Throwaway - Short Horror Film from Parallactic Pictures on Vimeo.
If it ain't broke, don't fix it. Sure, we all know that popular phrase. But in the world of independent film, there should be a new one: It might not be broke, but it sure as hell can be shorter. Anyone attempting to get their films into festivals these days probably can spout off a whole variety of similar phrases with that central creed.
When Brian and I made Throwaway over two years ago , we thought we had a clear winner on our hands. Everyone we showed the film to really responded well to it. We even received about 50 positive comments for the movie on this very site. But out of the near twenty film festivals we submitted the movie to, only a small handful accepted it. We'll never know the true reason why this was. Hell, maybe I'm wrong and the film is a piece of shit. But rather than face a world of such cold truths (hold me, please!), we figured the 22 min runtime might have had something to do with it.
Film festivals these days simply have a hard time programming Shorts Blocks when one of the shorts is nearing a half and hour. I've been told if they look at the runtime of a DVD submission and it has a runtime over 14 mins, it goes directly into a special stack of films.... the stack of films that don't even get watched. So for a while now, Brian and I have flirted with the idea of cutting Throwaway down to the 14 min mark.
At first we thought the excercise would be a painful one, and in the end we'd have an "alternate" version of the film that we'd only use to submit to festivals -- but would hold onto the 22 min version to show to everyone else. But after hiring Craig Dewey, an editor I met through working with Margaret Laney on her upcoming short film Tapeworm, we quickly realized that this new 14 min version of the film was far superior to the old one. And that, rather than serving as an alternate version, it should probably just replace the old and become the new default version of the film.
So to shorten such a terrible sentence: This is the definitive version of Throwaway you all should have seen 2 years ago. It's the version we should have been submitting to film festivals. Our editor Michael Halper will be the first to say I told ya so! And he'd be right. He called this long ago, and God bless him for his foresight. But sometimes, a film is your baby, and who wants to tell your baby he's too fat to join the Cross Country team?
So without further ado, click the damn Vimeo 'play' button up top already and enjoy the new--- ahem... I mean... enjoy Throwaway.
'Throwaway' has made it into the 2009 Dragon*Con film festival. The fest runs in Atlanta, GA from Sep 4 - 7th, 2009. They haven't announced any screening dates or nominations. So stay tuned for more. 
