Move over, Brangelina, there’s a new Hollywood Power Couple in town.
I’ve got some ride-or-die friends down in Whittier, CA (and just to be clear, I call everything south of LA and north of Anaheim “Whittier”) who shot a short film recently for TheQuarantineFilmFest.com. Melissa Nunnally wrote and directed and acted in the film like some sorta talented Clint Eastwood triple threat kinda deal. Her husband, Joel, also did some acting and ran Camera for her as well.
She asked me to edit this — HER DIRECTORIAL DEBUT! — so of course I jumped at the chance and spent last weekend polishing everything up and getting it into Festival shape.
Done.
Sunday we uploaded to my YouTube channel and four days later we already had over 700 views. Now, I know where you come from 700 is nothing to brag about and in fact definitions for “viral” don’t really even start until like 100K. But, I am still highly impressed.
Melissa even got to go on local TV (or internet?) show called “Two on the Town” and talked about her inspiration for the project and encouraged the audience that small acts of kindness during this Covid Crisis can go a long way. (The interview is HERE ON VIMEO and her interview starts around the 21:30 mark.)
And that helped bolster some views in the past 24 hours.
Sunday, May 3rd through May 8th is the super-short voting window for the Quarantine Film Festival. We’ll try to drive as many eye-balls there for the thrill of the game, but again, the main goal of finishing a fun project and having friends and family enjoy it and leaving us positive feedback because of our art has been super rewarding.
It’s been a couple years since I pushed something through the Festival circuit. I’d forgotten how overwhelming that can be signing up to FilmFreeway.com and the gazillions of Festivals out there from Sundance to some dud fest in someone’s garage. You just never know, so do your research before giving anyone your hard earned dollars for a supposed “entry fee.” Some fests are just not worth your time, and every festival has a personality so don’t waste your film on a Fest that’s the wrong vibe. That’s the lesson there.
Anyway, if you’ve got a few minutes, you can catch it right here:
UPDATE 05.25.20 We won two awards: The Under 10 Minutes Film Awesomeness Award (2nd Place) and Best Awe Moment (2nd Place). Yeehawwww!
We’re up to about 1200 views! Not too shabby for the little quarantine film that could!
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