Frustration: Entry 102

If you carefully examine the expression on my face in the partnering photo you'll see a forced smile, a deep inhale, gritted teeth, and the hinted sweats of a boiling rage. I haven't taken any photos that could pleasantly display the frustration that has been pouring out of me like a broken water main... So this is as close as I could get without dousing an object (animate or inanimate) with a highly corrosive/flammable liquid crushing it's skull (or something resembling a skull), dismembering said object, and setting it ablaze... Then perhaps running over it with a car. Get where I'm going here?
I understand, or at least I've been told, that someone is checking and double checking our second attempt at getting DIVINE MANIPULATION OF THE THREADS pressed to DVD. Second? Yeah, the first came back with a glitch... all 1000 copies. The following day I called our contact and told him of the unfortunate news. He said that he would get back on it and find out where the problem came from. After three weeks of going back and forth through phonecalls and bullshit, our contact finally said that "we" were going to take a different route. You see, the company that pressed the discs didn't want to take responsibility for the mistake. They wanted to play games and wait it out. They wanted to blame us for a problem with our master disc but kept saying that they wanted to run tests on our master disc to find out where the problem lay. We requested numerous times to send back our master... because there was no f-ing way in hell that there was a problem with our master disc. They didn't send it back, they kept screwing around.
Sound like a lawsuit? Yeah. I'm thinking that the Better Business Bureau might be a good path. Never pre-pay for a project... because once people are paid, it's a little difficult to motivate them to fix a mistake on their end. Now that we're having to get the project done again, there is a dance taking place in the grand ballroom of trust and money. You see, somewhere in this dance I felt a tug on my belt... as if someone were trying to steal my pants and screw me. The rumor that has been danced around is an issue of having to pay more money for a job that we've already paid for... a job that was not done correctly. It's bad business and this nice guy routine that I've been known for in the past is really starting to wear thin.
This is my baby... our project. This is something that people have been waiting to get their hands on for some time... and we're getting screwed around because some f#9{sticks in Chicago made a mistake and don't want to take responsibility. The movie was released in April. It's almost August. WTF? Perhaps the picture is no longer doing this steaming pot of frustration an ounce of justice...
I did submit DIVINE MANIPULATION OF THE THREADS to the Indie Memphis Film Festival through www.withoutabox.com . It's a helpful little sight that offers an electronic press-kit and easy processing. I'm certainly hoping that as "local boys" we are allowed in the competition. A while back there were some talks about Indie Memphis not letting in films that have previously screened in Memphis.
Um, every project from Sawed-Off Collaboratory or the Media Co-op was screened before their involvement with the festival. Hell, the "L'il Film Fest" short film winners (which are screened publicly at the L'il Film Fest) are guaranteed to be showcased at the Indie Memphis Film Festival. Let's not be hypocrites, okay? If you don't like the film... fine. If you exclude local Memphis films from Indie Memphis I think that you start burning bridges and treating those that actually put asses in seats during the festival like bastard step children. I don't think that we should start excluding local filmmakers because they've taken it upon themselves to have a premiere... but I may be getting ahead of myself.

On another note: I did see A SCANNER DARKLY and CLERKS II. The first was not that fascinating. The rotoscoping animation was perhaps the best part of the film. Transferring a book of that nature that gets so far in your head into a successful feature film is not an easy task. I wonder if they shot the film and had to find some way to make people want to go see it... sober people that is. From what I remember of the "Old Bevan" days of yore, that would have been a trippy ass film to watch while on mushrooms or some other psychotropic hallucinogenic. CLERKS II on the other hand was a healthy dose of Kevin Smith's gross out humor. I laughed a lot. However, remember that dance scene in "DIVINE?" Yeah, there's a dance scene in CLERKS II... for no apparent reason other than being odd and funny. So, I didn't steal the idea from Kevin Smith. I want that known and on the record.
Who needs a drink? Oh, the official Rusted Sun Films website is in the works for a make-over. I'll try to keep you kids posted on when the hell that will actually happen. Sometime when we have the discs I'm sure. There should be other festivals to submit to as well... when I get the 1000 discs back.