Tokyo Cowboys does Naperville

This from the Elektrik Zoo Blog:


Tokyo Cowboys will screen at the Naperville Independent Film Festival in Naperville, Illinois in September. In addition, Elektrik Zoo's debut documentary feature about the trials and tribulations of life on the post-modern urban frontier has been nominated for best documentary feature.

Read the rest on the Elektrik Zoo Blog.

Tokyo Cowboys Does Atlanta

Yay! This from the Elektrik Zoo Blog:

The Elektrik Zoo's debut feature documentary "Tokyo Cowboys" will screen at the 5th Annual Atlanta Underground Film Festival on Thursday, August 21st at 7 p.m. "We are quite excited to screen alongside 'Wiener Takes All' and '1000 Journals,' some of the best storytelling documentaries of this year," said director Daneeta Loretta Saft.

For more information about the film, please visit the Tokyo Cowboys website.

Anita Green

Tokyo Cowboys European Premiere

Yay! This from the Elektrik Zoo blog:

The Elektrik Zoo's debut feature documentary "Tokyo Cowboys" will have it's European premiere at the Ischia Film Festival in Italy. The festival celebrates the use of location as a character in the film.

Co-director Daneeta Loretta Saft said "We always had the notion that Tokyo was the 5th character in the film. The film is called Tokyo Cowboys after all. So, when Ischia contacted us about screening the film, we were delighted. It means that we have succeeded in that respect."

The festival will take place from the 22nd to the 29th of June. The filmmakers are currently seeking sponsorship to attend. For more information, contact info "at" tokyocowboys "dot" com.

Tokyo Cowboys at STIFF

Yay! This from the Elektrik Zoo Website.

Feature documentary "Tokyo Cowboys" directed and produced by The Elektrik Zoo's Patrick Jackson and Daneeta Loretta Saft will screen at the Seattle True Independent Film Festival in June.

"Screening at STIFF is a special treat for us," said Daneeta Saft. "We hope to pack out the cinema and get this puppy sold."

Saft and Jackson are in the process of selling the film and setting up their next project, "Down in the Parish" (working title).

Little Rock Film Festival

Just got confirmation that we are in competition at the Little Rock Film Festival, which takes place in May. We've got two really good slots: Saturday May 17th at 4:30 p.m. and Sunday May 18th at 1:00 p.m. You can see our festival page here. I should remind all you NOLA buddies that Little Rock is just a day's drive from New Orleans. How about it? Shall we have ourselves a convoy?

The Tokyo Cowboys Premiere

This morning of the premiere, I got up too early and started drinking way too much coffee, which lead to a full-fledged panic attack. Cassie's flatmate Brendan talked me back from the ledge. The film screened at 2:40 p.m. so spent the day pacing and practicing my speech.

This is me doing last minute changes on my speech:

The rental car place had a drop off service, so it was like getting chauffeured to the premiere. The screening was held at the Imaginasian Center in downtown L.A., which is very nice. I hung out in the lobby with the J-crew eating their onigiri and drinking their tea until Kevin and Dave arrived. I was afraid they were going to be the only ones to show up, but pretty soon people started to arrive, and we went into the cinema.

This is Kevin and Dave and Me after the screening:

The cinema was really nice. Good comfy seats with lots of leg room, nice speakers and a nice sized screen. There were about 20 people there, which I thought was pretty good for a Monday afternoon at 2:40 p.m.

I got up and gave my speech, which went really well mostly because I couldn't see a damn thing with the spot light in my eyes. On the way back to my seat, I was approached by another festival programmer, and we swapped cards.

I stayed for the whole film. Thank god we did the sound mix (which wasn't in time for this screening) because the sound is ropey. Something we hadn't noticed on the home speakers or even on the LFS speakers. But you really notice it on a good set of speakers like at the Imaginasian Center.

People laughed right the way through. Some people came up afterwards and said they really enjoyed it and that they really could relate to the characters...that they felt like they were sharing a part of their lives through the film. I was sad that Patrick wasn't there for the first public screening.

