Pangea Day: May 10th, 2008

M. Here!

So K. and I are helping to organize a Pangea day with another woman in Cleveland, Ohio! We're really excited to be part of this project, and for anyone near Cleveland, we'd love the help!


What Is Pangea Day?

Pangea Day taps the power of film to strengthen tolerance and compassion while uniting millions of people to build a better future.

In a world where people are often divided by borders, difference, and conflict, it's easy to lose sight of what we all have in common. Pangea Day seeks to overcome that - to help people see themselves in others - through the power of film.

On May 10, 2008 - Pangea Day - sites in Cairo, Dharamsala, Kigali, London, New York City, Ramallah, Rio de Janeiro, and Tel Aviv will be videoconferenced live to produce a program of powerful films, visionary speakers, and uplifting music.

The program will be broadcast live to the world through the Internet, television, digital cinemas, and mobile phones.

Of course, movies alone can't change the world. But the people who watch them can. So following May 10, 2008, Pangea Day organizers will facilitate community-building activities around the world by connecting inspired viewers with numerous organizations which are already doing groundbreaking work.

Daughters of the Dust

M. Here!

Go see this movie, if you already haven't. I think Keigh and I saw this when we were thirteen or fourteen years old. This, and Eve's Bayou, is what made me want to be a director.

UPDATES!

Friends and Foes,

For all those who haven't been in a thousand mile radius of us, you might not know the good news: Keigh Abrams and Miyaunna DeChelle have just bought their very first Canon XL1!

And now a word from our sponsor, Hiro Nakamura: YATTTTAAAAAAAAAA!!!

*Ehem*

While this news might not be the grandest of accomplishments, it is a minor milestone for two struggling filmmakers whose budget is smaller than the shoe-string.

All kidding aside, I am massively thrilled that we've finally got a prosumer DV camera that we can use to create and develop our own projects! Words on an internet page cannot express how elated I am about this new development, so I am just going to type a bunch of exclamation points !!!!!!!!! to express my jubilation!

I must add however, that this joy also comes with an enormous sense of responsibility and a tiny hint of fear. This machine brings the cold, hard truth: we must act. We can no longer sit around the house in our procrastination saying, "We'll get to it once we have the right equipment". Now we are faced with the doubts and the insecurities that come with pouring your mind and soul into something that may mean jack shit to others. And while we'd like to say we don't care...to face that kind of criticism might make ye normal folk insane. :)

On another note, we RYF writers recently finished the M. Bell treatment and to our relief, they LOVED it! We're registering it with the WGA and the Library of Congress because we're anal and we're new and we're just excited to be here :). We're filming and editing the teaser for his project sometime next week.

Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of this week, we will attempt our first foray into creating our own short film. It's an abstract narrative(sorry, no Zombie love stories or paint ball adventures, guys--this isn't "Youtube") that we're going to start pre-production (see, we get to use grownup words now) on tonight. I will be "acting" (if you can call it that; I'm pretty rusty since my Antigone days) and directing. K. will also be on hand, wowing us with her wonderful work as the great *writographer she is.

As K. mentioned before, we are entering the Hollywood Black Film Festival as writers, and we are also getting our writing samples and references together for CSUN: Northridge, Chapman University, CalArts and UCLA.

Heads up! Nicholls, BlueCat and many other screenplay contests are right around the corner!

Peep the page in the coming days to see the progress we've made!

Mucho amor y abrazos para todos!
{You knew we speak Spanish, right? Right??? *smile*}









*Note: If you don't know what a "writographer" is, look down.

KarmaCritic gets a makeover

K here.

Looks like KarmaCritic has a new look, and I like it, a lot! It's much lighter than the older version, and it's easier to read, which I'm sure everyone else loves, too.SUBLIM, the screenplay contest held by the good folks at KarmaCritic, seems to be getting a fair number of scripts, but from the loglines, I wonder how distinct they will be from one another? So far, we've got a couple of romances, some comedies, some fantasy, and (at least) 2 supernatural screenplays.

Interesting. At any rate, neither M nor I have joined KarmaCritic, but I'm going to try to join today or sometime soon when I get the chance to get everything together.

The deadline is October 2007. I wonder if more people are going to wait until then to submit? They won't get very many votes, though.