Five Sisters Productions Blog
In an effort to let you know a bit more about the fascinating process behind the scenes at a production company like Five Sisters, we have started a Web log (blog for short) that we will update occasionally with stories from our current production and adventures. You will find the earliest entries at the bottom of the page.
Archived: January to April 2007, 2006 Entries, Happiest Day Film Shoot, January to June 2005, July to December 2005
Sept 12, 2007
Maria worked with Alex Stein as co-director of The Bobs documentary, SIGN MY SNARLING MOVIE. And the resulting film is now available on DVD from the bobs website. Our very own web mistress, MD Dundon even contributed a bit of cinematography to the fun.
Chronicling the history of The Bobs, "The Beatles of the A Cappella World," from their humble origins at the Western Onion Singing Telegram Company in San Francisco through their evolution as they gain an audience, get nominated for a Grammy, tour the world, and manage to thrive for 25 years with no major label support, no hit records, and no instruments. Featuring clips from The Bobs' 25th Anniversary Reunion Concerts in Berkeley, California in 2006, the DVD also features 45 minutes of bonus tracks not included in the theatrical version.
Watch the trailer for the movie
You can now order your DVD of SIGN MY SNARLING MOVIE through The Bobs' website:
http://www.bobs.com/snarlingmovie.html
August 2007
We're working on the Behind-the-scenes for THE HAPPIEST DAY OF HIS LIFE with Marc Miller, an editor and camera operator who shot footage on set during the filming. It's funny, because our rough cut is 22 minutes -- almost twice as long as the short movie! It talks about people's feelings about making the film, about the gender role switch and the observations it brought up, as well as your basic "why I did the movie" behind-the-scenes stuff.
August 7 - 12, 2007
THE HAPPIEST DAY OF HIS LIFE had its East Coast premiere at the Rhode Island International Film Festival. The festival is an Academy Award qualifying festival, and Ursula met a wonderful group of filmmakers there. Terrifically, HAPPIEST DAY won the Grand Prize for Best Comedy! It ALSO Festival Favorite!
July 26, 2007
Another high profile festival for shorts, the Melbourne International Film Festival hosted the international premiere of THE HAPPIEST DAY OF HIS LIFE, adding a special sponsors' screening because of the film's popularity down under. Ursula attended the festival, and really enjoyed staying with a wonderful family (reviewers Tom Ryan and Debi Enker and their daughter). She did a bunch of press, including a fun radio interview and an article for the Melbourne newspaper THE AGE. Melbourne is a beautiful city, focused on art. Everywhere you turn there was an interesting sculpture. It also had gorgeous back-alleys and cafes, with a sense of art and creativity all around.
July 20, 2007
entry by: Gabrielle Burton
I went to an early morning Rotary club today as the guest speaker. I spoke about our films and people wanted to buy the DVDs. It's always fun to talk with people who like your work!
July 13 and 15, 2007
entry by: Ursula Burton
THE HAPPIEST DAY OF HIS LIFE had its East Coast premiere at the Philadelphia Gay & Lesbian Film Festival, which is a fantastic festival. The people are nice, and the festival audiences were great. AND the film won Festival Favorite! On top of this, I was approached by a distributor there...stay tuned...
Here are some pictures from the festival
June 28 - July 9 2007
entry by: Gabrielle Burton
I went to Paris and Toulouse to see my film school friends, as well as a college friend (Natalia Tsarkova) who has launched a very cool company called i-Concerts (www.i-concerts.com) where they broadcast concerts digitally.
In Paris, I got together with my friends from film school (Marie de Banville, Jose Poesy and Valeria Flores, Jan-Nils Hansen, and Moeata Derrida) for un pique-nique, and it's always great to see them. They are all working in audio-visuel, or film/tv, in different capacities. I missed seeing a few other friends, but will catch them next time...! I stayed with my good friend Marie de Banville, who is writing a script on climate change, and we went to an exhibit on it in a science museum. It was a somewhat basic exhibit, although I did enjoy learning about green technologies for home construction and upkeep.
In Toulouse, I visited my film school ESAV (Ecole Superieur d'Audie-Visuel at the Universite de Toulouse) which is now located in the town center in a gorgeous old building. (When I was there, it was in the university area outside of Toulouse near Blagnac.) The director of the school, Guy Chapouille, invited me to come back with our short film THE HAPPIEST DAY OF HIS LIFE. I saw some other professors, and it was a nice couple of days there. Toulouse is called "the pink city" because it's in the south of France, where much of the construction is in brick, rather than stone like the north, and it's a beautiful town. I'm so glad I lived there. I really enjoyed speaking French all the time again.
I saw Natalia (my friend with the i-Concerts company) both in Paris and then in Geneva. She's going to try to help get MANNA FROM HEAVEN on television in France, as the rights are available there.
May 29, 2007
Maria, Gabrielle, and Ursula went in to work with the company who is doing the DVD authoring (formatting/encoding/menu design) on JUST FRIENDS and TEMPS. For JUST FRIENDS, we've chosen to have the menu items be in pink hearts. We now need to choose how many hearts -- one design has more and more each page, which is sort of humorous, but possibly too over the top, and the other is more toned down but still playful. We went over a lot of the details, which is so much easier when you work with someone in person. On one hand, the internet has made business faster, and on the other, it can also make it slower or more difficult in communication. It was good to work in person, and hopefully they will get this wrapped up.
May 25, 2007
Dawn Ebert-Byrnes, an old friend of Gabrielle's from college, wrote us about a 5 sisters license plate for sale on the web, so we bought it!
May 10-13, 2007
We learned that eight of the remaining living Mercury 13 Astronaut Trainees were being honored in OshKosh, Wisconsin at the University, so we hopped on planes and went to meet and film them. What an exciting time. The women were given honorary doctorates and gave a long Q&A the day before the commencement ceremonies. It was such a moving experience. We got to have dinner with them, as well as get to speak with them a few other times, and get to meet some members of their families. The group attending included: Myrtle "K" Thompson Cagle, Marion Dietrich, Jan Dietrich, Mary Wallance "Wally" Funk, Jane "Janey" Briggs Hart, Jean Hixson, Gene Nora Stumbough Jessen, Irene Leverton, Sarah Lee Gorelick Ratley, Bernice "Bea" Steadman, Geraldine "Jerri" Sloan Truhill and Rhea Allison Hurrle Woltman, and the first woman to pass all the astronaut tests Geraldyn "Jerrie" Cobb.
Here's the article about the event
May 4-6, 2007
We shot Julia's Sweeney's latest monologue LETTING GO OF GOD this weekend. It was a four-camera shoot of two live performances with audiences. It went really well. Award-winning cinematographer Nancy Schreiber was the D.P. The crew was terrific, including our own MD Dundon, fabulous web guru! Maria headed the producing of the movie, which chronicles Sweeney's spiritual quest. Working with a live audience was an interesting new aspect to our filmmaking, and Ursula (as the A.D.) kept them in their seats over the breaks in filming by cheerleading the crowd and explaining the technical aspects of the filming, such as camera and lighting adjustments. Over the next week, we will wrap up the equipment returns and paperwork, and begin post-production.
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The Bob's documentary,