Trailer for the North Country Shorts Showcase, part of the 2012 Lake Placid Film Forum. The Showcase is Saturday, June 16th, 4 PM at the Lake Placid Center for the Arts. Trailer cut by T J Brearton. Licensed music by Moby. Film clips from “Stations” (Michael Fisher), “The Luckiest Man Alive” (Matthew Cortez Temple), “Return to Moose Pond” (Paul Frederick), “Disappearer,” (Vanessa Harris), “Tee’d Off” (Chris Federico).
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WANTED: ACTORS!
If you have ever dreamed of acting in a film, here’s your chance! The Lake Placid Film Forum is looking for 20 actors interested in performing in the films created as part of the Forum’s popular 2012 SLEEPLESS IN LAKE PLACID 24-hour filmmaking competition.
- Actors may or may not have extensive experience acting, but need to be available all day on THURSDAY, JUNE 14th, which is the principal day of shooting.
- Actors will have information and a picture posted on the Lake Placid Film Forum website and will take part in a casting call at 8:30 AM on Thursday that will determine which of the 5 teams of filmmakers they will be working with.
This is a fun opportunity to play a key role in the creation of a short film, to gain an insider’s view of how films are made, to take part in a terrific regional film festival, and to see yourself on the big screen! There is a special prize for best performance by male / female actor. For actors, this is a great portfolio piece. For people new to acting, who knows? This could be the start of your new career!
CASTING CALL: 8:30 – 10:00 THURSDAY, JUNE 14
SHOOTING: THURSDAY, JUNE 14 from 10:00 AM – ?
FESTIVAL SCREENING OF FILMS: FRIDAY JUNE 15 8:45 PM
Interested parties should contact actor coordinator Sunny Rozakis (sunnyrozakis@live.com) or SiLP competition coordinator Barry Snyder (barry.snyder1@gmail.com; 802.527-2958). Participating actors will provide the Forum with a picture and paragraph for posting on the LPFF website. For more information, to see videos of last year’s SiLP filmmaking teams in action, and to register on-line, click HERE.
actor michael gaston to attend film forum in june
Michael Gaston is an actor whose impressive credits span The Sopranos, Ally McBeal, and The West Wing, with movies like Ransom and Inception under his belt. Chances are, if it’s a hit TV show or a critically acclaimed blockbuster, you’ve seen Michael at work.
Michael will serve as a judge for the student competition, as well as present his recent film, a documentary called Tending Fires.
LPFF 2012 Screenings & Events
Program | June 13 – 16, 2012. |
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the kid who could talk to deer
Children and Animals 
by Clay McLeod Chapman and Craig Macneill
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W.C. Fields sure was onto something when he uttered this immortal
warning nearly a century ago: “Never work with animals or children.”
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Did we listen? Of course not. Our previous short film collaboration,
LATE BLOOMER, premiered at the 2004 Lake Placid Film Forum where it
was awarded the Audience Award for Best Short Film and went on to
screen at dozens of festivals including the 2005 Sundance Film
Festival. LATE BLOOMER was about a seventh grade sex-ed class that
goes terribly wrong. The cast was predominantly comprised of
pre-adolescents, and in spite of this fact, everything went very
smoothly on set. Based on that experience, we were very confident,
perhaps overly so, about working with just one younger child in our
next short, HENLEY. In fact, for HENLEY we decided to double-down:
not only would our lead be even younger than anyone we’ve ever worked
with before—we’d throw animals into the mix. Live animals—Deer and rabbit
to be exact.
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We lucked out with our young lead Hale Lytle, who plays nine-year-old
Ted Henley. Hale has a preternatural quality about him—a magnetic
screen presence. Nine years old at the time of shooting, this kid had
more energy than the rest of the cast and crew combined. When all the
adults started to wane, losing energy around the 3 AM stretch, Hale
would be still jumping around the set, ready for his close-up.
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The deer, however, is another story.
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HENLEY is the story of Ted Henley who considers himself something of a deer whisperer. His ability to cajole fawns from the neighboring woods is a skill that he puts to dubious use. No spoilers here!
