THE
FUTURE OF TAMPA INDIE FILM
With
no established film community, and no progress in a decade, and with
filmmakers and outside interests working to undermine it, is there
hope for Tampa indie film? Is the Tampa Bay area doomed to be used
by outsiders to make movies at the expense of indie film produced
here by Tampa filmmakers?
THE
FUTURE OF TAMPA INDIE FILM: Current Issue,
Issue 6, Volume 1, for Tuesday, August 24, 2010. New
Issue published every Tuesday, and updated throughout the week. Next
issue due online August 31, 2010.
082410-0800 - Passinault:
This issue of Frontier Pop was easier, as a lot of the supporting
content was already on the Tampa Bay Film sites. I had a lot of
fun designing the cover for this issue, as it is more of a collage,
and remember: Nolan lost (He lost, and the world would be in jubilation
over his loss if they knew about him), and the Tampa film clique
is now irrelevant, thanks to my efforts and Tampa Bay Film. I'll
expand on this in the future.
082410-2200 - Passinault:
Finally have the new issue of Frontier Pop up and online. Didn't
have to write much, however, because much of the content is already
up on the Tampa Bay Film sites.
083010-0810 - Passinault:
The irony is that, despite not having much to write, that I'm
just now getting everything up... just in time for the new issue
tomorrow! Just added a 60 page blog from 9 years ago, which is directly
relevant to Tampa indie film. This will be accessible from the menus,
too, just like every issue. The way that this works is that each
issues highlights added content as part of a marketed "package",
but the content itself is indexed and easy to find, too, through
the menu system. I will, eventually, have more time to write more
content for Frontier Pop; it's just that, now, I'm really busy with
other things. That said, I rather enjoyed some games just now ,
on the MAME emulator, of Cadillacs and Dinosaurs, Mortal Kombat,
and Street Fighter Alpha 2. It didn't take more than 15 minutes.
Although all of those games, with the exception of Mortal Kombat,
play arcade-perfect on MAME, and are a lot of fun, I wonder why
Mortal Kombat does not play well on emulator. One of my favorite
games sucks on emulator! In contrast, Street Fighter Alpha 2 is
incredible. Exactly like on the Sega Saturn and at the Arcade, and
it plays perfectly. I really need to obtain Street Fighter 3: 3rd
Strike, and pray that it plays arcade-perfect.
INITIALIZING
ISSUE
INTRODUCTION BY EDITOR AND PUBLISHER C. A. PASSINAULT
Welcome
to the 6th exciting issue of Frontier Pop. This issue will, for the
first time, break format on our existing future planned format, and
will focus on on subject. The focus of this issue is on the future
of Tampa indie film.
I’ve been involved with independent film, and independent filmmaking,
for about 17 years now, and became involved when I took television
production and filmmaking courses at the University of Tampa. In 1993,
while taking those courses, I was quickly befriended by my instructors,
and spent a lot of time at various indie film sets, television broadcasts,
television commercial tapings, local productions for the cable television
shows, and other production projects. You could say that indie film
chose me.
Also during this time, I began an acting career. I had started that
career doing voice acting as a DJ, but once the television producers
discovered that I could act, I began acting in a large number of commercials.
I’d spend 8 to 10 hours on a television set, and then I’d
finish up, only to go to work at the bank. This went on for years.
In 1999, I formed my independent film production company, years ahead
of its time, which was one of many of my companies which were in operation.
I called it Tapestry Studios, but after discovering that there was
a Tapestry Films already in existence, I changed it to Dream Nine
Studios. By 2000, Dream Nine Studios had its own web site, and I even
had a cool logo that I designed for it. That logo is still being used
for Dream Nine Studios today, as is the name, of course.
Around ten years ago, in 2000, I set out to do my first independent
film, the first solo project, and it was ambitious. Pre production
of the film, which was called Reverence, began in 2001. The independent
film was a large feature, and I spent two years just completing the
Reverence feature film script (read it by clicking on the link), and
doing five auditions to cast its large cast. At the time, we were
one of the big three independent films being done in the Tampa Bay
area, and mine had the best audition process and support structure.
