Just after writing and posting the previous entry with it’s call to arms for channels to program more scary stuff during the month of October, I get an email from IFC telling me that they’ve unfortunately had to push Jinx’s screenings in the October IFC Short Film Showcase to November, because the programmers decided they wanted to make the October Short Film Showcase all scary horror shorts.
Oh well, I can’t blame em. Now that’s irony for you.
So look for Jinx! in November now!
This past Friday evening, I had a small group of friends over to my house to watch my short film “Jinx!” premiere on the Independent Film Channel. I had invited girls and cast members, but the only people who showed up were all my gay boy friends. It was really chill and that’s just what I wanted. I had cupcakes and beer for everyone, and by 10:30 the group had arrived and we all stood around chatting in anticipation. At 10:40 I ordered everyone into my smallish bedroom, and told them to grab whatever free space they saw and make it comfortable for the next fifteen minutes.
“Jinx!” was set to screen at 10:45PM - bookended on one side by Party Monster, which I thought was funny since I had met with Jon Marcus, the film’s producer, while I was in Los Angeles. The Henry Rollins Show (an inexplicable idea if every there was one, but hey, I can’t dis IFC now, so scratch that thought) was set to follow Jinx! at 11:00PM. We sat huddled on my bed, like a super cozy slumber party and suddenly there it was - “A Film By Adam Baran,” “Jinx!” - the titles rendered in adorable little girl script by my friend, cartoonist Dan Acton. From the first moments of the actual film I was immediately swept up again in the story. The film looked superb onscreen, much better than it did at LA Shorts, where the projection diminished the fullness of the candy-colors featured throughout. What’s more, there was something about it that just worked on TV. I can’t really put my finger on what it was - maybe it’s that because the short film has a lot in common with the types of sketch comedy we’ve become accustomed to seeing on TV, that it just seemed like seeing it in that format fit the film perfectly. Any weaknesses I might have felt or things I wished I would have changed or done differently evaporated in that context. My friends all laughed - and though most of them had seen the film and knew that if they didn’t laugh that I would remember, I still like to believe that they were laughing because they genuinely found the film funny.
What’s more - I was happy with it - the demented Todd Solondz meets Whatever Happened to Baby Jane tone I was going for - and which I became convinced at times was too multi-genre to work - actually came across, and I happily saw my original idea oozing out of the finished film like the spirit of Joan Chen when she dies and gets trapped in the doorknob during the second season of Twin Peaks.
It went by quickly - it is only an eleven minute short, after all, but my friends hung around for a while, finished off the beer, went up to the roof to smoke cigarettes and gaze out on my gorgeous view of the Empire State Building to the North and the hideous Blue Building to the South. Then I had mentioned going to Sugarland, which is a new gay club in Williamsburg that’s all the rage, and so somehow we coordinated well and by 12, we were all dancing un-self-consicously to Britney’s Gimme More and some new cover of the Pet Shop Boys “Domino Dancing” that everyone went nuts over. Props to the DJ for throwing on the sensational Cranberries song Zombie, which somehow fit into the dance mix perfectly. And if you couldn’t tell that I’m a child of the nineties by my love of the Cranberries, perhaps you were given an early clue by the fact that I still use the phrase “Props.”
All in all it was a wonderful evening, and a good time was definitely had by all. I look forward to seeing it again when it starts airing more frequently in October (and you should too, for those of you who didn’t set your TIVO’s and DVR’s in time). Till then, I’ve just been watching it over and over again on my DVR. Sometimes, when nobody’s watching, I decide to mimic James Woods in Videodrome and make out with my television, while my name is on screen. Oh well, at least I’m in the privacy of my own home.
To all my friends who came over (and those who didn’t) and all the other people around the country who tuned in and sent me emails, I offer a deep and heartfelt “Thank you!” For the rest of the week, while I try to avoid the inevitable post-partum from the whole experience, it’s the fun of this night that will keep me reminded of what it’s like to be happy.
PS. Oh yeah, that flower on the wall, that came with the apartment. I did not paint that and have been meaning to paint over it for like 3 years! Don’t hate! I love you!
In case you missed it at the LA Shorts Film Festival last week, and that’s probably most of you, my short film “Jinx!” will be having it’s TV World Premiere this Friday, September 21st at 10:45PM on the Independent Film Channel (IFC)! (Channel 81 in NYC)
Jinx! tells the story of a bitter rivalry between two second grade girls that spirals out of control. When nerdy second grader Eleanor tries to join a schoolyard game, a bully named Rachel “jinxes” her. Unable to speak until someone says her name, Eleanor sets off on a madcap quest to break Rachel’s diabolical spell before the 3:00 bell rings. As she navigates the cutthroat world of second grade, Eleanor seeks help from a stern math teacher, a deranged abstract artist, and a clueless father – with disastrous results!
The film will be on IFC in their short film blocks during October, and after that you can check IFC.com for screening times - the film will eventually be up on IFC.com as well.
http://ifc.bside.com/?_view=_filmdetails&filmId=33662540&timezone=America/New_York
If you enjoy the film - feel free to add a review on the IFC site, and you can also be our friend on MySpace at www.myspace.com/jinxfilm
I hope everyone is haveing as good a week as I’m having and please, check out “Jinx!” this Friday on IFC at 10:45PM and tell your friends!
