pm slot, midweek – how much of an audience would that attract? To my relief an audience came. True, it was not as large an audience as previous film festivals had treated me too, but nevertheless it was a reasonably turn out. Many of the Director’s View Film Festival staff came from Connecticut to support the film. As did many New York based film makers that I had met at previous festivals. Even my cousin Staffan who I had not seen in twenty years came to the screening. Sadly, Robert De Nero, Michael Moore and Miramax did not come.

The screening went well and the film was very well received. I had a genuine thrill that after all the problems of making the film here I was in New York with a member of cast reaching an audience I would not have dreamed I would have the opportunity to present the film too.

Summer Rain seemed to stand out as it was one of the few up beat, positive, independent films to have been made, let alone programmed. Its production values seemed considerably higher than anything else that we had seen. Comparing my film to everything else that we had seen reaffirmed my belief that I have a career ahead of me.

The Q&A with the audience went well. Firstly I thanked Screen South for their support and help in allowing me to attend the film festival and then Charlie and I answered any of the questions that were thrown forward. How much was the budget? How long did it take you to make? Where did you get your actors? Why did you make it? All the normal questions. The post-screening Summer Rain party was held at the Telephone Bar & Grill and much of the audience joined us to celebrate the film’s success.

THURSDAY APRIL 10TH

Finally I felt that I deserved a day to myself, having survived the trauma of another Summer Rain screening. As part of the point of traveling to foreign film festivals is to explore and take in other cultures I decided to take on a journey to Central Park. We passed the Chrysler Building and went into the impressive terminus of Grand central station, up Madison, Park Avenue, 5th until we reached the sanctuary of the Park. The park is huge, and having walked deep within, we noticed that you could not see the skyscrapers, and although comparatively peaceful to the rest of New York, the background buzz of traffic was inescapable.

Having walked the length of Central Park to the Jackie Kennedy Onassis reservoir, where we re-enacted several scenes from THE MARATHON MAN, we diverted to the Guggenheim Museum. Then we went to the Metropolitan Museum before walking down Madison towards Bloomingdales.

However, the highlight of the day was left until the night. We went up to the 86th floor, the observation deck of the classic Empire State Building. My disappointment that there was not an impact crater and big chalk outline of a monkey on the road outside disappeared when I saw the incredible of New York

That night, Charlie and I finally met up with Jochum Ten Haaf and Clare Higgins. Jochum was nominated for an ‘Olivier’ award in London and now he is on Broadway, he has been nominated for a ‘Tony’ award. Jochum was obviously pleased to see Charlie, a friendly face in New York and we had a wonderful night talking about acting, films and of course… “Soccer”.

FRIDAY APRIL 11TH

I went early to the copy shop / internet store to arrange the FedEx of the Summer Rain masters to the Bare Bones film festival in Oklahoma where Summer Rain has been nominated for ‘Best Foreign Film’. I then made sure that the Beg & Grovel Film Festival had received the screening masters from the Pensacola Bay Film Festival. When all was in order Charlie and I took the subway down to Park Place and walked the fifty yards to Ground Zero.

Ground Zero is a scar, emotionally and literally on the Manhattan skyline. Tall buildings abound everywhere and then there is a sudden gap where the sky just looks empty. Beneath this gaping hole is a massive building site the size of two football stadiums. It was hard trying to visualize the images of the mighty Twin Towers when presented with this hole in the ground and equating that with the horror of their destruction and the loss of 3000 people. The names of the fallen civilians, firemen and police were listed on a plaque, beneath which were several bouquets. Across the photographic information boards were scrawled notes of love and remembrance.

The buildings around the site still bore the marks of destruction, one building was shrouded entirely in a mourning cloak of black. Beneath a massive mural of hope stands the last remaining girders of the original building, standing as a cross, wrapped in the American flag with tributes beneath to the firemen who lost their lives.

Then, the last New York landmark for Charlie and I to see was the Statue of Liberty. We walked down to Battery Park and looked out across the Hudson River… She’d gone out for the day.

Charlie then had to rush off to JFK to catch his flight back to England. Arriving at Heathrow on Saturday morning, he was then immediately flying to Manchester as he had tickets to watch Arsenal play Sheffield Wednesday at Old Trafford in the F.A Cup Semi-Final! Arsenal won 2-0. As I didn’t have tickets to see Arsenal play I stayed in New York and went to the penultimate night of festival films.

SO MANY WOMEN, SO LITTLE HAIR: Jon Rubin, director. 15 minutes. Comedy. A documentary following the moderately attractive Jon Rubin as he fearlessly attempts to pick up beautiful women on the streets of New York City.

This was the only film of the festival that I can genuinely say I loved. Jon Rubin is a balding, plumping Jewish New Yorker who wants to marry the ‘woman of his dreams’. So to facilitate this dream into reality he stops and talks to ANY beautiful woman he passes in the street. Watched by a hidden camera team he tries his opening line “Hey, didn’t you use to go to Columbia University?” on every woman in the city with hilarious results. After the success or near 100% failure rate of the initial chat up, the camera team would then interview the victim of Jon’s attentions. Nearly all of them liked him but sadly only as a ‘friend’, that’s if they hadn’t given him a fake number. It was genuinely funny, insightful and as the object of delusion was also the film-maker, how could you not feel sympathy and affection for him. A lovely piece of self-depreciating humour. A fifteen minute gem.