The other two films were The Web Of Darkness, a vampire cyberthriller
by Renegade Films, and Unearthed, a science fiction film by Pheremone
Films.
By 2003, both of the other films had production already underway.
My Reverence film screenplay had already gone through six drafts,
and it was finished, at 140 pages. My casting was pretty much done,
too, and we set up rehearsals and set a date for the start of principle
photography.
There was only one problem.
Dream Nine Studios had no equipment, and we were entirely dependent
upon collaborating with subcontracted production crews to get the
film done. We had already gone through one production company in 2002,
and by 2003, our second team finally told us that they did not have
the equipment that was needed (Read the Reverence production mail
for some of the correspondence), and that they expected to be compensated
in equipment for the job. It would cost at least $30,000.00 for the
equipment that we needed. Of course, I had issues with this, as we
needed them for their equipment, and not necessarily their expertise
(and, it should be noted, that this $30,000.00 of equipment, obtained
now with the same capabilities, is less than 5% of the cost. Reverence,
as it was back then, could be done for as less than $1,000.00 today;
our overhead was strictly equipment, as the cast and crew were subcontracted
on deferred pay only, and then, paid only if we sold the film. This
is impressive, especially considering that even today, some companies
spend $30-35,000.00 to make a feature film, and find other ways to
spend the money other than equipment. Our overhead was just that,
equipment, and had we had the equipment, the film would have cost
next to nothing. Without any equipment, and done to the standards
of what Reverence was supposed to be back in the day, it could be
done for under $1,000.00 in equipment, and even less, if some of the
equipment was already obtained, as computers and software are a part
of that list. Back then, the 1 Terabyte of hard drives that Reverence
would have needed would have cost $19,000.00 alone. Today, the cost
is less than $100.00).
So, the team told us that they could not do the film, and although
the script and the casting was essentially done, the production was
cancelled soon after most of the cast did a read-through of the script.
Web Of Darkness was eventually completed, but wasn’t that great.
It didn’t sell. Unearthed was completed first, but it, too,
didn’t sell. Each of those other films cost a great deal of
money to produce, with the Web Of Darkness costing around $40,000.00,
and Unearthed rumored to cost much more than that. The filmmakers
all took on the debt.
Note, though, that those films all had a lot of pluses on their side.
The Web Of Darkness had a very original premise, and was a good concept.
Unearthed had a great script, according to some actors who read both
the script for Unearthed, and the script for Reverence. Hands down,
I was told that the script for Reverence was good, but that the script
for Unearthed was better. Granted, I agreed, too. Although my script
for Reverence is not a bad script, especially when writer Rachel Eaglin
helped me flesh it out, there is way too much going on in the script.
It would have been an entertaining indie film, however, although,
like those other two feature films, it, too, would not have sold,
in my opinion.
Sure, it sounds great. Make a film, and riches would follow. People
would fall over themselves, and pay all this money, to see your film.
The problem with that was that people wouldn’t be interested
in even checking out your film unless they knew who you were, or you
had some known actor in the film. Even if they saw it, too, if the
film sucked, word would spread, and word of mouth would kill the film.
One of the problems with all of this was putting too many eggs in
the proverbial basket. Sure, filmmaking back in the early day of Tampa
indie film was ambitious, but way too risky as filmmakers sunk a lot
of money into projects which were too much to chew on, and, as a result,
it was almost like playing a high risk lottery.
Sure, I fell into that trap at first, too. I figured that I would
come up with a cool script, cast it with good actors, shoot it inexpensively,
and the world would be my oyster. We’d arrive, by creating a
line of feature films, and emulating Hollywood as we did it. The problem
is that indie filmmakers seldom have the resources to do it like Hollywood
does, and ultimately, our efforts fell short.
