Well, I may not be zippin' around the open roads in a roadster as slick and door-hinge-impractical as Doc's DeLorean, but the Future certainly caught up with me after an extended holiday absence from the Tour, and I had to go back to work.
Honestly, the second half of the Tour, ambitious as it was initially designed, wound up becoming, well, pretty easy, and not really that demanding. At least nowhere near as demanding, in terms of preparation, organization and locations visited as the first half of the Tour. We'll call the second half of the Tour "Quality over Quantity."
Most of the reason for this transition from many-schools-in-very-few-weeks to few-schools-in-many-weeks was purposeful. Around the time of the ECU screening and my only overnight trip through North and South Carolina, over the phone with my wife I really confessed to and came to terms with the fact that, since I was kinda functioning as a one man band, I needed to make some changes to really get everything I wanted out of the Tour, and each stop along the way.
I think my expectations about what makes the Tour useful to me-- my expectations about its purpose-- have changed as well. Initially I was hoping to field bigger audiences, and thought that was what mattered most-- but heading into the back stretch, I kinda was able to take a step back and see it as something else-- and probably what I should have seen it as from the get go. Well... I'm getting ahead of myself-- more on that later.
What I can do, in terms of promoting each screening, is limited. They say you need money, time and talent in this business, or at least A LOT of one, to succeed-- well, the only resource I have access to is time, and early in the Tour I was squandering most of it by cramming so many venues into such a compact period. Maybe if I'd been able to line up all of them months before it could have worked, but because of demands from the DVD, my inability to get prompt responses from most locations, and just life in general (the Braves ain't gonna watch themselves!) I wasn't able to, and I eventually had to kinda ride with the current. So sometimes I wouldn't book a screening until two weeks prior, and I wouldn't get around to actually "promoting" it until a week before, which is risky when you have money and suicidal when you're depending on free grassroot outlets like fliers, PSAs, online calendars, and newspaper feature articles.
So, I came to terms with this handicap, and decided that the only way it was gonna get better was to embrace it and to be a bit more picky about where I go, and try to spend the effort I'd spend on, normally, two to three screenings, on just one.
And, of course, some of this "scaling down" was kinda inevitable due to just not being able to secure some venues. Throughout the length of the Tour I've contacted 75 schools, and generally at least three to four people at each (sometimes more). Of those 75 schools of three to four people each, I got word back from around 50 people, about 40 schools. From those 40 schools, I will wind up visiting 16.
So, there were a lot of, in my mind, missed opportunities, I think, but sometimes you just gotta take what you can get. Probably of those 40 I actually heard back from, I'd say 30 were, at least at some point, accompanied with a "yes" or at least an "I'm interested."
But as I was still having a hard time booking some of these 30 venues as the Tour began last September, I naturally relegated, to the front half, most of the schools I had booked, and scheduled schools that were still question marks for the second half, to obviously give those schools a bit more time to develop and finalize.
Surprisingly or not, most of these venues wound up fizzling out-- either due to scheduling issues or faded enthusiasm or little actual interest to begin with.
Honestly, though, for the most part, I'm glad, both personally and professionally, that this half is so much easier to handle. Frankly, the Tour did its job-- I feel like I paid the film the distribution service I owed it, and I'm ready to move on. Not that my experience with A Genesis Found ends with the Tour-- we're still hoping to get a bigger third party distrib. involved-- but I guess I feel like I tried the DIY experiment and learned a lot, and feel like my debt to it, and to the people who helped me create it, has been paid-- at least as far as day to day shepherding it is concerned.
Anyway, the Tour's not over yet.
When things got moving again in January, I couldn't have gotten back onto the bandwagon much easier than via my first screening of the second half, a February 8th late-afternoon screening at Jefferson Davis Community College in Brewton, AL.
What was so "easy" about the JDCC screening certainly wasn't the drive (didn't realize it was five hours til the morning of because I planned so well....) What was easy was that it was a private, class-only screening-- my first and only for the Tour.
