Whimsical Wednesday: Making Movies

Dan’s away at the moment, running last-minute errands for our film festival, which (yikes!) kicks off tomorrow with an opening night party at the Kerry Irish Pub in the French Quarter. So, I’m using this time to write a quick post for “Whimsical Wednesday” – ‘cause heaven forbid I actually give up blogging for a week (wink). I have so much left to do in preparation for this weekend’s festival that I really have no business adding this blog to the list – which is exactly what Dan would say if he were here... so thank goodness he isn’t (sorry, honey). I mean, come on, it’s bad enough that I haven’t yet visited anyone else’s blog today (my sincere apologies for that, folks) – the least I can do is keep up with my own little blog.

Anyway, enough blathering. In celebration of the third annual Big Easy International Film Festival, I thought I’d set the record straight. You see, many of the filmmakers and audience members that have participated in our film fests over the years are surprised to learn that, as co-directors, Dan and I are more than just administrative types behind the scenes. Actually, we’re both cinema lovers from way back – having studied film in our respective colleges, sold a horror screenplay together, and dabbled in filmmaking ourselves – such as the time we co-wrote and co-produced an irreverent dark comedy (that shall remain nameless for the moment), which I then starred in (out of desperation) and he directed. The experience was, on the whole, educational – but the outcome was rather dreadful, not to mention the fact that we had a falling-out with a good friend during the process (a fact that still doesn’t sit well with me, even after seven years).

A few years after that, we co-produced a documentary about a treasure-hunting friend on South Padre Island. Although that project also didn’t go as planned, I’m still proud of us for seeing it through – and if you’re listening, honey, I’m still hopeful that we’ll soon produce something we can be proud of. After all, we have at least four co-written screenplays just itching to be made. And that lottery ticket will come in someday, right? In the meantime, we’ll continue to help other filmmakers share their stories with the world. Just know that we’re both more than festival directors. Making movies together is in fact our dream, too.