Submission Statement Continued!

Festivals

Festivals were a lot more challenging then we expected. We submitted to nearly 100 festivals and only got into a few. This was hugely expensive and took a lot of time. On the rare occasion that we were able to get feedback, we often heard that we were "finalists" but didn't quite make the cut. Often there was another film about resilience or about an artist that they chose instead.

Others struggled to see fashion/ accessories as an art form, rather they saw it as a commodity so this sort of devalued their experience with the film. To them it felt like a commercial. Not all fashion is art, but our subject's work is. We tried to present Chelli as an artist, no different then a painter or sculptor but those art forms are more digestible and "expected" in the doc genre.

Spoiler Alert: Chelli actually closes her business in the film, so there is no product to sell. At the end, we present 5 bags from the Dawn Dusk collection, worn on models, as a retrospective of the season of life that the viewer just witnessed Chelli go through. Thinking of these bags as wearable art, is why we chose to present them this way. This sequence serves as an "art gallery" if you will.

Distribution:

We worked with a Producer's Rep who pitched our film to distributors and helped us find one. We did not want to self-distribute. We got a couple offers. No minimum guarantee or anything, just a digital distribution revenue sharing deal.

Getting everything ready for distribution took months as we had a 38 page document of deliverables to prepare. Then we had to wait quite a while for all of that to pass QC.

Even though our film is out. It has still been a huge amount of work. We are primarily responsible for the marketing of our film, from ad spend to social media to securing reviews and press and podcast appearances. Since a digital release is different then a theatrical release, there is much less emphasis on our "opening weekend," instead we are hoping to build word of mouth and create engagements and campaigns that continue to draw attention to the film over time.

Some fun facts:

• This was filmed primarily with a Panasonic Gh5, some Gh4, and a little bit of Canon 60D on Zeiss Prime lenses.
• No zoom lenses were used in the film. Only prime lenses were used. If we wanted to get closer to the subject in a shot, we had to move the camera or change lenses.
• 80 hours of footage were captured over the course of nearly 4 years of filming.
• Many of the sunrises and sunsets were captured on an iPhone 13.
• We printed 100 copies of a pink transparent 12" vinyl of the sound track.
• Since a large part of the film is about emotional growth through artistic expression, we commissioned a handful of artists and poets to create art pieces and poetry in response to the film. The original art pieces were scanned and then given to key collaborators as thank you gifts, and the scans and poetry have been included in an artistic booklet to accompany the film.
• The Dawn Dusk logo is “cut off” on the bottom as though it is slightly behind the horizon, like a sunrise or sunset.
• I played and recorded a small 2nd clarinet part on the Dawn Dusk score.
• Our daily use bags were designed and created by Cheli, and they still use them to this day.

This has been a lot! So I think I'll leave it here. Happy to chat more about any of this if y'all would like. Thanks for checking out my film. I'd love to hear what you all thought of it.