Day 1

Screened:

Short Film: “Compact Only”
Documentary Film: Trouble The Water

The largest film festival in Michigan, the 12th Annual East Lansing Film Festival is finally here. Today I viewed Trouble the Water, along with the short film “Compact Only," but I’ll get to those later. The festival runs March 19th-22nd at Wells Hall (Michigan State University), and then re-screens the films March 23rd-26th at Celebration Cinemas Lansing.

As I walked into the academic building, which was spruced up as an art cinema, I was thoroughly impressed—a hard thing to accomplish in a lecture hall I lazily visit everyday. There were various tables here and there, some selling merchandise, some offering sweepstakes, and some serving as the “box office.” It was a charming set-up to say the least. I was suddenly surrounded by so-called literary types—wine drinkers, film professors, and poetry admirers—which is by no means horrific, just intimidating. The festival had a nice program that featured the 100 films (some short, some feature, some documentary) to be screened. This is my first Film Festival, so here is a picture of my festival pass, for memory’s sake:

The technical aspects of the festival were another story. Michigan State University doesn’t house a legitimate film projector, and both films I watched were of the DVD-through-Computer variety. “Compact Only," a sweet but overly long short film about the humors of parking lots, played well enough, but Trouble The Water had problems. About halfway through, the DVD sound became out of synch with the video—a technical difficulty that went unchanged for about ten minutes.

Finally, a lady walked to the front of the room and informed that there was a problem—really? While a select few worked on the issue, the audience silently sat in the glow of wireless the Internet routers that hung around the room. It was an ambient experience. All was satisfactory after that. Setbacks aside, the movies were enjoyable, and there is much more to come this weekend. Stay tuned right here at Film Gazing for reviews and observations!

Day 2

Screened:
Short Film: “Even In My Dreams”
Documentary Film: My Winnipeg
Feature Film: Edge of Heaven

It was good to be back at the East Lansing Film Festival. Boy what a difference a film reel can make. After watching two films on DVD—no way to present material at a film festival—I was privileged to watch My Winnipeg and Edge of Heaven on celluloid. There’s something about the richness and depth of analog that can’t be reproduced.

The short film “Even In My Dreams” was about an old lonely man who begins having provocative dreams about a doll named Tom that he sees in a store window. It was an amusing short—pointless, but with a pleasant confidence about it. I’m beginning to notice that the defining aspect of quality film for me is the boom microphone. A good boom mic is a must. The short amateur films at the festival lacked the full beauty of diegetic sound and the encasing saturation of noise when compared to the larger, feature films. This soundscape is what completely submerges a viewer into a film’s world. Today was a much better experience for me; both of the main films were wonderful.

Day 3

Screened: Various Short Films

Today I got a chance to interview a director from the festival!

He’s Dave Suchanek, Michigan State University Senior and director of the short film “Epilogue”, which was screened the festival as part of the Lake Michigan Film Competition. Dan Pechacek and Meryl Harden star in “Epilogue”, a film about a young man who receives an emotionally loaded text message and begins to remember parts of his romantic past, both good and bad. MSU Junior Alex Beachum co-directed/produced the film with Dave. Here’s a transcript of the interview:

Filmgazing.com: Hello! Congratulations! I heard “Epilogue” won “Best Cinematography” during the “48/5” film competition. Could you tell us a little bit more about the competition?

Dave Suchanek: “48/5” is put on by the East Lansing Film Festival. It's a pretty big undertaking. You have to go into it with the right mindset. You basically get 48 hours to produce the best film you can. It’s actually an exercise in production more than it is in filmmaking, because you have a limited amount of time to pull resources together to create a cohesive end product. We called our friends, people we knew were interested, and that’s just how it kind of goes down.

FG: With the film having two directors, who was responsible for the story?

DS: The festival is set up so that everyone draws a different genre. We picked romance, the specific one we were hoping not to draw! Alex and I have amazing creative chemistry, so even though we were pressed for time, we spent the entire first night working out the story and figuring out logistics. We decided to test the genre, and create an anti-romance. So what we made is basically what would happen after a romance. It was a pretty equal collaboration storyline wise. For me this film was also a creative way to express something personal I had gone through.

FG: When shooting this film, did any well-known directors influence your style?

DS: Honestly, I knew the tone I was going for. When you tune yourself into the language of cinema so often, you start to see things in certain ways and once we figured out the tone that we wanted to take, the cinematography and style just sort of came with it.

FG: Sometimes, people see a film and don’t realize all of the work that goes into it—the little conflicts and situations. What were some memorable situations during the “Epilogue” shoot?

DS: Definitely. It took us three attempts to secure a restaurant location to shoot in. We contacted two different restaurants before finding Momma Bear’s Cafe in Old Town Lansing, and I actually had to tip the guy that worked there $40 so we could set up for three hours after they closed. To let you know how timely we had to be during production, I wrote the dialogue on my palm pilot in the restaurant while we were setting up lights.

FG: Are you glad that you were constrained to 48 hours, or do you wish you had more time to brainstorm and execute?

DS: Other than a few technical problems, I’m glad we were under pressure. For what we wanted to do, if we were to drag this project out for more than 48 hours, it would have turned out worse.

FG: What do you think of Lansing’s film community?

DS: I think that we have a pretty supportive community. I mean, the fact that “48/5” exists is fantastic. I think it’s wonderful that we have the opportunities that we do in this smaller city. It might not seem like we have much going on, but if you look close enough, there’s people doing great work.

FG: What’s next for you? Do you see filmmaking in your future?

DS: I’m always going to make films in some capacity. I'm currently working on the audio for my friend Nick's production and I'm working on a feature length children's movie script that should be done by May.

Thanks a lot Dave! Well that about wraps it up from the East Lansing Film Festival! Note that all of the festival’s films will be playing at Celebration Cinemas (Lansing, Michigan) all week, so if you have some free time, check them out!