Year: 2016

February 25 2016 – Festival Lineup

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thrillersuspense's avatarThriller/Suspense Film and Writing Festival

The Thriller Film Festival lineup for the February 25 2016 event has been scheduled.

Take a look at the 7 films that will be showcased. Featuring the best of thriller shorts from all over the world. (Full details of the films will be posted by February 5 2016).

CANTATA IN C MAJOR, 7min, USA, Horror/Musical
Directed by Ronnie Cramer

Six-hundred-five film clips are assembled and used to create a piece of electronic music. As the visual component appears in the center of the screen, the original analog audio is sent to the left channel while it is simultaneously converted into digital music data and sent to the right channel. The digital data is also transposed into traditional musical notation and displayed on the screen as it is converted. The film includes an animated ‘chalkboard’ introduction that explains the entire process.

CHATEAU SAUVIGNON: TERROIR, 13min, USA, Horror/Family
Directed by David Maire

Follows…

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Today’s Instagram Posts: Tuesday January 26 2016

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WILDsound Festival's avatarWILDsound Festival

Today’s Instagram Posts: Short Film Festival, TV Screenplay Festival, Cookies

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Interview with Graphic Designer Tina Charad (Maleficent, Fifty Shades of Grey)

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matthewtoffolo's avatarMatthew Toffolo's Summary

A Graphic Designer creates the props and set-pieces for film productions and works directly with the Production Designer. Depending on the period and genre, these can be newspapers, love letters, shop signs, posters, cigarette boxes, logos. Basically, they create the original materials needed for a film that haven’t yet been invented.  

I was fortunate enough to interview the extremely talented Graphic Designer Tina Charad. In the last 10 years she has worked on over 30 productions including the films “Robin Hood”, “Edge of Tomorrow”, “World War Z”, “Pirates of the Caribbean”, “The Fifth Wave”, and “RocknRolla”.

Matthew Toffolo: Is there a film or two that you’re most proud of?

Tina: Well, in terms of pure indulgence, of being spoilt and designing beauty day after day, it would be 47 Ronin. Perhaps Maleficent too – for the same reasons.

Tina created images in the film “47 Ronin”:
47_ronin_imageMatthew: How long…

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TV Festival Announces its January 2016 Screenplay Winners

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WILDsound Festival's avatarWILDsound Festival

Watch each winning screenplay performed by professional actors. 

Deadline to Submit your TV PILOT/SPEC to the Festival: http://tvfestival.org

ACTORTV PILOT – LACIE BIDWELL
January 2016 Reading
Written by Jameel Khan

http://www.wildsoundfestival.com/lacie_bidwell.html

SYNOPSIS:

LACIE BIDWELL is about a girl who’s father created a zombie virus that killed thousands. It’s twelve years later and she’s in college and still has to deal with being the daughter of one of the most hated men in the world.

CAST LIST:

NARRATOR – Sean Ballantyne
LACIE – Elizabeth Owens Skidmore
CHALMERS – Nick Baillie
HOPE – Maya Woloszyn
JEFF/BEN – Jovan Kocic
DAVID/OMAR – Christopher Huron
SAITO – Mandy May Cheetham

—-

ACTORTV PILOT – LIFE IN THE FAST LANE
January 2016 Reading
Written by Debi Calabro

http://www.wildsoundfestival.com/life_in_the_fast_lane.html

SYNOPSIS:

Life in the Fast Lane is about three very different families and how their involvement in the sport of horse racing brings them together.

CAST LIST:

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Interview with Festival Director Oscar Piloto (Miami Indie Artist Film Festival)

festreviews Festival Interview, film festival, film festival reviews, FilmFreeway Review, Interview, interviews, matthew toffolo wildsound, Uncategorized , , , , , , ,

The MIA Film Festival (#MiaFF) is an underground festival based out of Miami, Florida that features films and screenplays of all length and genres worldwide. #MiaFF is unique from the rest because it’s an underground festival that expands the capability of networking with other filmmakers and showcasing films in one location for 9 days in December.

I was fortunate enough to interview Festival Director Oscar Piloto:

oscarMatthew Toffolo: What is the Miami Indie Artist Film Festival succeeding at doing for filmmakers?

Oscar Piloto: What makes us successful is that it’s a new festival and it continues to grow. There are people who believe in the festival and are working with us to achieve our goals. Our goals of giving filmmakers hope for a greater brighter future by helping them create relationships that will last a lifetime. We want to introduce like minded people and guiding them in working together. We want to create a real community that truly allows the growth for individual achievement.

Matthew: What would you expect to experience if you attend the festival?

Oscar: We are big in creating a positive atmosphere with lots of fun in the process but most importantly making sure artists leave the festival with more knowledge of this wonderful industry that we love.