That’s not do say that we didn’t pull off some interesting
concepts, and succeed where others had not. People were sold on what
we were doing, and rightfully so, including the production people
who didn’t have the equipment that they would need. We had a
principle cast of 16 of the best actors in Florida (and, to those
actors, I would recommend any of you in a heartbeat. I was quite proud
of my cast, many of who drove in from all over Florida) all on deferred
pay, and although none of them were union, they all were just as good.
Other that equipment, everything from catering, to the actual production,
was dirt cheap, too. The catering would be handled like a pot luck
picnic, as everyone pitched in to the project, and the production
was literally no-budget.
Alas, though, in the end, that lack of equipment was what ended it.
It was hard to sell investors when this was our first film, as we
had nothing to show them, and the expense of equipment would rocket
the budget into the realm of the other films, despite the things that
we had pulled off with bringing down the production costs to practically
nothing. I’m also still disgusted, too, that the production
people had the nerve to finally say, on the eve of production, that
they didn’t have equipment, and that they expected me to get
them equipment, and that would be how they would be compensated (which
was NOT the terms originally agree upon. I had a model do that to
me a couple of years ago, too. We agreed to the terms of a shoot,
and she tried to radically change the terms of our agreement the night
before the shoot. It’s like” They are dependent upon me,
now, so now I can hold the production hostage at the last minute”.
It’s so unprofessional, and I have measures in place to prevent
this from happening in the future. Always get the terms in writing
before planning, or scheduling, anything. Always have backups, too,
or “understudies”, as they say in theater. If they pull
the hostage move, get them for breach of contract, and then go with
the backup). First off, the primary reason for needing their help
would be because they had the equipment that the production needed.
Secondly, since my staff all had filmmaking skills to begin with,
if we had the money to go out and buy all of the equipment, we would
have simply used the gear ourselves. Had we gone the “You’re
right, we don’t know what you are doing, and you’re better.
Here is the equipment that you require. Please help us” route,
we’d have ended up assuming all the financial risk on a film
which probably would not have sold, and wouldn’t have the equipment,
anyway, after the production people took it when the film was complete.
We’d be back at square one, with the drawbacks of substantial
debt, and no way to do any more films. This, in fact, is exactly the
trap that many early Tampa filmmakers fell into, and many of them
found themselves out of business after they gave it their shot, and
their all, to that one great feature indie film.
Another innovation, which the production team used as a reason why
they could not do their job, was my idea for a digital distribution
and download business model, which could have been used if the film
was not picked up for distribution, and sale, by a distributor. The
production team was up in arms. “The film will get pirated!”
they lamented. Well, I told them all of the specifics, and the measures
that would be taken to keep the download business profitable, but
that was their scapegoat for their lack of equipment; they did not
want to be honest about why they REALLY did not want to do it. What
really annoys me, though, was that, over the past ten years, that
my download business model was proven to be correct. It was the future.
It may have been ahead of its time, but I was right.
Ultimately, though, and looking back, I believe that our largest mistake,
despite our innovations, was doing things the way that we were supposed
to do them, and the way that other filmmakers did it. We tried to
emulate Hollywood, and it was too much to handle. Indie filmmakers
who succeed in doing a film Hollywood style, with inflated costs and
all, often succeed in crippling their careers with debt, debt that
they seldom clear. This ends their filmmaking careers before they
really begin.
So, two films were made. None of them made back their money, and with
the producers assuming debt, it crippled their ability to make more
films. I was lucky. My film never got to the point where it crippled
much of anything. As a result, we lived to film another day.
So, the years went by. Technology improved, too. The original filmmaking
cliche that I had bought into was replaced with a plan of innovation,
taking lessons learned from my photography business and my DJ career,
of all things. The key to the future of Tampa indie film, it seems,
was not doing large feature films before you were ready. Instead of
large and high risk, it was small and low risk. Filmmaking was all
about telling stories, and if you could come up with good stories,
and figure out how to tell them, films did not have to be expensive,
or big. Another part of the equation was that, when it was time to
do those high risk feature films, that you’d have something
to show the investors so they would buy into your ability to make
good films, and that they would assume the risk.
