Carmine

Hello, and here’s a very brief update about the Cerise/Tilt screening in Los Angeles and what’s ahead for the word that took Josh Kermes down.

Cerise/Tilt at the Downtown Independent Los Angeles
This past Monday, Cerise was shown on a truly ginormous screen at LA’s famed Downtown Independent on Main Street as a prelude to the very first test screening of Phil Holbrook’s upcoming thriller Tilt.

The filmic festivities were sponsored by Film Courage, part of their monthly Interactive screening series. The house teemed with plenty of Twitter friends, Facebook supporters and even a few backers of Cerise. Immediately following my 22-minute short, which garnered a lovely response from the audience, a Q&A was orchestrated by Film Courage hosts David Branin and Karen Worden, in which I answered some of the standard as well as a fair amount of new questions about Cerise, my inspiration behind it, and what I plan to do with it in the months ahead.

All in all, it was a splendid night for Cerise, but perhaps the best part of the screening was meeting so many awesome people like Phil and Jeremy Doyle, DP of Tilt, Meg Pinsonneault, Nathan Cole, writer and co-producer of the fantastic feature-length film The Waterhole, Mike Merell, now an even prouder backer of Cerise, and Zak Forsman. Unfortunately, I didn’t get a chance to meet everyone who was there, but to all of you who attended––thank you so very much for your continued support of Cerise!

What’s Next For Cerise?
In the early months of 2012, I’ll be submitting Cerise to a few more film festivals internationally, mainly those whose earlybird deadlines I missed the first time around, like Tribeca Film Festival and Berlinale, to name a couple of biggies. It’s been a wonderful run submitting over the past eight months, and with twelve “Official Selection” laurels, four nominations, one “Award of Merit” and a spot at the Cannes Short Film Corner, Cerise has already done better than I could have ever hoped for.

Around February, I’ll be launching a “Fourth and Final Crusade for Cerise” for anyone who’d like to sponsor a submission fee so that Cerise can have a shot at getting into a few more festivals before I release it for free to the public via our Vimeo channel in the spring of 2012.

The Tao of Crowdfunding Goes to Print
After that, I’ll be taking a bit of a hiatus to pen my very first book––The Tao of Crowdfunding for Filmmakers––for Michael Wiese Productions. I’ve given myself six short months to turn a series of helpful blog posts into a 200-page book that will offer DIY filmmakers some tips and tactics on how to run a successful crowdfunding campaign for their film projects, just like I did with Cerise. The book is scheduled for either a 2012 or 2013 release.

That’s it for now, everyone. The Cerise updates won’t stop, but may be a bit less frequent for the time being by the time I make some headway with The Tao of Crowdfunding for Filmmakers. Until then, keep updated via our Facebook page, and when I we do return, hopefully we’ll do so with some exciting news about the word, the short, the spelling: C-E-R-I-S-E!

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Carmine [kahr-min, -mahyn] adjective 1. a crimson or purplish-red color. (from Dictionary.com)