Though it might sound a little compromising and detrimental to the Tour's purpose, doing a private, non-public screening was actually quite liberating. Basically, in January I sent my contact some promotional materials, and then a month later showed up-- that was it. No filling out venue breakdown sheets or hunting e-mails and fax numbers of local radio stations; no expensive flier mailings to local libraries; no worries about not promoting well-enough and therefore being solely responsible for bad attendance. It kinda gave me an idea of what it would have felt like if I had like a manager on this Tour, making the arrangements and doing all the dull work, while I rolled into town, saw the sights and made a couple of template comments at show's end.
Anyway, the JDCC screening was special for a couple of reasons. One, I'm apparently in the lineage of Jefferson Davis (one of my mom's grandmothers was a Davis, I think?); two, February 8th was my 25th birthday; and three, I felt like bringing my screening there was a very big deal for the school and the audience.
I've noticed this with most of the Community Colleges I've visited-- well, sort of. I guess it's kinda a mixed bag. Sometimes at the small schools people aren't that ambitious, and therefore aren't that interested, and so (relatively) no one shows. But, sometimes, it can be real special-- similar to the 100+ person screening at Pearl River Community College at the Tour's beginning.
It's special because, at school's like JDCC, there are rarely these types of outreach opportunities. This might be different for small schools elsewhere, but in the Southeast, it seems like getting actual, non-local artists to bring their work to little schools is a battle typically fought and lost by Humanities and Fine Arts professors across the region. I suppose, typically, these lack of opportunities stem from the perceived lack of interest, and the lack of useful function to these types of small schools mostly concerned with preparing kids for two years at a University or giving adults a more accessible means of receiving a secondary education.
But, that's been one of the (few) luxuries of designing this Tour myself, and allowing myself and my "focus" to be flexible.
It was actually one of the best audiences I'd gotten a chance to screen for-- I think because most were Humanities students, English students-- interested in story, in ideas only. It was a really honest, straight forward screening, with people who were interested (even if just in the novelty-- when the Dolby logo ran before the film, one audience member actually exclaimed "This has real trailers on it!"), and seemed to legitimately care about what was happening in front of them.
It was a talkative audience-- but not in a "I'm not paying attention" way, but more in a "interacting with the content" way. A very reactive audience, I should say.
And at the, by contrast, relatively tame and quiet Q&A, I got to field probably the best question of the entire Tour asked about making the movie: "Was it hard?"
What's so fantastic about that question was that it was meant so legitimately. It kinda put everything in perspective for me-- kinda made me better understand my place in this world, and the place of regional and independent film in this world. You could tell most of these kids, if not all, had NEVER been exposed to this type of work before-- the concept of making films locally for local audiences had never even been optioned in their minds. We were breaking ground that night. We were rounding out perspectives and broadening horizons.
I guess it was lesson one in helping me understand the true purpose of this Tour, and why God put me on this earth to be a filmmaker in this region at this time.
Man. I guess my approach to the Tour isn't the only thing that's changed since the last half. What happened to my sense of humor????
Oh, there it is.
 |
| Before Zemmeckis CGI'ed over the actors he shot. |
Most of the reason for this transition from many-schools-in-very-few-weeks to few-schools-in-many-weeks was purposeful. Around the time of the ECU screening and my only overnight trip through North and South Carolina, over the phone with my wife I really confessed to and came to terms with the fact that, since I was kinda functioning as a one man band, I needed to make some changes to really get everything I wanted out of the Tour, and each stop along the way.
I think my expectations about what makes the Tour useful to me-- my expectations about its purpose-- have changed as well. Initially I was hoping to field bigger audiences, and thought that was what mattered most-- but heading into the back stretch, I kinda was able to take a step back and see it as something else-- and probably what I should have seen it as from the get go. Well... I'm getting ahead of myself-- more on that later.
 |
| What is my purpose...? |
 |
| My PSAs should be this awesome. |
And, of course, some of this "scaling down" was kinda inevitable due to just not being able to secure some venues. Throughout the length of the Tour I've contacted 75 schools, and generally at least three to four people at each (sometimes more). Of those 75 schools of three to four people each, I got word back from around 50 people, about 40 schools. From those 40 schools, I will wind up visiting 16.