It’s like photography. If I sat down in front of a client without
any samples of the work that I did, do you think that they would book
me? Of course not! So, you first must build a portfolio, gaining experience
and credibility along the way. That’s when you’re able
to finally close deals.
With films, the drawbacks, of course, are that filmmaking, done right,
and maximizing the potential for success, is a long term investment.
You spend a lot of time and a little money building your portfolio
of short films, and MAKE SURE THAT AS MANY PEOPLE AS POSSIBLE CAN
SEE THOSE FILMS. This builds recognition, buzz, and credibility, and
sets a foundation for future marketability and success. Of course,
good luck making money directly by selling those short films. Sure,
if you sell those films for a dollar or two per download, you’ll
make some money, but the real payoff comes with more expensive feature
films.
So, with the production team dropping the ball, and no other options
available to us, we had to cancel the Reverence feature film in early
2003. Although the film was never done, we did gain a lot of experience
organizing, and running, auditions, as well as casting, although I
learned how to cast with a stageplay project back in 1993. With Reverence
cancelled, I wrote letters to the cast, who all understood. Sadly,
I never talked to most of them, again.
For two years I kept quiet, working my photography business and monitoring
the market. I was sure that the production company had been badmouthing
me to other filmmakers in the Tampa film scene, so I was not too eager
to get involved. In 2002 and 2003, the rival production company began
a series of popular film festivals, known as Saints and Sinners. By
2003, drawing from my experience as a professional event planner,
I began studying film festivals, and drew up plans for a large annual
film festival which would be a “Saints and Sinners killer”,
as well as be more than competition for other film festivals of the
time such as the TamBay Film and Video Festival. That prototype film
festival was the Iris film festival. Since I still did not any films,
or equipment to make films, however, the incentive to do my own film
festival was premature. The Iris film festival would remain a prototype.
In 2004, the world came to an end to those film festivals, anyway.
Both the Saints and Sinners film festival, and the hugely successful
TamBay, folded. In the wake of the Saints and Sinners film festival,
however, filmmakers Pete and Paul Guzzo started a monthly film festival
in Ybor, the Coffeehouse Film Review. I monitored what was going on
routinely, assessing the situation, and preparing for when the time
would be right for me to introduce myself, and to get involved.
In late 2005, I began to get involved with the film scene. I attended
the last final Coffeehouse Film Review (CFR, before it became the
Tampa Film Review, or TFR), and within days attended another film
festival, which was the successor to Saints and Sinners, the Halloween
Horror Picture Show. Around that time, I met filmmaker Chris Woods,
and Nolan, who owned a Pop Culture web site. The filmmaker who I had
been at odds with, Rick Danford, formerly of Renegade Films, and I
made peace, too, which was cool.
In 2006, the CFR became the TFR, and I spent a lot of time attending
most of the film festivals every month. I even wrote film reviews
for Nolan’s Pop Culture site. Actor Joe Davison and Chris Woods
formed the Tampa Film Network, and I got involved with that, too.
Everything seemed fine, at first, although I sat through a very heated
exchange between the Rick Danford and Joe Davison. The Tampa film
commissioner was there, too, as was Paul Guzzo. At that meeting, I
made a proposal for a new standard film festival for Tampa Bay, to
be an annual film festival series, which was based on the format for
the Iris film festival, and sharing the same name. The film commissioner
and Paul Guzzo blew me off, and announced their plans for the Gasparilla
Film Festival. At the time, I though that what happened was odd, but
didn’t realize that there was an agenda going on at the time,
until much later. The rudeness, and lack of courtesy, that Paul Guzzo
showed me didn’t make any sense, since I had done nothing to
him.
