Let Slip the Dogs of Film

I’ll start right off with the usual disclaimer — if you’re not keeping up via our Twitter feed, Facebook page, and the monthly Producer Podcast, then you’re likely not getting the full picture as far as updates go. But fear not — for the moment, at least, we’re still trying to maintain at least a nominal email communication channel.

Speaking of the Podcast, we’re covered a lot of ground lately. This past year we’ve talked casting, screenwriting, genre work, community media, web series, music videos, community workshops, festival programming, crowdfunding, the 48 Hour Film Project and much more. We’ve interviewed local film mavens Francis Abbey, Jon Gann, Kevin Good, Kiley Kraskouskas, Lonnie and Cindy Marie MartinDave Nuttycombe, Mark Ruppert, Kelley Slagle, Jackie Steven and Jonathan Zuck — and had community contributions from many more. (Speaking of which — if you’d like to be included among the filmmakers we tap for our “Community Question” segment, let us know and we’ll add you to the list!)

In screening news, April gives us two screenings for the Tarakata Films/Tohubohu Productions short “The Lake”: The Bare Bones Film and Music Festival in Muskogee, Oklahoma, showed the film this past Friday, and the Maryland International Film Festival in Hagerstown, Maryland, will be screening it this coming Saturday with the Shorts 6 program — 4:45 pm at the Academy Theater. Unfortunately, neither Tara nor I (Bill, that is) will be able to attend, but — judging by the inaugural festival (at which “Green House” screened), it promises to be a great experience.

While I’m at it, I might as well throw a little plug out for a project that several of us Tohubohuans have been working quite diligently at for the past few months: the recently-completed web series The Broken Continent. After a successful theatrical screening for cast, crew and backers, the series premiered in three parts at getbroken.tv — where you can watch and enjoy to your heart’s content! Moreover, the pilot screened at the Zenkaikon Anime Festival in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and will be showing a bit closer to home at Awesome Con D.C. on Sunday, April 21. A truly stellar example of what can happen when a bunch of really talented people pool their efforts!

Now, for the annual announcement everyone’s been waiting for…

Yes, Tohubohu will be participating in this year’s DC 48 Hour Film Project, taking place in just one month: May 3-5, 2013. But we’ll be switching things up a bit this time around. Bjorn Munson will be sitting in the director’s chair this year, and I will be focusing on writing and editing (plus my usual pre-event organization and promotion). Ken Coughlan will be returning to his producer duties from “At Last” (with the able assistance of Mary Kay Coughlan), and Tohubohu expatriate Dan Foster will be traveling in once more to take the photographic reins. We’re filling out the rest of the roster right now — so if you’re game for joining in, let us know ASAP! We also need locations — so if you’ve got any leads on some interesting (or frankly, even uninteresting) places to shoot, be sure to tell us that as well. Same goes for any interesting costumes, equipment, what have you — anything that can make our little effort stand out from the crowd. (Mother Nature’s already pitching in with cicadas — though in the interests of not playing favorites, I hear she plans to offer them to all participating teams.)

And, of course, if you just want to see the results of our labors, the finished film will be screening at the AFI Silver Theatre the following week — keep an eye out for specific details (the aforementioned Twitter feed and Facebook page being a couple of great options for doing so).

Well, that’s about it for this update. Hopefully, we’ll be seeing several of you very soon as we cry “Havoc!”