Kevin and Dave drove me back to Cassie's place, and I crashed a bit. Too much excitement for one day.

Gayla

Last night I went to the Japan Film Festival Gayla at the Japan American Museum in downtown L.A. Not having Patrick with me, Cassie went as my date. We got all dolled up, and I obsessed about my speech, which, according to Takahashi-san was supposed to go on for 5 minutes.

You never know what to expect at J-events. There was pizza and sushi and oolong-cha. At first we thought there was no beer, but we found that too, and I started drinking right away.

The festivities started with a J-girl duo:


But it was weird. No one was listening. They just kept on eating and chatting. Then the programmer got up, and the same thing. Then I got up to do my speech and realized that I shouldn't have stressed so much about it because no one was listening. No one cared. L.A. is a weird town. The filmmaker does not rule.

After, went for sushi in Little Tokyo. I don't think we picked a good place, though. What we thought were J-people sitting at the sushi bar turned out not to be. Cassie says there's better sushi in Silverlake. Still, it was fun to hang out with Cassie and get dressed up.

California Dreamin': The Japan Film Festival

Oh my gosh, I am seriously about to pee myself. Thanks to the support of some very fine people at the London Film School, I have just booked the tickets to L.A. to attend the Tokyo Cowboys world premiere at the Japan Film Festival. You can't imagine the amount of financial footwork that was involved, but, whatever...

Do I call this the world premiere? The film isn't technically finished yet. What we're screening at the JFF doesn't have the final sound mix or the grade.

A moment of silence for Patrick who is not going. He has graciously stepped aside to send me to represent the film.

I will be staying with good friend and fellow LFS alumni Cassie Destino whom I met at the film school. Looking forward to meeting her dog. Looking forward to being in the California sunshine, and looking forward to seeing some very old friends that I have not seen in ages.

Tokyo Cowboys in the Dubbing Theatre

I thought yesterday was going to be more of the same shit...filling in forms, sending out stuff to festivals, trying to sort out the last clearances hell. Sometimes I feel like Tokyo Cowboys' bitch. But, at 10:30 a.m., I got a call from Alexeij, our illustrious sound mixer. He'd done the first pass on the film, and could we come in at noon to have a listen. Yes, yes, yes.

Sitting in the dubbing theatre, I began to feel like a real filmmaker again. These past few months I started to believe that filmmaking was just an expensive hobby for us. It was really getting me down. But, then, there was the Japan Film Festival, and that got me on the way to believing in us again. But, being in the dubbing theatre, and listening to the film, and giving direction to Alexeij...that brought it home for me.

Do you have to make your entire living as a filmmaker to be one? Patrick is in this camp...you are a filmmaker when you earn a living as a filmmaker. I'm more of the namby-pamby "you are a filmmaker when you feel like you are...when you believe you are."

Comments?

Oh, P.S. Here are my notes for the sound:

Sales Agents, Distributors and Exhibitors...oh my!

Did the second part of the Sales, Marketing and Distribution course with Mia Bays. Good stuff all around. She brought in the Managing Diretor and Sales Agent Andrew Orr from Independent Film Company, distributor Soda Pictures' Ed Fletcher and Jason Woods from Picturehouse - one of the UK's leading cinema bookers.

I was quick with the meishi and the 30 second pitch. Ed Fletcher gave me the best advice about the pitch, which was that when you are pitching to distributors, they are most interested to know the selling points of your film to specific territories.

This is what I've come up with so far: I think that there is definitely an audience in Japan amongst the nearly one million foreigners living in Tokyo alone and amongst the Japanese themselves as we've got two big stars who appear regularly on Japanese TV and in videos (Patrick Harlan's career has skyrocketed since filming). And, of course, there is America. I think the fascination with all things Japan is there and there is a sort of "Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court" appeal.