Soon after, Paul Guzzo, and his brother Pete, joined the advisory
board for the Gasparilla Film Festival, representing “Tampa
filmmakers”.
In late 2006, the Tampa Film Network tried an experiment. They put
together a short film project, which was written by Chris Woods. I
referred one of my actress friends to the film, Harmony Oswald, who
had originally booked me to do her headshots, and we later became
friends. Harmony was cast in a lead role, opposite Joe Davison. The
film, The Quiet Place, went into production, and I joined the crew
as a still photographer, being careful that few on the cast and crew
knew that I was anything more than just a photographer. This would
allow me to see how they really were.
On the set of The Quiet Place, the cast and the crew were pleasant
toward me, for the most part, although the director and I were not
communicating. Few people working on the film saw any value in production
still photography. Harmony took me aside and told me that I should
be more assertive. I told her that it was not my place to step on
any toes. Besides, despite the lack of cooperation, I was getting
the job done. At another episode, while eating lunch, a sleazy guy
on the film crew came to me and asked to use my camera. I told him
no, and that if they needed any pictures, they only had to ask me,
as I was the photographer on the set, and he, whomever he was, was
not. Actor Jack Amos asked me after the other photographer left that
he was wondering how I would respond to the question.
Harmony may have gotten on my case about my lack of assertiveness,
but I really wanted to stay within the bounds of what I was there
to do. This said, as an experienced filmmaker, I saw a lot which made
me bite my tongue. The film set was chaos. There were way too many
people running around, and it was not organized well. There were too
many cooks in the kitchen, too, in my opinion. The Quiet Place could
have been done with a smaller crew, at the most matching the size
of the small cast. There were problems with the script, too. Chris
Woods had crafted an excellent script. Paul Guzzo, who wanted to rush
production, cut out a lot from the script, mainly from character development,
and the exposition, and cited that he had to do so because of time
constraints. I’m telling you, in my opinion, that film could
have been shot in the allotted time had the production been organized.
It seemed to me that the filmmakers who were involved were out to
undermine and sabotage each other, and what was to follow seemed to
prove that observation. The filming process lasted two days, and it
was much longer than it needed to be. I heard a story about how one
of the filmmakers even tried to wrap early because they wanted to
go home and watch a football game, and this pissed off the cast, who
were working hard (except for Joe Davison, who is hardly an actor,
or a professional, in my opinion. I didn’t like some of the
inappropriate comments that he made about Harmony, and told him as
much; and Joe, she knows. I told her what you said. Perhaps that is
one of the factors which contributed to you casting Georgia, another
actress, into your 100 Tears film, instead of Harmony, who you had
asked to do the film, and who was your first choice? Poor Joe. What’s
really funny is that another actress once told me that “Joe
Davison.... what is he about? He is a joke”.).
We got through it, though, and the lack of cooperation showed in the
quality of the final film. It was ok, but could have, and should have,
been a lot better. The filmmakers who were involved began fighting,
and started blaming each other for the results of the film. As the
photographer, however, I seemed to be unscathed by the blame game.
Or, so I thought.
Around late 2006, during all of this chaos, I was watching production
technology progress, and the cost of making indie films fall. Soon,
it would be time for my new indie film strategy. I would need support
infrastructure for my future films, I realized, and soon, I got to
work to create it.
With the TFR showing films, I had recently noticed that there were
a lot of films on Youtube. So, on the set of The Quiet Place, Chris
Woods and I were talking about showing indie films, and I brought
up Youtube and online film festivals. It was now feasible to put together
an online film festival.
As I told Chris Woods this, I looked around. Paul Guzzo stood quietly
nearby. I suspected that he was listening to what I was telling Woods.
At the time, I didn’t think much about it. This was about to
change.
I began developing a resource web site for Tampa indie film, much
like I had done with other resource sites such as Tampa Bay Modeling.
