FESTIVAL JOURNAL ENTRY #2:

"One of the biggest challenges a filmmaker will ever have is finding an audience for their film once it's done."

These words would haunt me long after I had retrieved "Official Rejection" from my DVD player. This quirky, real-life tale of a seemingly talented filmmaker on a near-futile crusade to get his low-budget indie flick screened, not just at America's top film festivals (Sundance, Slamdance, SXSW, Tribeca), but ANYWHERE, would be my wake up call as I readied "Voices in the Clouds" (voicesintheclouds.com) for worldwide exhibition.

Last summer, my producers John, Chris, and I were riding high after our successful world premiere at the Aruba International Film Festival. Afterwards, through the wonders of Kickstarter (kck.st/aJZqgf), we were able to raise some well-needed money for marketing expenses. Our Withoutabox account was active, our website launched, our Facebook page on fire. Several hundred fans in a matter of weeks. Twenty submissions packets on their way to the post office. We were ready for the festival circuit. But was the circuit ready for us?

Not so fast, partner... Guns back in your holsters.

Top tier U.S. and Canadian festivals... fail. Festivals where we figured we might be shoe-ins... nope. There were even some that approached us and "invited" us to submit. Piece of cake, right? Think again. After much research and a few repeat viewings of "Official Rejection" (officialrejectiondocumentary.com, for those of you interested in learning the "how-to-avoids" of indie film marketing)... turns out the majority of these festivals were just not the right fit for 'Voices.' The rejection emails had flooded our inbox. There was nothing we could do to change that... other than implement a new strategy. From this point forward, we would turn our focus to finding not the "best festival", but rather the "best festival for the film".

Several nerve-wracking months and hundreds of dollars later, we received our first acceptance letter from the San Diego Asian Film Festival (sdaff.org). At last Tony Coolidge's story was going to see the light of day in the North American continent.

The SDAFF was well worth the wait. Simply put, it was the perfect venue for 'Voices.' Great staff, a myriad of high quality Asian-themed films, free Asian goodies to eat and drink, and one killer "swag bag". We were especially thrilled to meet C.S. Lee at the gala event, as he plays Vince Masuka on "Dexter," my favorite tv show. On our day off from the festival we even took a trip to the world-famous San Diego Zoo. I can say with certainty that a good time was had by all. Our child-like excitement would not be contained. Hey, can you blame us? We've waited a long time for this. Perseverance and patience... check! ;-)