Stop and smell the laurels

Okay, so one of the cool things about entering film festival (and then actually getting into a film festival) is the laurel leaves.



Laurel leaves date back to ancient Rome and Greece where they were awarded to winners of athletic events, prized politicians, famed citizens, etc. Today we give gold medals or statues or stars on the walk of fame. But in the film fest world we get the official laurel leaves. These golden fronds fan words like "Official Selection" and "Grand Prize Winner".

In the picture I'm receiving a lovely plaque and flowers when my film "Supermodels" won the "Special Jury Prize for Originality of Vision" at the Las Vegas International Film Festival. It's a really nice plaque but it's heavy, bulky and hard to display all of the time, say when I'm just hanging out at the mall. Laurel leaves are easy to put on a poster, DVD or other promotional materials.

See the picture of the leaves for the FAIF International Film festival? They are pretty and portable! Hence a filmmakers love of the laurel leaves. You can tout your own accomplishments without having to carry around some festival bling.

Now the phrase you hear is "Don't rest on your laurels", meaning don't be content just on the things you have already done, keep striving for more. But why is resting on your laurels such a bad thing. I mean, you had to accomplish something pretty good just to get your laurels. So why can't you take a break and just enjoy where you are? They also say "stop and smell the roses", meaning take a moment to appreciate what you have.

So I say, stop and smell the laurels. Now, get back to your unfettered quest for more!

Film Festivals Are Like College

Okay, so my short film, SUPERMODELS didn’t get into CineVegas. Big deal, you say. It’s not exactly a tragedy on the scale of say, the genocide in Darfur or the war in Iraq or even the pet food scandal. But it still feels pretty painful to me.
In the mind of a writer/director, one’s film is like one’s child. You conceive it, you nurture it, your deliver it unto the world. Your want your child to succeed in life, to excel, to make you proud. Film festivals are like college. You’d love for your child to go to Harvard or Yale (Sundance and Slamdance). Because they are prestigious, well known and well respected. It’s doesn’t necessarily mean a better education but it is ‘perceived’ to be better. But you also know your kid’s odds of getting in are pretty small, unless your kid was valedictorian. (In the film world, that means your film was probably a big budget, had name actors, etc.) So you also apply to some good but not Ivy League schools, your Stanford or Duke. Which are still great schools, and you’d still kill to get in.
But maybe your kid’s SAT scores aren’t the tops, or his GPA wasn’t as high as you would like (maybe your film had sound problems or just a lower budget than the other films). So you hope that because you have an ‘in’ you’ll get in despite some issues. (CineVegas is in my hometown, so I was hoping that as a Nevada filmmaker we would get in). So if you don’t get in there, you feel like maybe people don’t appreciate your child. So what if he’s not the best student, he’s a great kid who always cleans his room, helps around the house and is pretty popular. Now as parents, we sometimes think our kids are say more attractive than they are. That’s not the case with my film. I know it has flaws but it’s still a pretty cute film with a lot going for it. So getting rejected is hard because I know if the right people see this film, its future is bright. I’m not saying that my kid is going to be President of the United States, just that it has potential.
So now we are waiting to hear from our ‘safety schools’. You know, smaller universities and junior colleges (smaller film fests, niche fests where comedy isn’t the red-headed stepchild). We’d still like to get in to a top 10 school, of course. And we’ll wait, praying for a fat envelope instead of a thin one (or fat email instead of thin email as the case may be.) No, it’s not a tragedy to not get in. But I still want the world to think my child is special.