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Film Exercises

Making of Mermaid

In collaboration with Watergun Outlaw Productions, Bee Nest has another short film exercise in the can. Called Mermaid, this 4-minute “shortie” was an experiment into the absurd…not too far removed from the dark and absurd tones in our prior, award-winning short film, Apples, which you can watch here for free.

In Mermaid, the tone is devoid of being “dark”, yet still absurd, funny and with a good dab of social commentary. Producer Skip Shea once told us  at the Massachusetts Independent Film Festival that our films remind him of the Czech New Wave film movement. And judging by the tone of our future scripts in development, Skip may have very well called it!

Here’s a screen shot of a scene in Mermaid with Lance R. Marshall and Ryan Jonze.

The-Mermaid_Lance-R-Marshall-Ryan-Jonze

Categories
Film Exercises

Film Exercise: Snow Angel

When you get stuck in a cabin in upstate New York during an intense blizzard, what else better to do than make some art, right? And that’s exactly what Bee Nest Films did with our collaborators and cohorts at Watergun Outlaw Films. Who cares if there was only four of us, with minimum equipment, no script and 24 hours to shoot… When you have a passion for storytelling, not to mention pushing the envelope, then you take any opportunity to do so.

The synopsis is this: A man who is haunted by the suicide of his boyfriend is visited by a mysterious woman during the middle of a blizzard. Here’s the epic moment of this mysterious woman’s arrival, played by Shannon Beeby, who fearlessly braved the blizzard to get the shot:

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RSVP

RSVP: A Different Kind of ‘Coming Out’ Story

When writing RSVP I was struck by the realization that a single patriarch or matriarch of a family can make a decision or enforce a belief that can cause immense pain for everyone else in the family. Our short film RSVP deals with the long term ramifications of a father disowning his gay son. This one decision sends lasting shock waves far beyond the character of STEPHEN. Even though he was the one cruelly cast off, he is certainly not the only one being made to suffer.

I was inspired by a real life situation that my best friend, Dean, shared with me. The man he was seeing at the time had been disowned by his father for being gay. Visions of the multifaceted pain that would come from being cut off from your family, for decades, perhaps a lifetime, began to swirl in my mind. It is hard to fathom the scars on a person’s psyche incurred by being disowned by the very people entrusted with unconditionally loving you. I began to also be affected by what the suffering of the family unit itself would be, particularly the siblings who had no control over such a decision and were then forced to live without the presence of their loved on in their life. Layers of grief and loss incited by one act of insufficient love.

This is when the family unit began to represent something larger to me. A microcosm of a congregation, a community, a religion, a society.

How many congregations have become less vibrant, less of a true representation of the fellowship Jesus chose to commune with on a daily basis, because certain people were being made to feel unwanted and unloved? How many towns lack diversity and the spectrum of personalities present in the world because those unique voices didn’t feel comfortable living and thriving there? How many religions are losing the faithful in droves because they are being told that being the way God created them is a damnable sin? How many more faithful drift away from the church because they do not feel the leadership’s interpretation of the word reflects what they understand to be God’s grace and Jesus’ unconditional love? And how has each of these individual losses coalesced to form a chain reaction that is present in our societies’ current list of moral shortcomings? These questions gnaw at my mind.

There have been huge strides made in the pursuit of equality and justice thanks to the tireless efforts of LGBTQ activists and allies, like John Pavlovitz and Believe out Loud. But those strides have been almost completely contained to the secular sector.

With the film RSVP, I wanted to plant a seed of hope for a new generation of religious leaders to truly embrace the accepting, loving, and compassionate values that Jesus himself modeled. And I believe that for such a transformation to take place, individual members of the faith community will need to bravely stand up and support the inclusion and acceptance of LGBTQ people into their congregations. My hope is that these faithful people are called to speak out in support of the sanctity of marriage being rooted in the spiritual quality of the union of two souls, and not on the sex organs of the parties involved.

Categories
Film Festivals

Post Production and the Stamped Film Festival

STAMPED_01Anyone who has made a film before knows just how challenging and important the post-production process can be. While a looming festival submission deadline can serve as a great motivator in getting your film finished by a specific date, we decided from the very beginning that we would not take any post-production shortcuts. Luckily for us, we had a great team on board, and no major time constraints to get the film finished for the major festival deadlines.

We want as many people to see RSVP as possible – and now that it’s finished – this means getting it out to the film festivals. And not just the most well-known festivals. Our strategy from Day One has been to get RSVP in front of crowds who will be moved and challenged by the message this film imparts. So, in addition to the major film festivals, we are seeking out festivals in communities that we believe can stand to benefit from the themes RSVP presents. In addition to LGBT communities – and probably even moreso – this includes communities that have been silenced by powerful religious movements. As the film’s tagline says, this is “A Different Kind of Coming Out Story”.

RSVP’s writer/director, Shannon Beeby, is from the South (Pensacola, FL), which is where a lot of the films inspiration is drawn from. In fact, we intended to shoot RSVP on the beaches of Pensacola. But alas, being that our filmmaking community is based in New York City, we opted for the beaches of East Hampton.

All of this backstory is necessary, because when Mrs. Beeby happened upon a relatively new LGBT-themed film festival based in her hometown of Pensacola – the STAMPED film festival – she couldn’t imagine a better place to have the film premiere. And despite RSVP still in its unfinished post-production stage and having already missed the late deadline for the festival, we submitted it anyway, along with a note that promised all unfinished post (mainly color and FX) would be completed in time for the festival if they chose to let it in. And despite having already programmed opening night of the festival, the STAMPED board members held a vote and added a spot for RSVP on opening night.

Two of STAMPED’s board members, David Newton and Public Radio Content Producer, Lindsay Rae Myers (who interviewed Mrs. Beeby…a sound clip of which can be heard here) were instrumental in making STAMPED a huge success and a memorable experience that Bee Nest Films will always cherish.

Shannon Beeby and Dean Fournier
Shannon Beeby and Dean Fournier
STAMPED talkback with David Newton and Shannon Beeby
STAMPED talkback with David Newton and Shannon Beeby

About STAMPED Film Festival

STAMPED: Pensacola LGBT Film Fest — was inspired by efforts of the LGBT community in the mid-1990s to highlight the impact of LGBT tourism. After certain local officials and business owners spoke out against gay and lesbian visitors, including annual Memorial Day weekend activities, which draw tens of thousands of people to the area, many LGBT residents and visitors began to stamp the cash they spent with the words “GAY MONEY” and/or a pink triangle. That year, Christopher Street South, a local LGBT publication, estimated that gay and lesbian tourists spent $25 million annually in the area.

The mission of the Pensacola LGBT Film Festival is to host an inclusive, entertaining event that not only serves to bring our local LGBT community together for four nights of fun, but also educates others in a way to spread acceptance and love throughout the Gulf Coast.