So, there were a lot of, in my mind, missed opportunities, I think, but sometimes you just gotta take what you can get. Probably of those 40 I actually heard back from, I'd say 30 were, at least at some point, accompanied with a "yes" or at least an "I'm interested."
But as I was still having a hard time booking some of these 30 venues as the Tour began last September, I naturally relegated, to the front half, most of the schools I had booked, and scheduled schools that were still question marks for the second half, to obviously give those schools a bit more time to develop and finalize.
Surprisingly or not, most of these venues wound up fizzling out-- either due to scheduling issues or faded enthusiasm or little actual interest to begin with.
Honestly, though, for the most part, I'm glad, both personally and professionally, that this half is so much easier to handle. Frankly, the Tour did its job-- I feel like I paid the film the distribution service I owed it, and I'm ready to move on. Not that my experience with A Genesis Found ends with the Tour-- we're still hoping to get a bigger third party distrib. involved-- but I guess I feel like I tried the DIY experiment and learned a lot, and feel like my debt to it, and to the people who helped me create it, has been paid-- at least as far as day to day shepherding it is concerned.
 |
| You said it, Spidey |
When things got moving again in January, I couldn't have gotten back onto the bandwagon much easier than via my first screening of the second half, a February 8th late-afternoon screening at Jefferson Davis Community College in Brewton, AL.
What was so "easy" about the JDCC screening certainly wasn't the drive (didn't realize it was five hours til the morning of because I planned so well....) What was easy was that it was a private, class-only screening-- my first and only for the Tour.
Though it might sound a little compromising and detrimental to the Tour's purpose, doing a private, non-public screening was actually quite liberating. Basically, in January I sent my contact some promotional materials, and then a month later showed up-- that was it. No filling out venue breakdown sheets or hunting e-mails and fax numbers of local radio stations; no expensive flier mailings to local libraries; no worries about not promoting well-enough and therefore being solely responsible for bad attendance. It kinda gave me an idea of what it would have felt like if I had like a manager on this Tour, making the arrangements and doing all the dull work, while I rolled into town, saw the sights and made a couple of template comments at show's end.
Anyway, the JDCC screening was special for a couple of reasons. One, I'm apparently in the lineage of Jefferson Davis (one of my mom's grandmothers was a Davis, I think?); two, February 8th was my 25th birthday; and three, I felt like bringing my screening there was a very big deal for the school and the audience.
 |
| Jeff Davis |
It's special because, at school's like JDCC, there are rarely these types of outreach opportunities. This might be different for small schools elsewhere, but in the Southeast, it seems like getting actual, non-local artists to bring their work to little schools is a battle typically fought and lost by Humanities and Fine Arts professors across the region. I suppose, typically, these lack of opportunities stem from the perceived lack of interest, and the lack of useful function to these types of small schools mostly concerned with preparing kids for two years at a University or giving adults a more accessible means of receiving a secondary education.
But, that's been one of the (few) luxuries of designing this Tour myself, and allowing myself and my "focus" to be flexible.
It was actually one of the best audiences I'd gotten a chance to screen for-- I think because most were Humanities students, English students-- interested in story, in ideas only. It was a really honest, straight forward screening, with people who were interested (even if just in the novelty-- when the Dolby logo ran before the film, one audience member actually exclaimed "This has real trailers on it!"), and seemed to legitimately care about what was happening in front of them.
It was a talkative audience-- but not in a "I'm not paying attention" way, but more in a "interacting with the content" way. A very reactive audience, I should say.
 |
| Well, not THAT reactive. |
What's so fantastic about that question was that it was meant so legitimately. It kinda put everything in perspective for me-- kinda made me better understand my place in this world, and the place of regional and independent film in this world. You could tell most of these kids, if not all, had NEVER been exposed to this type of work before-- the concept of making films locally for local audiences had never even been optioned in their minds. We were breaking ground that night. We were rounding out perspectives and broadening horizons.
I guess it was lesson one in helping me understand the true purpose of this Tour, and why God put me on this earth to be a filmmaker in this region at this time.
 |
| ... That is my purpose. |
Oh, there it is.
Another great one.
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