Making Fun of a Loser

So the other day while driving, Burke and I happened upon a loser in a blue Mustang, with pimp racing stripes. He/she was tail-gating everyone in sight. They were also trying to sell said Mustang, and so their number was written huge in the back window. The following conversation ensued...



I love screwing with people like this. It warms my tender heart.

Random guy dancing in Jamba Juice

We saw this guy randomly dancing in Jamba Juice. He really gets into it until his order is ready, then he snaps out of it and walks up to the counter.

Bless his heart.

Where filmmaking happens.

We made this little flick highlighting some of the great thinkers of indie film. It might look like we ripped off those NBA commercials and well...we did. Don't tell anyone, ok?

Enjoy:

Kinda smart, but mostly dumb phone.

So, I'm sitting here at work bored out of my mind. Sometimes the only thing I can do to stay awake is text as many people as I can think of. I use the same method to stay awake during church. I know, I know, I should pay attention during church...but hey, I can sleep and not pay attention or I can text and not pay attention. Either way I'm not paying attention but by texting I avoid hitting my head on the bench in front of me.

Anyway, I've kinda hit an annoying wall with my phone. I got a new phone a few months ago and it's been pretty good to me. It's just a regular old slider...minus all the bells and whistles. When I first started texting with this phone I found out that whenever I typed a word using predictive text that it didn't already know then it would "remember" the word. Turns out they're even making these POS phones kinda smart now days. This was great when I'd type a name like "Rhett" because normally I'd have to switch out of predictive text, type the name, and then switch back...kind of a pain if you ask me. But my phone quickly learned how to spell "Rhett" along with a handful of other names. Great? That's what I thought.

Soon into this new relationship with my new phone (some Samsung model) I had to type an address and the street name was "Meadow Pine Ct." I know your thinking "what's the big deal" right? If you know anything about texting, you'll know that the predictive keys for "Ct" and "at" are both "2" and "8" on a phone. So the problem I'm running into is, now whenever I type the word "at" my phone (with a small helping of man given sense) thinks I'm trying to type "Ct" and automatically inserts "Ct" instead of "at"...forcing me to scroll down to "at". That was just the beginning. I once messed up and in my haste I misspelled the word "with" and scrolled to "whuh" instead. They both use the same numeric keys. So now my genius phone inserts "whuh" every time I try typing "with". Whuh? For real? Come on Samsung, either give me a smart phone as a free upgrade or make my kinda-smart phone dumb again so I can use it. Instead of "any" I get "BMW", "fhe" instead of "did"...and the list goes on. I swear once this phone "remembers" then it never forgets.

The point is, now that I've been using this phone for a handful of months it has developed a whole library of misspelled words that the phone manages to choose instead of the correct versions of them. It's become a chore texting people. Now, in order to send a coherent text, I have to type it, proof read it, scroll up and fix any words that the phone assumed I wanted, and then send.

A word of caution to all you texters out there, don't misspell words or your phone might never let you forget. I'm starting to think that my only option is buy a new phone, one that hasn't learned how to misspell words.




Peace out.

Adios B-Side...

B-Side the innovative independent film distributor and film festival partner is shutting it's doors on March 1. It's a sad day my friends. They were a great company, and we got to know Chris Holland, one the staff members, really well.

I'm sure they're already going on a new project though.

http://www.filmmakermagazine.com/blog/2010/02/b-side-entertainment-announces-shutdown.php

Rhett

Fests are the Best.

We're so used to getting rejected from festivals, we're not quite sure what to do when we get accepted. I often read and re-read the acceptance email just to make sure I know what it says, and then I have Burke read it.
Anyway we are stoked to be a part of Indie Memphis and Rappahannock. They both seem like great fests. I wish we could go to both, but the funds are tight, so we'll only be attending Indie Memphis.

Indie Memphis is run by Erik Jambor, who I met at SXSW. We weren't in SXSW, but we went just to see what it was like. And boy oh boy is it an awesome fest. Janet Pierson is great too. Anyway, way back in January, Burke and I went to Sundance and Slamdance as we always do. We wanted to talk to the programmers of those festivals to see what they liked and didn't like about our film. Well when we walked into the Slamdance offices the staff started yelling "Billy! Billy!" We weren't sure what was going on. But come to find out they really loved our film, but another one beat us out (they probably always say that). BUT, Drea Clark gave us a list of fests to submit to, and Indie Memphis was on top of her list. So, when I met Erik Jambor (Thank you Chris Holland for introducing us) I mentioned that Drea thought he would like our movie, and $2.13 for postage and a few months later we're extremely excited to be part of Indie Memphis!

As for Rappahannock, which is one crazy name that I still don't think I pronounce right, we met the director of that festival, Ryan Poe, through email, through Paleo, the guy who did the music in the film. Ryan made a music video of David (Paleo) singing Woman Like Me. We found the video on The Face, and asked Ryan if we could work in parts of BILLY to use to promote the film. He agreed to, and then asked us to send us the movie. So we did, and now we're part of his fest as well, and we couldn't be happier!

So...that's that in the name of love.

Rhett

"Woman Like Me" music video

We just got done making a music video to a live version of Paleo's "Women Like Me."

While we were at Cinequest with "Billy Was a Deaf Kid" we were able to make it to one of Paleo's shows in a little town north of San Francisco. We were running real late, tempers were getting short, there were 6 of us packed in a Durango, and worst of all we had no idea where we were going. When we finally made the the little convention center we were only able to hear Paleo play two songs. As we sat there trying to calm down from the stressful day I remember hearing the first few notes to "Woman Like Me", the theme song for the movie, and we all looked at each other and non-verbally agreed that it was worth the trek to see Paleo live. Here we were, in California, at the world premiere of "Billy Was a Deaf Kid" listening to the iconic song from the movie...live. It was rockin'.

I think that's partly to blame for the inspiration to make this music video. Check it out...and enjoy:



Click here to view the High Def version: http://vimeo.com/5006064
Or check it out on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=83597667862