BIG APPLE: Danny Lerner, dir. 83 minutes. Comedy. Angel McGee knows everything about women, Max Rosenberg has never had a woman, and Jackie is still looking for the man of her dreams. They may have nothing in common but they’re all about to get entangled in a bizarre mystery of murder in the BIG APPLE.

Starring Jaid Barrymore (The Last Days of Disco), Carlos Leon (The Big Lebowski). NIIFVF Award Winner. This film won the ‘Audience Award’, ‘Best Newcomer Director’ and ‘Best Actress’. I’ll lay my cards on the table and say straight up: I disagreed with everything about this film. To me, it was mock Woody Allen from the seventies. Trying to recreate his persona and the slapstick style of humour he created in films like ‘Banana’s’. I found the execution painful, dull and predictable. The lead character too Woody for his own good. That’s not to say there was not some stand out comedic moments. I laughed out loud several times and I thought some of the lines were brilliant, but that does not make it a good film. I did not like the editing, I thought the timing was out. Acting poor (including the award winner) and that the whole thing was predictable. The story which concentrated on relationships was entertaining but they threw in a half-hearted serial killer which in a romantic comedy came across as distasteful. I know it sounds like sour grapes but I genuinely didn’t think it was very good. However, it sold out the Greenwich East Cinema screening. (It was made in Greenwich).

That night’s party was held at DISCOTHEQUE, 17W 19th St. After an hour or so I left the party with friends and went to O’Neill’s in Soho where everyone excitedly told me an episode of ‘Sex in the City’ had been filmed. I was with the bar’s attorney who to the shock of everyone lit a cigarette - smoking is now prohibited in all public venues in the state of NY. He laughed “What are they going to do? Sue me?”. As it was 3am and the bar was shut to the public, he felt he was safe. He lived across the road from O’Neill’s in the same building as Calvin Klein.

SATURDAY APRIL 12TH

With the festival winding down I was pleased to spend the day in Greenwich Village and Soho with my cousin Staffan. He introduced me to the Italians of New York and a wonderful bar called Angolo’s where Football Italia was broadcast live, Inter Milan vs. AC Milan.

It was also the first day that it was not raining, sleeting or snowing. Instead I had glorious blue skies and sunshine and Greenwich Village came alive. Suddenly the area became colorful and vibrant, filled with interesting stalls and shops. I also passed a fire-station with over twenty five photographs on their gate of the men who died from that single station on September 11th. New York suffered badly on that day and I think the wound is still fresh.

I discovered a place called DVdojo – www.dvdojo.com an independent film maker’s coffe shop and facility. You could learn DV film making, editing, scriptwriting – attend seminars, workshops and lectures whilst enjoying a beer or coffee. Attached next door there was a poetry and arts coffee shop. This was the very hub of creativity and independent film making in New York that I had been looking for. If I was a resident of the city I know this would be the venue where I would hang out. I bought two books “How to Enter Screenplay contests and Win” and “Script Writing on the Internet”.

I went to the last film of the festival, TRYST, the winner of the BEST THRILLER Award at the NYIIFVF. TRYST: Mirtha Vega, dir. 75minutes. Thriller. A racy and sophisticated noir/thriller. TRYST is a veritable knock-your-socks-off roller coaster ride of sex and violence set during an afternoon rendezvous in a boutique hotel room.

As Mirtha had been on the first seminar that I had seen I had been particularly interested to see her film. Sadly, I hated the film. I thought it was overwrought, over-written, over-acted, over-plotted and basically bad. Half way through the film the girl sitting next to me turned to me and said “My life is too short for this” and left the cinema. She was the first of ten walk outs. I would have followed but I was intrigued to see if the film was really as bad as I thought it was.

It was.

At the closing night party at the CHINA CLUB, I once more met up with Jeff Applegate, a student at the Sandi Shurin Acting studio. He too had seen the seminar and the film and I asked for his opinion... his venom exceeded mine. Then he pointed out that both award winning films that I had seen had both been on home turf, New York films in front of a local sell-out audience. Safe programming for a festival director, he knows he can find a full house for two otherwise unknown independent films at $10 a seat. Whereas with the Brit-chick-flick Summer Rain what guaranteed New York audience would that bring in? Hence I was shunted to the 2pm midweek free slot leaving the primetime $10 slots to the New York films. Awards for the local heroes in front of the home crowd? Jeff then also pointed out that (he may be mistaken) that both films were distributed by ITN distribution, the sponsors of the film festival. I can’t vouch for the factual accuracy of his opinions but they were certainly interesting theories when I hated both films.

SUNDAY APRIL 13TH

It was the day of my flight from JFK back to England. I was sad to leave New York behind, especially as the weather had dramatically improved and I had discovered Soho and Greenwich Village with my cousin. Part of the reason to travel to film festivals is to experience other cultures and see the world and New York is certainly an experience to treasure. Surprisingly, I felt safer on the streets of New York than I do in London or Brighton. The streets were free of rubbish and chewing gum and they were clean, this was not the New York I had expected. The festival had been an eye-opener into the standard of marketing that independent films indulge in and the quality of the competition out there. Thankfully I was able to conclude that Summer Rain is a quality product and with some more concerted hard work I can forge a career for myself in the film industry.

I want to thank SCREEN SOUTH for their support in helping me to attend the NEW YORK INTERNATIONAL INDEPENDENT FILM & VIDEO FESTIVAL.