“Tricks of a Woman” will be having its North American Premiere at the Boston International Film Festival this upcoming Wednesday, April 22nd.

This is a film I directed and co-wrote last year. The film stars Vincent Pastore, (”The Sopranos”) Natasha Lyonne, (”American Pie” ) Scott Elrod, (”Men in Trees”) and Carlos Leon. (”Oz”) The film won “Best Feature Film” at the Monaco Film Festival as well as three acting awards.

It also features my good friends Dennis Lemoine and William Decoff, both of who I have worked with on a number of projects in the past.

http://www.bifilmfestival.com/0009session24.html

Making movies sometimes affords you some special opportunities you wouldn’t normally find. One of my favorite was in pre-production of “Tricks of a Woman.” We were doing location scouting at the Southwick Zoo. Being that we were a week or so away from shooting, we were juggling many plates, and so we arrived late.

We pulled into the zoo parking lot around closing time. We met with the Zoo’s owner and explained in detail the scenes we were scouting for. In my typical wild and impracticable ambition, I had written a scene where the male lead jumps into a Rhino pit to take a photo of the rhinos. The rhino sees him and in turns fiercely charges at him.

Of course within a minute of pitching the story that idea was laughed down. I soon learned how ferocious and dangerous these Rhinos were. She suggested we walk through the zoo and find perhaps another animal for him to take pictures of in the scene.

And so that’s what we did. The four of us were led on a private tour of the zoo. We strolled by camels, giraffe, and deer. It’s was a perfect, quiet mid-summer evening at sunset, and was blissfully relaxing. We tested out the light on various animal areas. We even went to visit one of the rhinos, who was sleeping. We went inside his den, which not many people get to do, and then were allowed to pet his skin, which felt what I imagined a pet dinosaur to feel like, if cloning technology ever creates such a thing.

I thought to myself how lucky we were to be able to do this, and realized that these experiences are what making movies is all about.

Realizing how perfect a location it was, we ended up changing a number of scenes to be shot right at the zoo. We added “walk and talks” through the zoo woods and the deer preserve.

And what animal did we decide to film, after visiting with the whole of the animal kingdom?

Why the rhinos, of course.

But the part of the scene with the angry rhino attack?

Yeah, that had to be cut.

It’s moments like these that make me love filmmaking.

When we started filming “Meet the Mayfarers” in November ‘07, I had a difficult time trying to explain to people what, exactly a web show was, and why someone would want to do it. Is it like a TV show? A short film? Er, no. Was it a “viral video?” Not that at all.

In the time it’s taken us to shoot and edit, web shows have seemed to become more mainstream. Many popular TV shows have some component of a web show, or webisode. (I’ve personally been calling this a “web sitcom.”) But nonetheless, they’re out there. And the reasons are varied. For some people, it’s about connecting, for others it’s about communications, or marketing.

For me it is simply a way to bypass traditional distribution.

I had spent the better part of that year working with various sales reps on the film I had shot the year before. And distribution, as any filmmaker knows, is the most difficult part of making a flick. At best, it’s an uphill battle, with the sales rep/distribution company getting the majority of whatever profits there might be. And this was before the current gloomy climate for indi film sales.

When I started to hear about people “airing” their shows online I got excited - really excited. Finally a way to get past the nonsense of distribution. Finally a way to get the work up there. Finally a way to shoot something and then have it online in a few months….well, most of that is true, but the editing took far longer than I thought.

But there’s a bigger answer to that. Why a web show? Sure, you bypass distribution. Why a web show? Sure, you have an immediate platform to show your work. But the real important reason? To just keep shooting. For me the important part of filmmaking has always been striving to work on new projects. I’m a huge believer in the power of “the more you do, the more you learn.” I admire artists who keep working and creating new stuff, and it’s fascinating to see them evolve.

So why shoot a web show?

For me the answer was - why not shoot a web show?

Hello everyone. So we’re gearing up to launch “Meet the Mayfarers.” It’s been quite a long process, much more than I expected. Editing episodes with three cameras has been exciting, but the process to set it up was glacial. Having said that - we’re getting close. I have edited around twenty-two episodes thus far, and the rest are going at a speedy pace.

The goal of the show is to upload one episode a week for a year, so I still have some editing to go, but I’m almost at the number I wanted to be at before launching.

Before we launch, I’ll be uploading more trailers, shorts, Behind the Scenes and sketches to introduce you to the world of “Meet the Mayfarers.” I’ll also try to blog on a semi-regular basis about the show, indi movie-making, and some of the other film and new media projects I’m involved with.

So sit back, relax, and subscribe. It will still be a month and a half until we launch, but I’ll be having content up soon.

Thanks for your patience!