Sunday, November 21, 2010

New Gigs

Since leaving the Atlanta Film Festival in July, Gabe Wardell (former Executive Director of Atlanta Film Festival) and I have started our own business.


At Indie Memphis Film Festival Oct 2010

We formed an LLC (StickyToePads) to use as the umbrella for the various projects in which we will be involved - but there's mainly two branches: 1) Atlanta Film Forum and 2) Consulting/Event Planning & Management. Some people have been a bit confused, so the structure looks like this:

StickyToePads, A Limited Liability Company

Atlanta Film Forum
  • DecaturDocs (www.DecaturDocs.com) - a documentary film series that screens in Decatur, Georgia. We had our kickoff screening, a teaser really, last night and it went very well. We're pleased with attendance and everyone seemed to truly enjoy the movie. The first official series will begin in January. Each series will have four screenings - making 12 in total for the year. The series is subscription based, but individual screening tickets can be purchased at a premium price. We're very excited about the prospects and have already been in contact with many documentary filmmakers who are interested in screening their film with us.
  • 48 Hour Film Project Atlanta (http://www.48hourfilm.com/atlanta/) - an annual timed filmmaking competition where a team of filmmakers must write, shoot, edit and render a short film (4 - 7 minutes) within 48 hours. All the teams are given constraints such as a character, a line of dialog, a prop and so forth in order to authenticate the film. All of the elements must be present in the film and the film must be completed within the allotted 48-hour time frame to qualify for the competition section.
  • Special Screenings - this can vary depending on what all's going on in the film world. For example, we did a four-film weekly screening series a couple months ago in honor of Elia Kazan and had the Atlanta premiere of Martin Scorsese' personal documentary tribute to Kazan - A LETTER TO ELIA. We're currently exploring some screening opportunities so stay tuned.

Consulting & Event Planning/Management
  • Southern Television and Film Summit (http://www.stafsummit.com/)- annual gathering of industry talent will become the epicenter of new ideas around on the business of television, film, and new media. This will be a three-day event that will have panels, workshops, open casting sessions, pitching sessions, an industry luncheon and an awards dinner. Since this summit encompasses both TV and film, it will be packed with a powerhouse of network executives, producers (little and big screen), directors, investors and entertainment lawyers. It will essentially have three tiers of people (Decision Makers, Working Professionals, Aspiring Industry/Students) and the summit will be structured for access - meaning there will be lots of networking opportunities. The summit will be March 31, 2011 - April 3, 2011 at the W Midtown Atlanta.
  • International Film Festival Summit (http://www.filmfestivalsummit.com/) - this is an annual summit for film festivals - festival directors, producers, development staff, etc. They gather once a year to discuss the state of the industry and the challenges some currently face and what's on the horizon. Gabe and I have both been speakers/panelists at this summit for the past few years and this coming year. However, one thing we're doing this year now that we're not in direct competition with most of the attendees, we're providing consultation sessions to festivals. We've had many festivals register for this service so it's very exciting for us. We've consulted many times before, but being associated with a festival while consulting come with natural limitations.
So, that's the dealio. If you have any questions please feel free to ask. Please visit all of the web sites and help spread the word. If you want to sponsor any of these events, please email me or Gabe at paula@stickytoepads.com or gabe@stickytoepads.com.