1. Matt, tell me about this film festival
you're working to put together?
Well, it is called "FAMFest," which stands for
Film and Movie Festival. The film festival will
be held on May 2nd, 2009, in the small town of
Johnstown, NY at the Fulton Montgomery Community
College. We are accepting film submissions from
all over the states! We want to keep the film
lengths under an hour, however, because we want
to show as many films as possible. And the
deadline for submissions will be April 15th.
When we get the submissions, the Film Club will
watch them, and decide what will make the
festival. I am sure most films will, but again,
depends on what we get. Now the films that make
it will be judged by another panel of judges,
with those submissions included to be considered
for cash prizes. We will have categories for
Best Film, and have a top prize of $250, and
Best Special Effects, Best music, and best
cinematography. Those latter 3 will have prizes
of $50. We are also working on some other
prizes, like gift baskets, DVD's, maybe some
gift certificates. We will probably not only
have prizes for the winners of these categories,
but those who attend the festival may also
recieve prizes. There may be door prizes, and
such. For more info on the festival, and the
submission form you can visit:
www.myspace.com/fmfilmfestival
2. What made you decide to have a film
festival?
Well, I recently joined a film club, and we all
decided to do a festival. We have a dedicated
team and have been working very hard on the
festival. We have Katelyn Jones in the club, who
is the president of the film club, Lou Fagan who
is our club advisor, and some other members. We
are all working really hard for this. Also, we
all like weird independent films, and where
better to see weird indie films than a film
festival right?
3. I hear that you've made some movies
yourself. Tell us about them.
Well, my friends and I have made quite a few
films, while some may be amateurish, we are
evolving as filmmakers and each new film we have
done has been better than the last. We started
making movies with toys when we were younger. We
made a film that was like a really crappy
version of Robot Chicken, and that film was
Attack of the Killer Warthog, my friend and I
made it about 10 or more years ago. More
recently we have moved on to some short
horror/gore movies, like Untitled Kung Fu
Masterpiece, or our recent longer film TTT:
Teenagers Torturing Toys. Nooow, I get it—thank
you!!
4. What inspired you to make your movie
"Teenagers Torturing Toys"?
Well, after my friend, Nick, and his girlfriend
broke up, he said, hey why don't we burn this
toy she gave me. So we did, and we filmed it,
and that became the film you know now as TTT:
Teenagers Torturing Toys. We just kept doing it,
we then filmed the scene where Jimmy Rides a
Scooter, we thought it was really funny, then
things just got more extreme. Before we knew it,
we had enough footage to make a movie, and just
filmed an ending, a few more scenes and blam.
For some reason a lot of people think it looks
funny, haha. Another inspiration was basically
the Jackass movies, I mean our movie is
basically the same thing with toys.
5. Do you plan to continue making films?
I hope so, I recently applied to Douglas
Education Center and hope to go there next fall.
This has a good film program called Tom Savini's
School of Digital Filmmaking. I would love to
make filmmaking my career, and make more quality
films. I have written some scripts I would love
to turn into reality. I would like to apply for
an internship at Troma Inc this summer, as well,
as I am a big fan of Troma and they have been my
main inspiration over the years.
6. Are you
planning on entering one of your own films in
the upcoming festival?
I hope so, although I will not be considered for
the cash prizes because of my involvement in the
festival. But that is okay with me, I'd be happy
to have a big audience see my work, you know? We
were going to do a film called "Christmas Wrath"
about a guy who is killing members of his family
because he didn't get a toy he wanted for
Christmas, I even wrote a script but I don't
know if I will have time to finish it. I might
just do a 5-10 minute short rather than a 20
minute short. Not sure, I might wait on that
one.
7. Any words of advice for aspiring
filmmakers like yourself?
Haha, well just have fun, It is fun to just make
movies with your friends, and even that can get
you somewhere. I mean, I thought I was just
making a movie about torturing toys for just me
and my friends to watch, but with the internet
what it is, we got more people interested and
even got a review online! I never would of
thought that would happen, to be honest. And now
we are getting a DVD ready to sell off our site,
www.planetfilms.org and might even
make some money! I say YouTube is a good tool to
promote your work, and even if you make a site
and sell your movie, someone might buy it. The
FAMFest is also a great way to share your work
too, if it is chosen it will be shown to a wide
audience. It is worth it to try, you know?
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