Matthew: What are the qualifications for the selected films?

Oscar: We understand many films are done by striving artists and in many cases even students. However, we would love to see flashes of greatness in all the different facets of filmmaking.

Matthew: As per your festival statement, do you think that some films really don’t get a fair shake from film festivals? And if so, why?

Oscar: I absolutely feel that many films do not get a fair shake. I believe some festivals become too big but aren’t relevant or influential, because they accept quantity instead of quality, like a “first come first serve” basis. I’ve seen films win other festivals that didn’t even get accepted in other big festivals. I’ve also known filmmakers ask for their materials from a festival back and they got their films returned and sealed exactly as they were mailed originally.

Matthew: What motivates you and your team to do this festival?

Oscar: As a filmmaker that had struggled getting a break, I want to help discover new talent and making a difference in the film industry. We want to help create those connections that are desperately needed to succeed.

Matthew: How has the festival changed since its inception?

Oscar: We are only going on our second year but the big changes are having more sponsors. In our first year, the amount of submissions was outstanding. More than I could have hoped for. Now, with the sponsors I hope it will bring opportunity for bigger and better prizes to our filmmakers.

Matthew: Where do you see the festival by 2020?

Oscar: There is a big difference between big festivals and relevant festivals. I see the MIA FILM FESTIVAL as the most relevant film festival in South Florida, where deals get made and talents get discovered!

Matthew: What film have you seen the most in your life?

Oscar: I’ve personally seen “Greese” the most when I was around 12 years old. Not only was I a big fan of John Travolta and Olivia Newton John but I was also a big fan of the music.

Matthew: In one sentence, what makes a great film?

Oscar: A great film occurs when all the little pieces come together, in particular the attention to detail.

Matthew: How is the film scene in your city?

Oscar: I think it is great! There’s great diversity here in Miami from all ethnic backgrounds. In addition, Miami is a beautiful city where everyone wants to come, and the more people the city attracts, the film scene will continue to grow.

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Interviewer Matthew Toffolo is currently the CEO of the WILDsound FEEDBACK Film & Writing Festival. The festival that showcases 10-20 screenplay and story readings performed by professional actors every month. And the FEEDBACK Monthly Fesival held in downtown Toronto on the last Thursday of every single month. Go to www.wildsound.ca for more information and to submit your work to the festival.

Interview with Festival Director Roger Sampson (Focus International Film Festival)

festreviews Festival Interview, film festival, film festival reviews, Interview, interviews, matthew toffolo wildsound, Uncategorized , , , , , ,
Roger’s creative journey started late in life. He didn’t realize his passion for the theater arts until his 30th birthday.  In 2003, Roger moved from Dallas, TX to Los Angeles, CA to pursue his dream. Since then, Roger has enjoyed acting, screenwriting, and directing success through the years.
Roger started the Focus International Film Festival in the fall of 2015.  His mission was to celebrate and honor the best in independent cinema through a festival which lets the working professional community judge the material presented.

Interview with Roger Sampson: 

Matthew Toffolo: What is the Focus International Film Festival succeeding at doing for filmmakers?

Roger Sampson: The Focus International Film Festival provides film makers a platform to showcase their skills and talents using the opinions of the working professionals that film makers hope to work with and impress as the baseline to providing them a level of credibility many festivals lack. Its more meaningful to the films and the film makers.

Matthew: What would you expect to experience when you attend the festival?

Roger: The festival is actually online only at this time. We hope to grow into a live festival with screenings, but we’re just starting out with this format and need time for it to grow legs before we venture into a live event.

Matthew: What are the qualifications for the selected films?

Roger: The grading system used to select the films looks at three primary areas of focus, which are production quality, performance and story. Many films excel in one area or another, but great films excel in 2 or more areas. We seek out the most well rounded material. Story well told with excellent production quality given in excellent performances. As film makers ourselves, we are all students of the craft and all have areas to improve on. But we seek to honor those film makers advanced in their craft enough to produce quality material but have yet to be recognized on a larger scale by the entertainment community.

Matthew: Why would a filmmaker be motivated to submit to your festival?

Roger: Since the event is online only at this time, we are able to keep our submission fees low, which is an aid to all film makers. Add in the credibility of our celebrity jury and if a film maker can spend a small amount and be able to promote their film as having been voted the best by working entertainment industry professionals, that is something as a film maker I would do without hesitation.

Matthew: What motivates you and your team to do this festival?

Roger: Our primary motivation relates to our own festival experiences. Festival choices are always subjective, and determined by the education and experience level of the decision makers. So we figured if those decisions should be made in terms of cinematic excellence at the independent level, who better to judge that than the working professionals the film makers are striving to be and work with.