Tampa Bay Film began development, and I planned on adding an online
film festival on the site, which used embedded video files from Youtube
and other video hosting sites. So, without a web site which was operational,
I set up a small online film festival of sorts up on the Tampa Bay
Film Myspace profile in late 2006.
This was the first time that I had heard of anyone having an issue
with me, too. Woods told me of a night out with a bunch of filmmakers.
I was brought up, and someone said “Passinault. I don’t
like that guy”. This revelation perplexed me, as I had not said
anything about anyone, and had kept a low profile. I had no idea why
someone would dislike me.
Also around this time, there were a lot of questions about Paul Guzzo
and Pete Guzzo, and their involvement with the Gasparilla film festival.
Up until this point, I also had not had any issues with Nolan, but
his, too, would change. You see, Nolan’s Pop Culture web site
had a message board, and among the subjects covered was Tampa indie
film. A lot of Tampa filmmakers, including the ones already mentioned,
frequented the site, and because Nolan attended, and covered, every
Tampa Film Review, this drove traffic to his site; His Pop Culture
web site was the unofficial web site of the TFR.
So, I questioned Paul Guzzo about that on the message board. Paul
was evasive, and wouldn’t answer any questions. My opinion?
That the Gasparilla Film Festival was set up by the Tampa film commission
to market the Tampa Bay area as a production location for Hollywood
productions with big budgets. Of course, the Gasparilla Film Festival
had Paul And Pete Guzzo
on board as token Tampa filmmakers, and they promised that they would
support Tampa indie film, and feature films which were made in Tampa
by Tampa filmmakers. I thought that this was a conflict, especially
in light of what was experienced by Tampa filmmakers in 2003 when
The Punisher filmed in Tampa. In my opinion, attracting outside productions
to the Tampa Bay area did nothing to support local indie film, as
those outside productions, with deep pockets, brought their own people
in, did not hire Tampa filmmakers, and competed with Tampa filmmakers
for limited resources. My question for Paul was simple. Did he and
his brother sell out Tampa filmmakers by blindly jumping on board
with the agenda of the Gasparilla Film Festival, and, if so, was it
intentional sleazy politics, or was it just plain naivety?
Well, Paul did not answer any of my questions. It’s then that
he threw a slanderous allegation, stemming from the set of The Quiet
Place, in my face on the message board, attempting to sidetrack my
questioning, and attempting to attack my credibility with a baseless
rumor. At first, I was confused by the allegation, as I had not heard
anything about it before. It’s then that the wall caved in,
and dirty little secrets emerged. Paul and his friends has been spreading
lies about me, and slandering me, for quite some time (and why friends
such as Woods did not tell me about this sooner is still a mystery).
From what several Tampa filmmakers had told me, some filmmakers had
formed an exclusive clique, claiming to be a film community. Their
M.O., from what I was told, is that they look at everyone coming in
the door, and assess whether or not they will pose competition for
them. The Tampa film clique was insecure, and if they perceived someone
to be competition, they would try to undermine the credibility of
the competitor, and run them out of the market by ganging up on them.
I was also told that several of these people in the film clique were
aware of me before I had introduced myself, and they were terrified
of what I had already done with other markets with my resource web
sites. I was a well-known, effective scam buster. What do you suppose
that people who were running scams would do if a scam buster started
coming around?
Some film community, right?
In retrospect, I’m not sure what the film clique was thinking,
because if they had done their homework, they would have realized
that I was the last person that they should mess with.
I looked at what they had been saying, and said “Screw it. I
told Harmony that it wasn’t my place to step on any toes, and
I was being polite, and politically correct. At this point, I decided
that I would start to tell it how it was, and how I saw it. Screw
being nice, especially when they were attacking me, anyway.”
I don’t roll over. I fight back, and I do so without breaking
any laws, or being unethical.
They were not going to run me off like they had done other filmmakers.
