Because it’s the world of Independent Filmmaking, when you practically have to be a Marketing Whore from the time the project is the seed of an idea in your head!

So, in case you haven’t heard:

The Production Fundraising is on!

Would Love your Support.

So Are We!

Fundraiser just went up, so please check it out!

http://www.indiegogo.com/Where-Theres-Smoke

needing to raise $5,000. in three weeks – but I think we can.

As luck would have it she comes upon a stranger, Becky, who seems to have been crying and asks her for a cigarette as they pass.  After a desperate search one match is found and the girls spend the next few hours talking as they smoke through the entire pack.

When it’s time to head home Jenny realizes she doesn’t know the way and so Becky offers her a ride.  Stopping by Becky’s place causes a new reality to sink in for Jenny as she sees the grimness and traps of this woman’s life.  As Jenny makes her way back home she questions the way she lives, and begins looking at the choices that are still open for her to take.

Where There’s Smoke is a 12-minute, slice of life drama by emerging filmmaker, Tawnya Foskett.  It is adapted from Jenifer Hixson’s (producer at The Moth) short story told at The Moth main stage in NYC and later re-played on This American Life.  The screenplay is co-written by Tawnya Foskett and Gordon Farrell, who teaches screenwriting at New York University.  It will be shot late September in the surrounding New York area and hit the festival circuit in early 2011.

Smoke, because that is the major action that happens (smoking).  The need a smoke, they smoke, it is the good (for the most part of the film) escapism the two girls enjoy.

And Ash, because it is about what needs to die, what needs to be let go of.

And also, there is currently not another film on IMDB called this – so don’t you take it!

My Comment: (August 24th, 2010)

Well, I’m back where I started!  I no longer like “Smoke and Ash“, just doesn’t roll off the tongue very well.  So, as so many related are already taken, the working title will be: “Where There’s Smoke”.  It won’t be the final as 6 films are already called this on IMDB – but I will leave the title hunt as a work in progress, to be solved by the end of editing!  (so basically still taking suggestions)

-Tawnya

with Anu Garg

auteur

(O-tuhr)

noun: A filmmaker, such as a director, who has a distinct personal style and is involved in all aspects of movie-making, giving a film the unique imprint of the filmmaker.

From French auteur (originator or author), from Latin auctor (originator), from augere (to originate, to increase). Some other words derived from the same root are auction, author, and inaugurate, and augment.

© 2010 Wordsmith.org

(click on the title below to go to article)

How To Fake Being an Indie Auteur

photo by Darlene Pruess

Why have a blog?  And what is this blog about?

Why have a blog is a question I’ve asked myself a lot, since there are certainly a gazillion of them.  The answer is marketing.  To build the voice of the company, it’s presence.  As a way to talk about the projects in development, in production, in the marketing and promotion phase.  To hopefully connect the work and the artists to the audience (and lets face it to other artists).

When you work in the arts you have to really come to believe that there is always room for another voice.  And I do believe that, as long as it’s a voice that is unique and true to itself.

There’s only really one rule I’ve set for this blog, and that is that it be on topic.  Meaning it is about art and artists.  Easily said, but I can have to remind myself as a citizen in this increasingly polarized and polluted and corrupted world that I am not writing a political or environmental blog.  Because there are much better people doing that, and a few real news sources that cover it.

So, hope you will stay tuned.  There’s a short film in the works – to be shot in September – and you will increasingly be hearing about this.  Incidentally, I’m debating the title.

photo by Darlene Pruess

Title Debate

Currently titled “Cigarette Burns” but lately the title of “Smokescreen” has been appealing to me.  “Where There’s Smoke” is possible too, but feels too literary – and there is lots on IMDB already called that.  Let me know your vote.

The story is about two women who meet on the street and form an instant close bond, with cigarettes bringing them together.  Then they see each other’s flaws, which cause our main character to take a good, hard, look at herself and the life she is living.   The story touches on domestic abuse, and the joys of escapism.

When you look up “smokescreen” (as I did!) it is mostly a military tactic, but as there is a lot of smoking in the movie – which I’m actually worried about the glamorizing of and message of- I like calling it out for the sort of safety net, veil, between oneself and the world, that it can be…something we hide behind.   What do you think?