Matthew: How has the festival changed since its inception?

Roger: We’ve actually had only 1 event so far, in the winter of 2015. The jury voting period expires January 31. The Spring 2016 event is the first with the celebrity jury panel. In the summer we’re planning expansion efforts to include longer trailers, longer shorts and feature films in addition to other changes.

Matthew: Where do you see the festival by 2020?

Roger: Its hard to tell at the moment if this format will find a sustainable market, but we’re confident that the celebrity jury format will take hold and by 2020 we will host a live event once or twice a year and with any luck feature appearances by the jury itself. For this article though, lets call that a wish list.

Matthew: What film have you seen the most times in your life?

Roger: The film I’ve seen the most times would have to be The Lord of the Rings Trilogy.

Matthew: In one sentence, what makes a great film?

Roger: A great film is an amazing story well told with excellent production quality and committed performances which provides the audience a meaningful emotional experience.

Matthew: How is the film scene in your city?

Roger: The film scene in Dallas and North Texas as a whole is vibrant and active. Film makers are hungry for quality story telling and take steps toward mastery of the craft every day.

_____

Interviewer Matthew Toffolo is currently the CEO of the WILDsound FEEDBACK Film & Writing Festival. The festival that showcases 10-20 screenplay and story readings performed by professional actors every month. And the FEEDBACK Monthly Fesival held in downtown Toronto on the last Thursday of every single month. Go to www.wildsound.ca for more information and to submit your work to the festival.

Movie Review: Strangers on a Train (1951)

festreviews Alfred Hitchcock, movie, Movie Review, mystery, Uncategorized , , , , , , ,

Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival: http://www.wildsound.ca

STRANGERS ON A TRAIN MOVIE POSTER
STRANGERS ON A TRAIN, 1951
Classic Movie Review

Directed by Alfred Hitchcock
Starring Farley Granger, Ruth Roman, Robert Walker
Review by Steven Painter

SYNOPSIS:

Psychotic mother’s boy Bruno Anthony meets famous tennis professional Guy Haines on a train. Guy wants to move into a career in politics and has been dating a senator’s daughter (Ann Morton) while awaiting a divorce from his wife. Bruno wants to kill his father but knows he will be caught because he has a motive. Bruno dreams up a crazy scheme in which he and Guy exchange murders. Guy takes this as a joke, but Bruno is serious and takes things into his own hands

REVIEW:

Put Patricia Highsmith and Raymond Chandler together and you figure you have a pretty good mystery. Replace those two with Alfred Hitchcock and you have a great suspense picture.

Patricia Highsmith wrote the novel Strangers on a Train. Her story struck something in Hitchcock, so he decided to make it. Since Hitch was more concerned with visualizes as opposed to dialogue, he brought in Raymond Chandler to write the script. Chandler was a great mystery writer, but just an okay screenwriter. Hitch didn’t like what Chandler had written so he turned the project over to Ben Hecht protégée Czeni Ormonde. Hecht was a talented screenwriter and one of Hitchcock’s favorite to work with. The changes Hitchcock and Ormonde made to Highsmith’s novel turned it into a completely different story, although the basic idea in Strangers on a Train (1951) is still the same.

The idea of exchanging murders is presented by playboy Bruno Anthony to tennis star Guy Haines when the two strangers meet on a train. Bruno appears to know everything about Guy — he is a famous tennis player who happens to be in love with a senator’s daughter. The only problem is that Guy is currently married to a woman he hates. Of course this woman, Miriam, won’t leave Guy because he brings her status and money. So Bruno proposes that the two exchange murders. Bruno would kill Miriam and Guy would kill Bruno’s tyrannical father.

Guy dismisses it as nothing when the two depart from the train after eating lunch together. Unfortunately for him, he leaves a lighter given to him by Ann Morton, the senator’s daughter, on the table. Bruno pockets the lighter and goes off looking for Miriam.

He finds her ready for a night out of on the town. She is escorted by two boys, neither of them named Guy. The trio heads to the carnival. Bruno follows closely behind. We know what it going to happen once Miriam and Bruno arrive at the carnival and Hitchcock takes delight in playing with our expectations of murder.

After Hitchcock has his fun on the carnival grounds, we are taken to a deserted island where the tunnel of love boats dock. Using the privacy of the darkness for something other than love, Bruno finds Miriam and strangles her. Of course this being Hitchcock the murder can’t be done without a touch of art. Miriam’s face is illuminated by Guy’s lighter. We then see Bruno’s arms close over Miriam’s throat. Her glasses fall and crack on the grass in homage to Eisenstein’s Odessa steps sequence in Battleship Potemkin (1925). The rest of the strangulation is witnessed on the reflection of Miriam’s glasses. The scene has been mocked and imitated many times throughout the years.

