Space Specks Marketing Status

MARKETING STATUS:

7/9/03 - Matt Hudson from the dogpile review gives Specks 7 out of 10 stars! Read his review here.

6/27/03 - Roger Nygard, the producer of the upcoming Trekkies 2 movie was at Roc*Kon and learned about Specks. His production coordinator requested a copy of the DVD, I sent it, and she said he loved it! Hopefully you'll be seeing clips from Specks in Trekkies 2. I asked if it could be the teleportation bloopers and they said maybe. They also want an interview of me so I'll have to find time to do that. (We start shooting Murphy's Laws this upcoming weekend!)

6/3/03 - Balticon was great! I was really nervous giving an interview but Chainsaw Sally did a wonderful job and managed to pull me through it. Fortunately I had my son for a crutch. Check out Chainsaw's web site. Vote for your favorite slasher or victim here (my son, Ricky, couldn't resist posing - he is such a ham!). They wouldn't let me take any pictures, much of the art is copyrighted and they were afraid the art could be compromised. Anyway the crowd seemed to like the movie which made me feel great. Kinda walking on cloud nine since then. :-)

5/5/03 - Tambay was great! Seeing Specks in a real movie theater was absolutely incredible! Specks didn't win any awards (there were 12 other features) but that doesn't matter - I am still thrilled about being accepted. I'm afraid I wasn't able to do much marketing, a lemonade mishap destroyed all of my marketing materials. As such, the turn out was rather light. Regardless, Tambay is a wonderful little festival and Leora Chai and her staff did a fantastic job! If you are ever in Tampa during that time of year, I highly recommend it.

4/12/03 - Michel Plaxton from Worldcon 61 (AKA TorCon) has informed me there is a very good chance Specks will be screened at the convention. This is the largest science fiction convention in the world (I do believe).

4/5/03 - Gertrude Smith of Roc*Kon has told me, "I am amazed at how well EVERYTHING works in this film! Your Captain was PERFECT and everyone should really enjoy "Andy's" performance!" She promises you will "Surrender or die...LAUGHING!" Her wonderfully written review is posted here. Balticon says, "Space Specks ... features brilliant CGI effects in support of a plot mixing media SF conventions with a hard SF practicality." For details, click here.

4/4/03 - Specks will be shown at BALTICON 37 in Baltimore over Memorial Day weekend! They expect an audience of about 300 people in the main tent and I will be one of them! Two other SF conventions are reviewing the DVD now and three others have been contacted. I expect to hear from them in the near future.

3/27/03 - Ah ha! I think I've figured out my marketing mistake. Rather than sending Specks to film festivals, I have been contacting Science Fiction (SF) conventions to see if they'd be willing to exhibit Specks. So far, the response has been very positive! Sending a science fiction movie to science fiction conventions, now why didn't I think of that before??? :-) There is a new review up. Although he had some problems with the plot pacing, "In the end Space Specks made me laugh a bunch of times ..." - Monkeyhouse Lounge.

3/5/03 - The first review is in! HorrorBob gives Specks 3 out of 4 stars!!! "...I think anyone would enjoy it." and "it ranks right up their with Sci-Fi Comedies such as Galaxy Quest and Space Balls, just with a smaller budget." - HorrorBob.

2/27/03 - I have contacted a number of film reviewers to see if they would be interested in reviewing Specks. I'm pleased to say a number of them said yes. I will post additional information when it is available. Although I've managed to put Specks on DVD, I just discovered three defects. If your DVD has an audio burst of white noise at 0:09:21 (and another at 1:17:08, and a visual glitch at 0:8:57) let me know and I'll replace the DVD. I just finished fixing the problem last night and will burn a test DVD and watch it tonight.

2/24/03 - Specks is not on the list of films at the Florida Film Festival. The HBO rejection reminded me that the festivals get a lot of submissions. That alone puts the odds at 32:1.

2/12/03 - HBO informed me Specks was not one of the 23 features selected from the 800 candidates. Specks is not on the list of selected films at Fargo.

2/5/03 - I mailed submissions to Dances With Films and Santa Cruz Film Festival. Tambay has been moved to April 25-28.

2/1/03 - I am deeply saddened by the tragic events of today - the shuttle Columbia disintegrated on re-entry killing all 7 crew members on board. Space Specks is dedicated to the crew of the Challenger (and to my father) and I almost changed the dedication to include the Columbia. However, I decided against it. In Space Specks, the star ship from Earth is the Challenger and it is the fastest ship in the fleet. I wanted to honor the original NASA crew in that manner. They are the "rescuers" or "saviors" of the universe because their ship is so fast. However, there are no references to the Columbia in Specks so I thought it would be inappropriate to honor the Challenger in such a manner without giving the same type of honor to the crew of the Columbia. Perhaps some day I will get the opportunity to make another sci fi movie that I can dedicate to the 7 men and women of the Columbia. That ship will have the longest range so it can explore further than any other ship in the fleet. I think the crew would've liked that. My prayers go out to the crew of the Columbia and their families.

1/27/03 - The DC International Film Festival informed me that Specks was not accepted. The Tambay festival may be postponed until later in April. I mailed submissions to the Boston IFF and the Blue Sky IFF (Las Vegas).

1/17/03 - FANTASTIC NEWS! Specks was accepted to the Tambay Film and Video Festival in Tampa Bay, FL. Festival dates are April 10-13. Festival details are at http://www.tambayfilmfest.com . I'm planning on being there one or two days.

1/3/03 - Slamdance has posted their accepted films and Specks was not one of them. I received notification from Cinequest (San Jose Film Festival) that Specks was not accepted. I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and a Happy New Year! I have learned a technique that will allow me to make a letter box version that will hide the ugly ceiling in all of the shots! I also got a DVD burner for Xmas (thanks Mom!) so I'm trying to put Specks on DVD.

12/6 - I mailed submissions to The Tambay Film Festival, Fargo Film Festival, and Sonoma Valley Film Festival.

12/2 - I was informed Specks was not accepted to Sundance.

11/29 -I mailed submissions to the HBO Comedy Film Festival, the Washington DC International Film Festival, and the Tiburon Film Festival.

11/19 - Below are some pictures from the premiere. Sorry I didn't get pictures of everyone, I was busy and forgot to take them.

11/6 - I mailed a submission to the Florida Film Festival today. Also, a private screening is scheduled for the cast, crew, and production staff on Sat 11/16 at 5:30 PM. Contact me for details.

10/25 - I mailed a submission to Cinequest today (San Jose Film Festival).

10/3 - I mailed the submission to Slamdance today.

10/1 - I mailed the submission to Sundance today. Don ran into problems making the DVD so I sent a VHS tape instead.

9/27 - The glitches are fixed. However, Thommy said he would fix a scene for me so I won't make copies until then (mid Oct maybe). Don is making a DVD for Sundance. I'm getting together a Publicity Kit.

9/24 - The glitch is much larger than I thought, every green screen shot has it. Most are not noticeable, but several are. I don't know if I'm going to be able to fix it and it looks like it will take a while for me to find out.

9/22 - I ran into a glitch which I am trying to fix. There were several green screen shots in which there was substantial jitter (it has something to do with the way the Huffy codec converts to DV we think), I have fixed all but four of them. I will go ahead and submit to Sundance with the glitches but I would like to try and fix them before I make copies of the movie for the cast and crew.

9/20 - Now that the production is done, the marketing begins. I have identified about 10 festivals I would like to submit to initially. I will list them here when I submit. Marketing status updates will not be made on a weekly basis, only when there is something to report.