In case you missed it at the LA Shorts Film Festival last week, and that’s probably most of you, my short film “Jinx!” will be having it’s TV World Premiere this Friday, September 21st at 10:45PM on the Independent Film Channel (IFC)! (Channel 81 in NYC)
Jinx! tells the story of a bitter rivalry between two second grade girls that spirals out of control. When nerdy second grader Eleanor tries to join a schoolyard game, a bully named Rachel “jinxes” her. Unable to speak until someone says her name, Eleanor sets off on a madcap quest to break Rachel’s diabolical spell before the 3:00 bell rings. As she navigates the cutthroat world of second grade, Eleanor seeks help from a stern math teacher, a deranged abstract artist, and a clueless father – with disastrous results!
The film will be on IFC in their short film blocks during October, and after that you can check IFC.com for screening times - the film will eventually be up on IFC.com as well.
http://ifc.bside.com/?_view=_filmdetails&filmId=33662540&timezone=America/New_York
If you enjoy the film - feel free to add a review on the IFC site, and you can also be our friend on MySpace at www.myspace.com/jinxfilm
I hope everyone is haveing as good a week as I’m having and please, check out “Jinx!” this Friday on IFC at 10:45PM and tell your friends!
This just in: Now you can rent Jinx! on DVD in Los Angeles at the best video store on Earth - Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee, located at 5006 Vineland Avenue in North Hollywood.
Here’s how that happened : While I was in Los Angeles last week, I mentioned to a friend that I was looking for a place like Amoeba Records only for videos, where I could scour the racks of used rare and hard to find VHS tapes. I didn’t know where that could be but, I figured there must be someplace in L.A. He told me about Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee Video, located in North Hollywood. So on Saturday morning, I got in my car, punched the address into my GPS and set off for what would become the most mind blowing shopping experience I’ve had in a long time.
Ever walk in a store and want everything in it? That’s what it was like to walk into Eddie Brandt’s. They have tens of thousands of videos on both VHS and DVD, and what’s more, they can make you DVD copies of any VHS tape they have. They have a special loaner library of hard to find, never been released stuff - bootlegs accumulated over many years. I started going through the shelves of used videos for sale, and within minutes I had ten videos I had to have already set aside. “Just put it on the counter and rest one of those red bean bags over it,” the guy behind the counter said. I hadn’t even gotten to letter C yet. Already I had The Amazing Dobermans, a film about a crime fighting gang of pooches, starring Fred Astaire, The Annihalators, a Death Wish/Rambo knock off (I picked up quite a few of those), and Brotherly Love - a good twin/evil twin movie starring…Judd Hirsch!!
I went to the counter and asked if they had Good Luck Miss Wyckoff, an extremely hard to find film - or so I thought. They checked the system and didn’t have it, but one of the extremely knowledgeable customers soon piped up - “That was released as The Shaming!” On second check, they had it - and Donovan, the son of Eddie, the store’s namesake, threw the film into his computer, transferred it, and made a DVD copy for me (not for free of course, but not for a lot of money either). I had to wait about 90 minutes for the transfer, but it didn’t matter. I stayed for hours picking over the shelves. Among the more amazing other titles included Hell Comes to Frogtown, Daddy’s Deadly Darling (aka Pigs), Rainbow (a made for TV Judy Garland biopic starring Andrea McArdle as Judy and Piper Laurie as her mama), and Exterminators of the Year 3000.
The staff were super nice, and soon the back and forth was basically “Have you ever seen this?” “Oh you gotta see this!” I of course recommended Street Wars, Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century, and Death Drug. But they of course topped me, and had everything on my wants list. Except of course that is, for the two white whales of my video dreams - HIM, a gay porn retelling of the story of Jesus, and Bruce Lee Vs. Gay Power, a kung-fu Bruce Lee rip off about a karate fighter battling an evil gang of homosexuals. But I have no doubt, to be honest, that even though they didn’t have it - they could probably find it for me in no time. We’ll see what happens.
At this point I decided I had to give them a copy of my movie, “Jinx!” and they gladly accepted. They told me it would be available on Tuesday (yesterday) and then they invited me to a BBQ the next day, where the men crowded around the grill and talked exploitation movies instead of sports, and I felt at peace, like moving to Los Angeles wouldn’t be such a bad thing if I could meet people like this.
You can also call them if you are looking for something really rare and they can burn it for you for a fee and send it over. Which I’m planning to do with some stuff I want, despite the fact that I bought so many videos there that I had to buy an extra suitcase to take them all home in.
So if you’re in Los Angeles, and you want to see Jinx! and you don’t have IFC or a computer, head over to Eddie Brandt’s Saturday Matinee and see if it’s available. And tell Donovan and his mom (and the cute dog, who parks it in the Western section) Adam said hi.
For more info, including directions and such, visit them online at www.ebsmvideo.com.
Thank you so much to everyone who came out for the “Jinx!” screening yesterday at the LA Shorts Film Festival. There were plenty of people in the audience, and we screened with a series of really great shorts by some very talented filmmakers. The film was the last film in the group, and it seemed a fitting end for a series of comedy shorts with an absurdist element. Now I can finally relax and focus on my next short and our upcoming screening on the IFC Channel on September 21st (Friday) at 10:45PM!!! More on that to come in the next few days.
Thanks again!!!
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