Another entry in the shameless self promotion department...

We're very psyched to announce that our short Thirsty will be screening tomorrow night (Sat. Feb. 23) at 9PM on NYC's PBS station Channel 13/WNET!

The selection process was based on their interactive online viewer voting system, so we're extra proud and grateful for all the votes we received.

I was busy for a while working working working... Mostly shooting commercials, which have been a lot of fun and kept me busy.

Finally having some down time and wanted to share...

I did some fun work for MasterCard's online Priceless Campaign. The work is also up on my new site and on You Tube.

Plugging this stuff seems weird, but whatever...

Recently I got a directing gig that has me traveling across the US for 5 weeks… Small crew and a lot of shooting, but it’s been a blast so far. Not sure how often I’ll be able to update the blog (like I update a lot when I’m at home!).

This is a picture from a shoot in Nashville at Manuel’s, a custom rhinestone clothing designer who’s made one of a kind garments for everyone from John Lennon to Elton John to the Stones and beyond. He was one cool, incredibly humble guy who still designs and makes every single one of the outfits (he’s the guy with white hair in the center).

By the way, the jackets we’re modeling start at $2,500… now we’re off to New Mexico and then to Austin. Hopefully will have some more pics as we go...

We're continuing our screenings for Thirsty with a screening tomorrow at The Palm Springs International Short Film Festival.

The film screens Friday (8/25) at 4PM and our co-producer / co-writer Caitlin will be out there representing.

I've had a great time attending the festival in the past, especially enjoying the breathtaking California desert setting and a diverse slate of films and very responsive audiences... of course much credit goes to former Seattle Int'l Film Festival director Darryl MacDonald who has done an amazing job bringing attention to the fest.

Our short film Thirsty will be rolling into Rhode Island this weekend as part of the Rhode Island Int'l Film Festival, playing on Saturday 8/12. Amanda and I will be attending the screening... I'm really psyched to be able to be there, since it's one of the fests very near and dear to my heart.

They may be in the smallest state, but they put on a great festival, which has grown by leaps and bounds over the years. Also, we've had the pleasure of screening work at the festival since 1998 (which feels like a looong time ago!).

So if you're there, check us out as well as catching some of the 200 plus films playing at the festival.

Last week we had the pleasure of screening Thirsty at the Stony Brook Film Festival out in Long Island. We haven't been able to make it to other fest screenings for Thirsty, so we got in the car and drove out.

I can't express what a great experience the whole thing was... