Roaring Good Time

Hello readers!

Our brand new couch just arrived today. I can finally call our new apartment home! Ahhhhhhh.

Updates:

Opificer Film Festival a Hit!

This Saturday was the first ever SF Opificers of Film Festival hosted and organized by myself, Jon Bowerbank, and my lovely wife Sandra. I'm happy to share it was a complete success. The exact turn out is unclear be easily had between 70 and 80 people in attendance. We ended up screening 10 films as we had a last minute entry. Nine of the Ten directors appeared at the festival and after the screening I invited them to the front of the theater to introduce themselves and to explain the inspiration behind their film. All their answers were truly engaging and gave great insight to their creative process.

Aside from screening the 10 films and help exposing the artists to a new audience, we managed to raise the most money yet of any of the fundraiser events I've hosted thus far. We made $700 in profit toward the Love, Concord production budget and we're now nearly at 20% of my goal to raise $10,000 by the beginning of June.

Another great aspect about the film festival was the hour long social/mixer hosted in the theater lobby immediately after the screening. This gave all the festival filmmakers a chance to meet each other as well as the various other filmmakers who didn't enter work but simply came out of their passion to support young and local talent. I for one, met many interesting and talented people during the social and look forward to keeping in touch with these artists so as to continue our mutual interest to make movies here in the Bay Area.

Another fun aspect to the festival was the audience award ballet. This ballet allowed the audience to pick their favorites in various categories. The winning films and filmmakers don't win an actual prize other than kudos and a genuine morale booster, which any artist can admit to coveting. So here are the winners, congratulations to them all:

Best Actress: Maggie VandenBerghe for ".... a 1000 Words"

Best Actor: Nick Scoggin for "The Fenceline"

Best Cinematography: Philip Hurn for ".... a 1000 Words"

Best Original Concept: Ryan Wilmot for "The Artistic Process"

Best Screenplay: Jonathan Bertain & Benjamin Foster Campbell for ".... a 1000 Words"

Best Director: Jonathan Bertain for "... a 1000 Words".

Best Picture: ".... a 1000 Words"

As I predicted "The Fenceline" and ".... a 1000 Words" were the run away hits. Kudos to both directors for their crowd pleasing work. For those of you who missed the festival here's one of the entries. And don't worry, with the success of this event Jon and I plan to do another one within a few months. If you know anyone interested in submitting please get them in touch with either Jon or myself. And lastly, stay tuned to the blog as we'll make announcements about the next event here.

I want to give a HUGE THANK YOU to the other filmmakers who screened at the festival. Thanks also need to go to the audience who came out to enjoy our artistic offerings and by doing so are supporting my feature film project.

I want to thanks my mother, Mila Calvo, and my brother, Michael Guardado, for not only supporting me by coming out. But also by actually working the event and helping ensure everything ran as smoothly as it did. ¡Gracias, y te quiero mucho!

I also want to tip my proverbial hat to Jon Bowerbank, my partner in crime, for helping to organize and conceiving this terrific idea.

Last and certainly not least, I want to thank my beautiful wife Sandra. She more than anyone is making my dream possible in more ways than I can count. This festival is just her latest effort. If every artist had as strong a supporter as my wife, we'd all be Picassos.

Casting Calls to Go Out

This week I plan to finally submit casting calls for the various roles in Love, Concord to Craigslist.com. Once they're up and have a link I'll post them on Face Book as well as the blog. Once I start receiving headshots I hope to begin holding mass auditions by the end of this month. If you know anyone interested in acting, now's the time to get me their info. Email me at gguardado@gmail.com.

6th Draft to be Delivered Today!

Later today I plan to finally email the latest draft of the script to Debbie Brubaker who we've hired to write a professional budget. Again, I can't over exaggerate how awesome it is to have her doing our budget. Her name alone on this aspect of the project will undoubtedly go a long way.

Well that's the scoop guys. Be sure to check out more pictures from the festival on my FaceBook page. Have a great rest of the week everyone!

Forward!