We began fighting on the message board on the Pop Culture site that
Nolan had. I was kicking
their asses. What really annoyed me, though, is that Nolan began editing
my posts, censoring me, while allowing his friends to post whatever
they wanted, making it look like I was unable to come back on what
they were posting, and making it look like I was losing the debate.
Nolan and I got into it, and he almost received a call from my attorney.
At that point, Nolan posted that I felt that Paul and the film commissioner
has snubbed me back at the Tampa Film Network meeting where I had
tried to announce a new film festival, where everyone could get involved
and share credit, and they had announced the Gasparilla Film Festival.
Paul laughed, denied it, and posted that it was my imagination.
Nolan had a friend, who was this overweight woman who blogged about
Tampa indie film. She was a film fan, you see, and she tended to cheerlead,
and support everything. I don’t know about you, but if someone
who constantly kissed the ass everyone wrote you a positive review,
would you take the review seriously? My opinion about this blogger?
That she was some insecure, neurotic woman who craved attention from
men... any men. What better way to obtain attention from men than
to cater to the interests of fanboys, fanboys who have limited options
with women to begin with (I was told that the clique is insanely jealous
about my friendship with models, with is silly, of you ask me)? So,
the fangirl and the fanboys found each other. And the fangirl blogger
joined the campaign against me with her friends.
How she began pissed me off, too. In January of 2007, Tampa Bay Film,
and its online film festival, launched. The fangirl immediately alleged
that the online film festival was the idea of Paul and Pete Guzzo,
as they were launching one, too. I had been unaware of their plans
for an online film festival until after I had launched mine, and found
the timing suspicious. Is that what happened? Did Paul Guzzo listen
to what I was saying that day on the film set, and did he and his
brother use my idea? I’m not sure, but one thing pissed me off.
The fangirl implied that I had stolen the idea for an online film
festival from the Guzzo brothers, which was completely false (and
this can be verified by Chris Woods)! Additionally, she did a “review”
of Tampa Bay Film and its online film festival upon its launch, and
disparaged everything from the design, to whether the online film
festival was a “real” film festival.
Well, the Guzzo brothers launched their online film festival, which
tied into The Tampa Film Review.
It didn’t last long, though. The Tampa Bay Film online film
festival was easier to maintain and update, because it used files
which were embedded elsewhere. The online film festival from Pete
Guzzo was a clumsy design, and slow. It was quickly defeated by the
Tampa Bay Film online film festival. By mid 2007, the Guzzo brothers
had abandoned their online film festival. My online film festival,
on the other hand, experienced massive growth, and success.
Well, 2007 had its ups and downs with Guzzo and his friends. I still
attended the TFR, and the Tampa Film Network, in the wake of the Quiet
Place fiasco, shut down. At one point, there was an uneasy truce,
but by late 2007, this would come to an end. There was an anonymous
poster on the message board who called themselves “the_truth”.
This person was successful in raising suspicions, and ultimately,
inspiring people to fight.
So, our fights resumed. In one spectacular fight, I posted something
about what was wrong with The Quiet Place. Christian, one of Joe’s
friends, and I began to fight, and soon, everyone was fighting. I
kicked Christians ass, and it eventually led to the flame wars of
all flame wars.
Joe Davison posted, posting all of these slanderous statements about
me, which surprised me. It was then that I suspected Joe as having
ties with the_truth, and I also found out that Joe was one of the
ones who was spreading lies about me.
In December 2007, Tampa Bay Film declared war on the Tampa film clique,
and I quit going to the TFR. A sleeping giant has awakened within
me, and within Tampa Bay Film. These people would be put in their
proper place, within every legal and ethical means available.
The first major hit was when I published a comprehensive review of
The Tampa Film Review in early 2008. I told it how it was, pointing
out all of the flaws, and it pissed the clique off. Paul Guzzo sent
me a profanity-filled email, slandering me, and that started Paul
and I fighting, which is still going on today. In his wonderful email,
Paul ADMITTED that I really was snubbed at the infamous Tampa Film
Network meeting back in 2006, which made his message board denial
a lie ( “You were snubbed at the TFN because you're irrelevant”
).