As for the UK, I was thinking of the "look what those crazy Americans are doing over in Japan" appeal might be there. That having been said, the film does not focus on the sensational aspects of Japan as so many films about the area do. It's about normal guys finding themselves in extraordinary circumstances. Our main character, Jewish boy from New York Ken, for example, finds himself performing Christian weddings in order to make a buck while he tries to kick start his career on Japanese TV.

There was a bit of a nuisance with the website going down and email crashing. This right after the workshop, so, of course, I was obsessing about how one of the workshop people might try to hit the site, and how it would be down, and how they would think I was a total looser, but I got over that.

Emailed all of the festivals we submitted to and informed them of the changes.

I'm boring myself to tears now.

Photo is a self portrait of Kimiko Yoshida.

Hello Kitty ii ka na?

Spent the day at the Mia Bays Sales, Marketing & Distribution Workshop put on by my mate Saskia at the London Film School (the old alma mater). Highlights were:

Meeting and swapping cards with the Head of Programming for the London Film Festival, Michael Hayden. Did the 30 second pitch: "Tokyo Cowboys is permanent lost in translation...for real: an intimate look into the lives of 5 western men living long term in the wild, wild East."

Learning that you can ask smaller festivals for something called a "screening fee," which is essentially a box office percentage. According to Mia, not all festivals have a screening fee policy, but a lot of the smaller ones do.

And...learning that "The Lives of Others" was rejected by all major festivals, yet it was in the top ten grossing films of 9 of the top 10 territories. (This is to make me feel better in the event of a worst case scenario.)

Another session tomorrow with a Sales Agent, top Booker in the U.K., and a distributor. Must print out some more TC meishi.

Photo thanks to Tokyo Mango.

Tokyo Cowboys New Year Update (in case you didn't get the email)

Dear All,

Patrick and I would like to wish all of you a happy and prosperous New Year. It's been a while since we sent out an update, and there's a good reason. Patrick and I have been busy FINISHING the film. Well...almost.

What's the Score

Our composer, Simon Rogers, has been working hard to give us an incredibly beautiful score. It's been a pleasure and a great journey working with Simon who brings years of experience and loads of talent to the project. Patrick and I have both learned so much from him. Simon studied at the prestigious Royal College of Music and has been a success as both a Musician and Producer. You can see his CV and visit his profile on Wikipedia.

Clearances

What a palaver. This is where filmmaking gets really boring. We've got to clear every song sung in karaoke, every musical performance and every one of the TV shows we filmed. It adds up to about 30 individual clearances. We've been lucky, though. Three of the big songs will only be about £300 each to clear for festivals. The folks at Universal and Carlin Music have been very helpful, and we are making progress.

Other Bits

The remaining work on Tokyo Cowboys includes finishing the credits, grading and the sound mix. A mate is letting us use his online suite for the grade, so we have been very fortunate. The credits are going to be as long as the film, and the sound mix will be hairy. We've been listening on the mini speakers on our editing suite, but, when Patrick screened the film on Graham's home cinema system, he could hear every little finger tap on the camera. Loads to do here, but we've got some good leads on affordable sound mixers.

Festivals

So far, we've been sending off the Work-in-Progress to festivals. It is crucial to the success of the film to get a good run as festivals are where we can flog the film in various territories. This month is when we start to hear back, so please send us good vibrations. Also, a successful festival run often times depends on who you know. So, if any of you good folks out there have any connections to festivals for which Tokyo Cowboys qualifies, please do get in touch (Tokyo Cowboys is classified as a feature-length independent Documentary).

New Technologies

I have been following various blogs about emerging technologies in online film distribution. Online, we can find and exploit (in the best possible sense) audiences that may not be able to access Tokyo Cowboys elsewhere. I know there are some techies and marketing geniuses out there, and I would like to open a dialog about how we can get Tokyo Cowboys to the online market. Please email me if you'd like to participate.

That's it from TC headquarters. Patrick and I would like to thank all of you for your continuing support. We are almost there!

Hugs,

Daneeta