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Two key segments in our film revolved around prolonged shots of deer:
a deer grazing in a field; and a deer stepping onto a highway at night only to be caught in the headlights of an oncoming car.
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W.C. Fields was likely rolling in his grave as the script was being written.
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We shot in Virginia during the summer and had all been told many times by many locals that the streets are flooded with deer. We would have no trouble finding lots of deer—alive, dead or otherwise. Just wait a couple minutes; they’ll step
out from the woods and startwaving their SAG card at you.
Nothing led us to believe we wouldn’t be able to get one
—if not dozens—for a couple shots. Until, we didn’t.
All those deer ready for their big break just disappeared. Poof.
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Okay—so we’ll hire an animal trainer we thought. Use a professional.
Nope. Turns out the state of Virginia considers deer a nuisance and
has a law that states you can’t keep deer as pets—or, train them for
movies. We kept pushing our deer scenes during filming, stalling for a
miracle. On our last day of shooting, with no divine intervention to
speak of, we rushed to an antique store looking for mounted deer
heads. We found a footstool whose legs were made of—wait for it—deer
legs. Hoof to knee. Our production designer sawed the legs off and
attempted to puppeteer the shot of our hapless animal strutting onto
the street from the knees down. It looked like a deer-of-the-night in
high heels waiting for some john to pull over and pick it up. Or, as
some suggested, like a moon-walking dead deer. Fortunately this
footage never made its way into the film.
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Luckily, a month later, one of our crew members just-so-happened to be
working on a feature in upstate New York that just-so-happened to have a
deer in it. The feature had hired a professional wrangler and this
deer was legit. It had a trailer and everything. With a little
begging, we were able to convince the animal’s handler to “borrow” the
deer between scenes on the feature to shoot the necessary bits for our
humble little short.
*
The amount of screen time taken up by our kidnapped deer adds up to
only a few seconds. Blink and you might even miss it. That’s pretty
minuscule compared to the days of anxiety and frustration spent trying
to find the deer in the first place. But ask us if we’ve learned from
our lesson or not, if we’ll work with animals (or kids) ever again—and
we’ll have to shake our heads no: As it stands, we’re planning to
expand and adapt our short into a feature film. That’s ninety minutes
of deer whispering. That’s more kids and a hell of a lot more deer.
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HENLEY screened in competition at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival.
The film premiered at the 2011 Gen Art Film Festival where it was awarded
the Grand Jury Prize for Best Short Film.
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This June 14-16, the Lake Placid Film Forum is pleased to welcome Craig and
Clay back and screen this award-winning short film.
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Hey look, it’s a deer!
the loss of theatres that can’t convert to digital – an indiewire article
Michael Hurley owns the Colonial Theatre in Belfast, Maine as well as the Temple Theatre in Houlton, Maine. He runs a website for movie theater owners and is a member of the National Association of Theatre Owners. And he’s desperate.
Like many theater owners, Hurley sees a very real possibility that nearly 20% of all theaters in North America will disappear because they can’t afford digital projection — but what he doesn’t see is anyone talking about it. He wrote Indiewire recently and asked if we could help and we’re hoping that this editorial will be a start…
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(contributed by Adk MOGUL)
2012 call for submissions!
Gotta Short? Did you shoot it in the North Country (Adirondacks, St Lawrence, Burlington)? OR, are you from here but shot it elsewhere? Boy, do we want to see it. And if it is a fit with our 2012 Program, we’d like to show it, too. Click here for last year’s line up.
Interested? Awesome. Now for the paperwork. Click here for the submission forms!
Check out the trailer for NC Shorts 2011!
russell banks speaks on the committee to protect journalists
The leading American author Russell Banks set the tone on Sunday as he stood among international writers and their local colleagues in Mexico City: “A nation’s journalists and writers, like its poets and story-tellers, are the eyes, ears, and mouths of the people. When journalists cannot freely speak of what they see and hear of the reality that surrounds them, the people cannot see, hear, or speak it either.” Banks is among the leaders of a high-level PEN International delegation that is meeting with top Mexican officials to pressure them to improve law enforcement in the murders of journalists, and to change the law to bring more cases under the federal government’s jurisdiction.
