The Ohio Sci-Fi and Horror Marathons

I have just returned from the Horror/Sci-Fi film festival out here and I was thoroughly impressed with the quality of all the independent films. It seems as though high quality HD cameras have gotten very affordable and the picture quality is such that it resembles film in most ways. In the past, not shooting on film would give you kind of a cheesy soap opera kind of look. My point being, technology has come a long way. If the story and vision is creative enough, the process of independent filmmaking is not as hindered by acessability as it once was.

Of the twenty or so short films I saw this weekend, only one or two were stinkers and at least three or four were top notch four- and five-star entertainment. The fun thing about shorts is that they are always a discovery, because where else can you see them but at festivals and the like. I would very much welcome a handful of new shorts to our own marathon, assuming we can get some as high quality as the ones I saw.

Directors are always looking to get their work out there and seen. I would like it if Bruce and Jeff somehow request submissions for short films for the marathon every year, chances are these days you'll get a few good ones. Granted, I don't know how any of this stuff works and how logistically possible that would be, but I would love to uncover a few short film discoveries at our marathon in Ohio.

What do you guys think?


On a side note, so as not to clog up the board with another unnecessary topic, I want to share a couple feature film highlights for me.
First of all, the horribly horribly horribly titled Alien Raiders. According to the director, this will be out in February on DVD. Don't let the bad title steer you away, this is a fun, modestly budgeted thriller.
The highlight of the festival for me was Jerome Bixby's The Man From Earth. If you are a fan of Science Fiction (and not just guns and explosions) then you must see this film. Fair warning, it is essentially 85 minutes of people sitting in a cabin talking. But it is some of the most compelling ideas and dialogue you will find anywhere, helped by outstanding performances all around. I was not bored for a second.

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Aliens? Us?
Is this one of your Earth "jokes?"

...cricket cricket...


...cricket cricket...

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Aliens? Us?
Is this one of your Earth "jokes?"

Negadon:The Monster From Mars

That's what I think.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNvJzyknm-A

In any case I welcome the idea of more short films.

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I wouldn't mind a block of shorts to replace one feature.

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The wages of sin are royalties.

Didn't we do a block of shorts a few years back? Wasn't that how we ended up screening "They're Made Out of Meat"?

Yep. It was one of the years at the Gateway. There were several good shorts that year. The mother who was trying to find the right kind of toy and the prospective adoptive parents who had the robbot baby to prove they were good parents, which struck an obvious chord with me.

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The wages of sin are royalties.

^Actually that was 'Robot Stories' a film with a series of short stories, and it showed at the Arena Grand if I'm not mistaken.

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Fortunately the forum goes back far enough. I was mixing my movies. 2006 was the year, the Meat film came out.

I remember two of the other ones, Microgravity and Cost of Living, with William B. "The Smoking Man" Davis from the X-Files.

Microgravity was a young woman alone in a space station or capsule, that was struggling with mental issues.

Cost of Living had Davis as a dying man, trying to buy a replacement cyborg body. He doesn't have enough money and is forced to choose between dying or working 16 hours a day for the corporation for 100 years to pay off the cost of the replacement.

I think there was sort of a noir film, but I don't recall it well enough, or I may be mixing my movies again.

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The wages of sin are royalties.