IN
THIS ISSUE
The
Reverence Chronicles 2001
__________________________________________________________________________________________
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Good inside information and upcoming features revealed on twitter.
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ELSEWHERE
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Pop is not responsible for any site that we link to, as they
are owned by other parties, unless otherwise noted.
There
is nothing which caught our interest this week in the Tampa Bay scene.
Check back next week for news of something worth checking out, we
hope. At any rate, make sure that you think twice before supporting
any charities (see our new Charity Scam section), as about half of
them make money for the organizers at the expense of the cause that
they claim to be supporting. Don’t enable, or support, a scam,
as the people who do charity scams are bad people.
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REACTION
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Joeba The Butt - Posted
08/24/10: 0801
PASSINAULT!
DAMN YOU PASSINAULT! HOW DARE YOU PUT THE MARK OF THE BEAST ON MY
HEAD! I AM NOT THE DEVIL! AM NOT! I AM THE ONLY ONE IN THE TAMPA INDEPENDENT
FILM INDUSTRY WHO IS MAKING FILMS NOW. I MADE THREE IN THREE YEARS-
HOW MANY HAVE YOU DONE? YOUR SLANDER AND BAD REVIEWS WILL NOT STOP
MY FILMS FROM SELLING! IF YOU ASK MY TEAM I AM THE TAMPA INDIE FILM
SAVIOR! ME! I DON'T TALK AND BASH OTHERS, I DO AND BASH MY CRITICS.
IM GONNA POP YOU IN THE HEAD NEXT TIME I SEE YOU IN PUBLIC, YOU PSYCHO!
I HATE THIS WEB SITE AND YOU WILL BE HEARING FROM MY PEOPLE!!
Evil Nolan - Posted
08/24/10: 0805
If you
want to make threats, Joeba, just threaten to eat him. I am sure that
he will take that threat more seriously. I told my little buddy the
other day that it was only a matter of time before Passinault used
this site to attack real Tampa filmmakers, and it has happened. While
I agree with Passinault's reveiws of your films, which all suffer
from bad writing, poorly define characters, and no exposition (Passinault
makes valid points, I have to admit), I too, hate this Frontier Pop
site, and Passinault. He is better than I am, smarter, and women are
actually interested in him. Frontier Pop is also putting my pop culture
web site out of business. The cool people don't want to read my site
anymore!
Joeba The Butt - Posted
08/24/10: 0820
SHUT UP
NOLAN! SHUT THE HELL UP! I WOULD EAT YOU, BUT YOU ARE TOO FAT, YOU
FAT, SELF IMPORTANT PIG! YOU HAVE NO ROOM TO TALK EITHER. THE LAST
FILM THAT YOU MADE WAS SOME VAMPIRE CANNIBAL SPILT MILK CRATES WITH
THAT LOOSER GUS! YOU NEED TO LEAVE THE INDIE FILM MOVIES, AND ESPECIALLY
THE HORROR MOVIES, TO ME! ME! ME! I AM THE THE BEST FILMMAKER IN TAMPA
AND I WILL PUT TAMPA INDIE FILM ON THE MAP! I AM THE INDIE FILM SAVIOR!
I AM THE ONE MAKING ALL OF THE COOL MOVIES!
Indie Film Savior -
Posted 08/24/10: 0825
I forgive
you, my children, for you you know not what you do. Joeba, while you
do have a talent for promotion, like Rick, as well as getting talented
people to help you, you cripple your films by using scripts that you
wrote, and by writing yourself into the same leading role. Your acting
is the most limiting that I have seen, my sweet child. You play yourself
in every film, and each character is the same, with an overweight
character trying to do action. Haste also makes waste, it seems, and
your movies are seriously flawed. Eventually, people will see you
for what you really are, and will quit helping you.