With his part of the bargain done, Bruno makes his way to Washington D.C. to see how Guy is doing. Being the sane one in this agreement, Guy has done nothing but roam around Senator Morton’s house. Upon hearing from Bruno that his wife is murdered, Guy calls him crazy and threatens to go to the police. Little does he know, but the police are already on his own trail, not Bruno’s. Being a friend of a powerful senator has its perks and the only thing the police are really able to do is shadow Guy with a private detective. This is the second shadow for Guy. The first is Bruno, who constantly follows Guy and reminds him of their bargain.

One scene sticks out in this part of the movie because it was imitated in Taxi Driver (1976). Guy has a training session for his upcoming tennis tournament. Everyone it seems who is in the crowd watching the session is following the ball. We see their heads turn left and then right. All except for Bruno. He sits with a smile on his face staring at Guy. Robert De Niro would enact the same stance during the political rally in Taxi Driver.

Patricia Hitchcock appears in this movie. She adds some of her father’s trademark dark humor as Ann Morton’s younger sister. She also happens to wear glasses. These get the attention of Bruno when he crashes a dinner party thrown by Senator Morton. He is discussing the art of murder with two old stuffy guests when he sees the glasses. His mock strangulation of one of the guests becomes the real thing as he remembers his murder of Miriam.

Bruno and Guy go back and forth about the murder agreement. Finally Bruno figures that Guy won’t make good on his part of the bargain and decides to frame him for the murder by placing his lighter at the scene of the murder. Guy gets wind of this plot, but is unable to do anything as he has been slatted to play at the tennis tournament.

Hitchcock does a great job of cutting between the intensity of Guy trying his best to finish the match as quickly as possible and the laidback posture of Bruno on the train. The suspense is ratcheted up and leads to a thrilling climax that involves an out-of-control carousel.

The movie is well worth watching for those fans of Alfred Hitchcock. It is one of the most studied and imitated of his films. Robert Walker is great as Bruno. Farley Granger comes off well, but I prefer him in Hitchcock’s Rope (1948). At the very least this movie warns you to be careful when joking with strangers, because you never know who might take you literally.

 

 

Also, Free logline submissions. The Writing Festival network averages over 95,000 unique visitors a day.
Great way to get your story out: http://www.wildsound.ca/logline.html

Deadlines to Submit your Screenplay, Novel, Story, or Poem to the festival:http://www.wildsound.ca

Watch recent Writing Festival Videos. At least 15 winning videos a month:http://www.wildsoundfestival.com

 

Movie Review: Star Wars: A New Hope (1977)

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WILDsound Festival's avatarFAN FICTION Film and Writing Festival

Submit your Fan Fiction Screenplay to the Festival: http://fanfictionfestival.com

STAR WARS, 1977
Movie Review
Directed by George Lucas
Starring: Mark Hamill, Carrie Fisher, Harrison Ford
Review by Andrew Kosarko

Read Interview with Star Wars Storyboard Artist Kurt Van der Basch

SYNOPSIS:

As the adventure begins, Luke Skywalker (Mark Hamill), an impulsive but goodhearted young man who lives on the dusty planet of Tatooine with his aunt and uncle, longs for the exciting life of a Rebel soldier. The Rebels, led by the headstrong Princess Leia (Carrie Fisher), are fighting against the evil Empire, which has set about destroying planets inhabited by innocent citizens with the Death Star, a fearsome planetlike craft commanded by Grand Moff Tarkin (Peter Cushing) and the eternally frightful Darth Vader (David Prowse, with the voice of James Earl Jones). When Luke’s aunt and uncle are murdered by the Empire’s imperial stormtroopers and he mysteriously finds a…

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TV PILOT Reading – LACIE BIDWELL by Jameel Khan

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tvfestival's avatarTV Screenplay Festival. Submit Today.

Watch TV Pilot: LACIE BIDWELL:

CAST LIST:

NARRATOR – Sean Ballantyne
LACIE – Elizabeth Owens Skidmore
CHALMERS – Nick Baillie
HOPE – Maya Woloszyn
JEFF/BEN – Jovan Kocic
DAVID/OMAR – Christopher Huron
SAITO – Mandy May Cheetham

Get to know writer Jameel Khan:

Matthew Toffolo: What is your screenplay about?

Jameel Khan: It’s about a girl who’s father created a zombie virus that killed thousands. It’s twelve years later and she’s in college and still has to deal with being the daughter of one of the most hated men in the world. She tries to move on an live a relatively normal life. But when a mysterious USB drive shows up in her dorm room, she learns that her father may have been setup. Lacie must try to balance her college life while uncovering a mystery that leads her into a far more dangerous and stranger world than she…

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