The screening.
Erica and I went shopping right after we left the projection room. We had a couple of hours to kill and decided to walk around the mall. Shanghai we learned is a cradle of style. Women walk around in the cutest dresses. We were surprised by the enormous amount of high end stores. Tired of walking, we made our way back to the cinema back at the third floor.
Erica and I were nervous about turnout. Even though they had “canceled” the event…a weekend screening we were told was a sure bet to be sold out. They were right. Lights went down and Pizza Hut commercials starring Christian Bale to the tune of terminator flooded the room. Suddenly silence, and our baby appeared on the screen. Over 200 people, who were not our friends, nor were they related to us or had any connection to the film, started watching our project. I was extremely nervous.
Every memory I had of production flooded my mind. Suddenly the room filled with silence and the film took life. I had their eyes…and atenttion. What a weird feeling!
It was the longest and shortest screening. Time was manipulated by my ulcers and not until the end was I able to relax. Our film was a movie…people laughed, cringed, and were moved. They were strangers, from a different culture, yet they saw in the characters what we had hoped to convey.
We slept long and hard that night. We became filmmakers.
Shanghai, Day 1: Troubleshooting.
Erica and I woke up early our second day in Shanghai. We contacted the film festival, to make sure our delivery format was compatible with their system. Shanghai normally screens in 35 mm prints. However because we didn’t had the budget to be able to strike a print, we decided the best route was a DCP harddrive. I had researched that Christie projectors had been installed in many venues years before to make Shanghai the cutting edge festival when it came to Digital projection. The festival staff was so kind to help us out and accept this solution to our money dilemma.
I know most of you have watch some Pixar movies in the theater. Their 3D stuff is delivered on a Digital Cinema Package. This is a wonderful alternative, since it’s price is 1/6th of the price of a print, without sacrificing any quality at all. We got ours made at Modern Video. Mark Smirnoff at Modern guided us through the process and was incredibly helpful! (Thanks Sandra and Erik for helping us make this happen!) I would recommend everyone to use them. We also had to have the film subtitled to mandarin, Erica arranged for this. Modern then laid down this track and voila, our film was ready to travel on a 500 gig hard drive.
When we got the the Film Art Center, we found out other filmmakers (one from Australia and one from Brazil) were also using the same system. We all troubleshooted and the system was ready to go.
Now what I didn’t mention above is that we weren’t sure our power outlet would work in China and in an effort to avoid the damage to the hard drive, producer Erica Harrell ran through the streets of Shanghai looking for the right converter. Add the lack of common language to the mix, and two very confused projectionists who didn’t really understand what we were trying to do, and you got our morning.
Finally the older projectionist, took the risk and plugged our drive to the wall. The green light went on and we just laughed at our crazy attempts to safeguard our drive.
The file loaded and we were on our way…
Traveling to Shanghai.
I arrived late at night on Thursday to Los Angeles from Ecuador. The next morning, Erica and I head to LAX for our 16 hour flight. The chinese embassy told us to take preucautions when traveling due to the worldwide alert on swine flu. We booked our flight on Japan Airlines. Erica and I tried to adapt to the slow time change conditioning the staff created for us. Apparently the best way to adapt is via food. To eat when it’s time to eat at your destination will allow your body’s natural clock to switch.
Japan airlines has a camera set up on the nose of the plane. We got the chance to see the take off and landing. The airline has a delicious citric drink, that I wish I was able to find. Skytime? I think it’s called.
Narita airport is full of luxury stores. Their duty free is the best I have seen so far! In Japan (where we made our connection) the airplane technicians bow to you as a goodbye before the plane takes off. It was a simple yet magical moment on our trip.
Our Tokyo-Shanghai flight was shorter. We arrived into Shanghai rather tired and confused. We took the A3 bus to our hotel, The Galaxy. Erica and I didn’t really had time to prep language wise, and were incredibly thankful of the kindess of the bus staff who helped us arrive at our destination. After an hour and a half trip, we reached our hotel. It was passed midnight, and we had just found out the festival had been trying to reach us.
More to come….
Shanghai Blues.
Producer Erica Harrell and I flew to Shanghai this past week to attend our world premiere. We’ll be posting pictures and an overview of our experience. We had such a wonderful time, and had a full schedule. Erica is back in L.A. and I had to fly home to Ecuador to prep for my wedding. So…we weren’t really able to update the blog before, but we’ll be doing so in the next few days.
Thank you so much for following our journey!
L.
Buy tickets for our world premiere!.
Tickets are now on sale for the world premiere of Acts of Mercy at the 12th Shanghai International Film Festival. To purchase them, please visit the official festival ticket sales website.
Price per ticket is 60 yuan or $9.
