In the final few months, we won a couple of awards and had a few more screenings. The most recent was a Silver from the Australian Cinematographer's Society (ACS) for the catagory of Cinematography in a Short Film. This meant a lot to me, being from Australia's peak cinematography body, as cinematography is my passion. I also picked up the AFTRS Incentive award, for people who have not had the chance for a formal grounding in cinematography. It was a great night, and the ACS put on a great dinner and show.

In the most recent months I've been on a rather long (almost 6 month?) screen writing course and I've learnt a lot! I'm now looking at choosing my next short project. Whatever it is, it'll be distributed to festivals via withoutabox.com - what a great site!

Bye for now.

The Official Unfinished Business webpage (includes a list of future and past screenings).

Wow Wow WOW!  It's been an amazing last couple of weeks. I think someone needs to scrape me off the ceiling!

Firstly, the big news.  Our film Unfinished Business took out the Filmmaker's Peer Review Award at the Portable Film Festival.  We were up against over 60 films from all over the world, some of which are excellent.  Favourites of mine from the festival included Maestro (a great animation) and N For Nelly.  I also had a soft spot for Freddie's Story, as well as Airport.

I just can't believe that we won.  It's even more meaningful because it was voted by my peers (thanks everyone!).  I'm completely excited about the prizes too - $6000 worth of editing software from Autodesk, and gear hire from Panavision.  That's probably one of the most practical prizes I have ever seen!  Congratulations too, to Emmanuel Marshall for his win with "Behind the Facade".  He won the Viewer's Choice award.

In other news, we have been nominated for "Best Editing" at the Queensland Short Film Festival.  The Queensland Short Film Festival screening is coming up on the 5 November 2006 and the tickets are free, so I'd love to see the locals there if you can make it!

In all this is a very exciting time. It's great to see light at the end of the long production tunnel! And I am also please for our cast and crew.

We took out:
Best Fantasy Picture (Short) ... check out the winner's list here!

This is our second award, and is only a few days after receiving the Best International Film award at Berk's County Film Fest (see blog just below). To say the least, it's been a very good week!

I'm completely ecstatic about the Shockerfest win, as I feel the film is more focused on a horror style audience than a more traditional one. So to get a nod from that audience, it means a lot to me! I'm also very happy that our hard working cast and crew are getting some positive feedback.

Later gang!
Jason.

It's a credit to our cast and crew!  You guys should be proud!

Check out the list of films at the Berk's County Film Festival.

In other news, we were also accepted to:

• The H.P. Lovecraft Film Festival
• Hell's Half Mile Film & Music Festival
• Underexposed Film Festival 2007

Shockerfest runs from 7 to 8 October 2006. Unfinished Business will screen on the "Fantasy/Animation" screen at the Galaxy 12 Theatre, Riverbank, California, USA, on Saturday 7 Oct at 4:15pm. At the time of posting, Shockerfest were still setting up their website, however most of the 2006 schedule is already up. www.shockerfest.com

The Calgary Fringe Film Festival is a film fest within a greater theatre and performance festival. It will be screening at the midday "Drama Only" session, Saturday 12th August 2006. For more information including location and tickets, go to the session's page at the Calgary Fringe Film Festival site.

Unfinished Business will also find a horror audience with it's European premiere at the Horror Fest UK, which will run later in the year. No specific screening details are available at the moment, so keep an eye on the Horror Fest UK website. We're excited that the film will play to horror fans, as it does have a traditional horror subtext to it.

Unfinished Business has been accepted into two more festivals. The Victoria Festival of Motion Image will kick off the Enigma screening session with Unfinished Business at 10am, Saturday 22 July 2006, at Greystanes Manor, Bendigo (Victoria, Australia). Please see the VFMI’s screening page for more information.

The Rome International Film Festival (RIFF) in Georgia, USA will also screen the film in their 2006 festival. At the time of writing this blog, a screening time had not been set. However, it will eventually be displayed on the RIFF website. RIFF will run in historic downtown Rome from September 7 to September 10, 2006.

All the cast and crew are pleased and excited to see the film being played to audiences both in Australia (the film’s home) and abroad. A film is made to be seen, after all!

These screenings will be the film's local premiere in both of those countries.

As a new film maker, I am very pleased that we're starting to be seen around the world. It's very cool that we can hold an audience's attention (even if only for 8 minutes) and entertain them with our little production. All the blood, sweat and tears (and grey hairs) have been worth it. Not only do I owe the success to the wonderful cast and crew, but withoutabox has also played a small part, making it so easy to submit and manage entries to the festivals. Thanks guys!

Check out the film's blog on withoutabox.com for full details of two more festival screenings, just announced. They are the Victoria Festival of Motion Image (Aust) and the Rome International Film Festival (US).

I'm increadibly pleased that we are starting to reach audiences, not just for myself, but also for the cast and crew who deserve to get some extra enjoyment for all their hard work. This time last year, we had already cast the film and were starting to workshop the script! It seems longer than a year.

Cheers,
Jason.