Wednesday, February 17, 2010
By Barbara Vancheri, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
Five teams of semifinalists are one step -- and a dynamic pitch -- away from seeing their movie projects brought to life in Pittsburgh.
Steeltown Entertainment Project has been moving through the stages of its first Film Factory competition with $25,000 at stake for one to three winners. It entered another phase this week as the initial field of 108, already narrowed to 10, was winnowed to five:
• "Anywhere But Here" by Ross Thomas.
• "Lightweight" by Randy Kovitz and Deborah Hosking.
• "Making Arrangements" by Alyssa Herron.
• "Roll the Dice" by Lawrence Phillis, Dave Fedor, John Feightner and Joe Wichryk II.
• "The Losing End" by Ryan Krumm.
The semifinalists will sell their filmmaking ideas to a panel of professionals Saturday at a workshop called "The Director's Pitch: Transforming Screenplays Into Productions."
It will be held at the University of Pittsburgh's Alumni Hall Auditorium, 4227 Fifth Ave., on the seventh floor. A continental breakfast will be served at 9:30 a.m. and the event will run until 2 p.m.
Tickets are $10 for adults and $5 for students. The event is open to the public but space is limited and participants are encouraged to buy tickets in advance through www.steeltownfilmfactory.org.
Carl Kurlander, a co-founder of Steeltown Entertainment and show-business veteran, will moderate a panel with former Pittsburgher Jamie Widdoes, actor turned TV director-producer; Heide Waldbaum, virtual production manager of "Avatar"; and Lisa Smith, co-executive producer of "The People Speak" and production consultant to "Project Greenlight 2."
The semifinalists are being told to approach Saturday's session as if it were an actual appointment at a studio and present marketing tag lines, script summations, production considerations, commercial viability, relevance to Western Pennsylvania and overall project visions.
At the end of the session, the field of five will be narrowed to three.
Those projects will move to "Now What? Ready, Set, Produce," sponsored by Point Park University on March 27. On that day, judges will choose one, two or three finalists to share in the $25,000 prize for producing their short films this summer. The winner or winners will be shown at the Three Rivers Film Festival in November.
On Saturday, Steeltown also will host a book sale, sponsored by Joseph-Beth Booksellers, with selections about screenwriting, pitching, breaking into the business and related topics.
Steeltown's Film Factory is a yearlong competition, supported by public workshops, panel discussions and staged readings, designed to assist aspiring filmmakers with Pittsburgh-themed projects.
Contact movie editor Barbara Vancheri at bvancheri@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1632. Read her Mad About the Movies blog at post-gazette.com/movies.
First published on February 17, 2010 at 12:00 am
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10048/1036286-60.stm#ixzz0fukvuZzi
