JUMP Society

Tell your friends, tell your enemies, shout it from the rooftops, we want your short film submissions! There are still two weeks until July 1st when the films are due and I’m certain that you folks are creative enough, inventive enough, and resourceful enough to pull off some real gems… and if you’re not, I’ll bet you know someone who is… tell them! We’re looking for all kinds of entries… push your political agenda, subvert the masses, make them laugh, make them cry, make them scratch their heads and feel like they missed the point when in fact there was no point.

I’m just now starting to get the warm, frenzied feeling of a film festival off in the distance and I can tell you this is going to be a good show. Juneau is full of creative people and each of them is full of creative ideas and each of those ideas is full of detailed creative elements. It’s like those little Russian dolls, containers inside of containers and lots of little hand painted babushkas. I always wanted one of those things, I don’t really know why, I would have swallowed the smallest piece and lost everything else except for the bottom half of the second largest doll. I guess my parents knew that.

So, does anyone need movie ideas? I’m your man… here’s some freebies. Don’t worry if someone else does the same thing, different interpretations of the same idea are great, ask God.

• Grab your favorite song and make a music video.
• Take a three minute clip from an old movie and dub over it
  with new dialogue.
• Make a parody of one of those Bass Fishing shows with trinket
  shop employees trying to reel in the blue hairs.
• Interview people about a local issue.. (flight noise, downtown
  traffic, people who complain too much)
• Do a short cooking show with your favorite recipe… (my
  favorite recipe is pasta-roni)
• When all else fails, strap a camera to your dog and let him
  loose downtown.

Note: If any of these ideas have potentially negative real world outcomes then I trust you to have better foresight than I and not get into trouble. We already have one casualty from this film festival, a guy tried jumping off the dock in a kayak and hurt his back. Now the only dance he can do is the robot… not pretty.

Helpy Helperton

There’s this guy who wants to help out on films. His name is Darrell. His number is 321-9529. Give him a call if you need a hand. Hmmm.. maybe I can get him to be a stunt double for my shark tank scene?

I’m looking for an older woman who jogs and a beefy middle aged guy for a film.

Know anyone else who wants to act, video tape, edit, or be a gaffer? Send me some contact info and I’ll put you in the next newsletter.

Question and Answer

Last newsletter I asked a bunch of questions about what people wanted to do in the future… here’s the general direction of things:

The film festival won’t be juried any time soon and we’re not going to be handing out any awards or prizes. We may hold a separate contest in the future where everyone is required to use a similar theme or idea but the twice a year JUMP festivals will remain non-competitive. Comment cards will continue.. this time they may even be distributed to the filmmakers. Email me if you want your comments from last time. I’ll probably make more stickers, I’m still disappointed that I haven’t found more in random places around town. The condom machine in the Alaskan is the best place I’ve found a sticker so far and I’m about 70% sure that I put it there, that night was kind of fuzzy though.

As always, if you have suggestions for making the shows better, let me know… and don’t say better films, make one.

Thanks

Thanks to Julie, Abel, Rosie, Holly, Lou, Aaron, Jack, Bob, Bill, Big Mike, Justin and anyone else that has finished or is currently working on a film for the upcoming festival. The more entries we get, the better a show we can put on.

Thanks to Roald Simonson for showing his films at the Silverbow.

Thanks once again to the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council.

Community News

The New Music Rag is a pretty cool little newspaper floating around the downtown bulletin boards. If you’re into music, entertainment or the Juneau night life I would recommend giving it a read. I put some JUMP ads in there, it only cost ten bucks an issue, it came out of the general fund… I think that’s our only fund but maybe Aaron’s got some pork bellies stashed away for a rainy day.

Laters

Stick a fork in me, I’m done but I’ll be back with more whimsical ramblings in a week or two. Thanks for hanging in there until the end. You’re my favorite.

It’s time to get Jumpin’

The summer film festival rapidly approaches so arm yourself with a camera and capture some of these fleeting summer days on tape because they’re going to be gone faster than a plush moose in a trinket shop.

The deadline for the next film festival is July 1st and the films must be 12 minutes or less. We’ll make some exceptions to the rule for true masterpieces but generally a good rule of thumb is the shorter the better. Shave frames with triple blade action, judiciously elimintate the third slow motion repeat of that big stunt scene, and please please please please make the credits shorter than the movie :) That said, the JUMP Society festivals are a place to learn. Bring your work, see how the crowd reacts, see what other people are doing, have a bagel.

As usual, any suggestions or help is appreciated. Call for entry posters are being printed as I type so if you want to help hang them up around town, swing by the office and pick some up. Here are some questions for you to respond to that will help the JUMP Society’s evolution…

Should the film festival be juried this time around?
Should I do the comment card thing again?
Should we do the film maker introductions?
How about one show for the film makers where we take some time after
each film to discuss what we were trying to do, how we did it, and
answer questions?
More stickers?
Anything else that would make it a better event?

Thanks

Thanks go out to my good friend Gage Choat for all of his work on the previous JUMP Society Film Festivals and all his creative films. You will be missed.

Continual thanks to the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council.

Community News

Roald Simonson may be showing some of his films in June, more as that develops.

Laters

That’s all I’ve got today. I’ll write again soon, flooding your mailbox
with sweet caramely goodness.

Stop watching. Start Creating.

The deadline for submissions is one short week away, we already have a good pile of completed submissions and many more wrapping up or on their way. At this point I’m trying to gauge how many entries we’ll have so if you’re working on something drop me a short email and let me know a title and running time. So far I have films submitted from Abel Orlove, Joel Bennett, Keith Shepro & co., Deanna Clasby, Aaron Elterman, Jason Alexander, Gage Choat, Aaron Suring, and myself.

If you’re interested in helping out with festival planning or have suggestions for the upcoming event get ahold of me and let me know. One suggestion we’ll likely be adopting is to take a moment at the beginning of each showing to introduce any of the filmmakers in the audience. Other than that I think we’re going to put together a program like last time (any one want that job?) and provide the free stickers at the door. I haven’t seen the stickers in as many bathrooms as I was hoping to so please take more this time!

Thanks

Thanks go out to Bud Curtis and Alaska OnScreen Advertising who have once again helped us promote the film festival through their artist outreach program.

Thanks to Dan Coleman at KTOO for all of his support and for creating the JUMP Society PSA.

Thanks once again to the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council who helps make sure our posters pop up all over town and provided us with our seed money.

Thanks to all the interested filmmakers who show up on my doorstep with a grin and a tape.

Thanks to Patrick McGonegal for his write-up of the Jump Society on the website www.didjuneau.com

Community News

Scott Baxter’s film “PAK II: Rendered” is available on DVD at Boarderline. I missed the premiere at Centennial hall but had an opportunity to watch it last weekend and it’s a great piece of work. Scott’s eye is getting sharper and his footage more imaginative with each project. I recommend giving it a look if you’re interested in seeing some breathtaking footage shot by one of Juneau’s finest filmmakers.

Laters

Oh.. boy… I have lots of filming to do :)