Screening 1
Date: 06-14-09
Location: Hall 1,Yong Hua Cinema
Time: 15:45
Screening 2
Date: 06-15-09
Location: Hall 1, Broadband International Cineplex
Time: 18:30
Our Screening dates are set! Check out the venues..
We have just received word from Shanghai about our screening Schedule. We will be screening on June 14th at the Yong Hua Cinema, Hall 1 at 15:45 right after a special screening of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho.
Yong Hua Cinema
Here is the address and contact information for the Yong Hua theater:
6/F Grand Gateway Mall, 1 Hongqiao Lu,
Xujiahui
near Huashan Lu, Metro Line 1 Xujiahui Station
虹桥路1号港汇广场6楼
近华山路, 地铁1号线徐家汇站
Our second screening will take place on June 15th at the Broadband International Cineplex, Hall 1 at 18:30.
Broadband International Cineplex
Here is the address and contact information for the Broadband International Cineplex:
6/F, Shanghai Times Spuare, 99 Huaihai Lu,
Huaihai Zhong Lu
near Pu’an Lu, Metro Line 1 Huangpi Nan Lu Station
淮海中路99号大上海时代广场6楼
近普安路, 地铁1号线黄陂南路站
Open 10am-10pm
Producer Erica Harrell and myself (Laura C. Lopez- director) will be attending both events.
Please let us know if you are going to be in the area.
See you there!
Shanghai here we come!.
12th Shanghai International Film Festival
We are incredibly excited to announce that Acts of Mercy will be premiering at the prestigious Shanghai International Film Festival. The film will be playing in the panorama section, alongside many up and coming international productions. This year’s festival guests and jurors include Danny Boyle (Slumdog Millionaire), Andie MacDowell and Hugh Grant. The festival will take place from June 13th to the 21st.
Erica and I just submitted our passports to obtain our Chinese business visa. We are looking forward to sharing our film with such a distinguished audience! We want to thank everyone for their support!
Happy Nurse Year!.
Producer
Yay its 2009!!!! In 2008 our script and rough movie went from “Baker” to a new title Acts of Mercy, Laura spent months in LA on my couch working on the post production, we finished the film (!) Laura graduated from UCF, and got engaged (!!), while I worked on Entourage and spent my hiatus in Florida with my wonderful boyfriend Jeremiah!
In 2009, Acts of Mercy, will premier and we will finally be able to share the film with all of our supporters!! We cannot wait for that experience. This film was made with so much love ( and blood and sweat and tears ) that sharing it and all of its background is something that we are so excited about doing. Also we will soon be putting together a behind the scenes piece on the making of Acts of Mercy that we hope you will enjoy.
This picture was taken a couple of weeks ago in New York, Laura and I had such a good time! It’s going to be so much fun being on the festival circuit with her and this film!!
Happy New Year!
New York Update!.
Erica Harrell
Producer
Last week Laura and I traveled up to New York for some Acts of Mercy business (and some fun). We were fortunate enough to stay with friend Solange for a few days then moved into a great place in Harlem. While in NY we were able to meet up with some old crew members from Acts of Mercy, Rachael Boarman (production designer) and Marisa Gregory (art director). Both ladies have moved up to The Big Apple and are doing really well.
Last Wednesday Laura and I had the pleasure of meeting with Tovah Feldshuh, our Nurse Baker. She hosted us in the most gracious way at her apartment with a lovely dinner then watched the film with us. Laura and I were so humbled by our visit with this award winning actress and so honored to have her in our film. Tovah also told us that her most recent play “Irena’s Vow” will be going to Broadway in Spring of 2009.
It was so wonderful to spend some time in New York with good friends and crisp cold weather. New York around Christmas time is a wonderful site, with all the regular sparkle of New York plus a few additional things like the tree at Rockerfeller Center and all the great window displays at Macy’s!
Erica and her up and coming entourage.
I recently came across a wonderful article about our producer Erica Harrell. She is an incredibly motivated and sucessful up and coming player in the industry and we are proud to have her efforts and achievement recognized. Here is an excerpt:
“It sounds like the kind of leap a sideline client being managed by Eric Murphy (a.k.a. E) in the shadows of Vincent Chase’s travails might suddenly make on an episode of the acclaimed HBO series Entourage. But in this case, the ascendant individual is Erica Harrell, a real-life production secretary on the show.
Harrell is executive producing not one but two independent films pegged for release in 2009. And though both the Western The Attic Door and the thriller Acts of Mercy showcase for the most part relative unknowns, the former is notable for having been shot on location in and around Kanab, Utah, an area known back in the 1930’s as “Little Hollywood”.”
To read more, check out the film stew write up.
