Slots on the big screen

Update 09/02/2013: Join the band and the video’s directors after the screening to celebrate at Gallagher’s Irish Pub!

Last month we were excited to learn that our music video for “The Devil’s Chain Gang” was accepted into the Sacramento Film and Music Festival. We’re very proud of the video and thankful to directors Jason Knight and Sean Kime for how it turned out, so this is a real honor for us.

What is the Sacramento Film and Music Fest? A five-day celebration of film, music, and even fashion at the good old Crest Theatre downtown from September 11th to 15th. There will be feature films, short films, music videos, panel discussions,  awards, and even a fashion design competition. And popcorn and Junior Mints. They’d better have Junior Mints, ’cause I don’t set foot in a theater without those.

This festival seems to focus on short films more than features: almost all the Saturday schedule and a good portion of Sunday is shorts, broken into categories to help you decide what you want to see. Student shorts, international shorts, Sacramento shorts, a Late Night Shorts category that looks to have some pretty scary stuff, and more. I look forward to the Sacramento Shorts category to see what our local filmmakers are doing. Jason Knight, co-director of our music video, shot some of “Happiness,” a film that’ll be shown in that category. And it turns out that I’m sort of connected to that film too, having played in the pit for a musical featuring Andrea St. Clair, who also acted in “Happiness.”

One of the coolest parts of this festival to me is the 10×10 Filmmaker Challenge. Local filmmakers get ten days to make a finished film of up to ten minutes, with an assigned theme and other included elements. Jason has participated in this as well, last year making a 10×10 film with his brother that won an acting award at the festival. This year is the tenth year of the 10×10 Filmmaker Challenge, so the assignment focuses on that number. The participants must make a film whose subject matter incorporates the number 10 in some way, and the title must include a word beginning with the letters “ten.” They’re also each assigned a specific film director for inspiration, and their film must reference that director’s work in some way. Here’s a YouTube playlist with all of the 10×10 entries from the 2010 festival. I don’t know what the assignment was that year, but there’s some entertaining stuff here.

Our  music video for “The Devil’s Chain Gang” will be shown as part of the Sac Music Seen category, a group of music videos for songs by local artists. The festival usually has an Audience Choice award, so if you come to see our video on the big screen be sure to cheer, fill out a ballot, or whatever method they’re using to vote for us! And if there’s anything you’ve been wondering about how the video was made, you can get an answer from co-directors Jason Knight and Sean Kime during the Q&A session with directors at the end of the Sac Music Seen screening.

Sac Music Seen will be shown at 6pm Saturday, September 14th. You can get tickets here and find out when other categories and events are happening on the festival schedule page. Hope to see you at the Crest!

–Paul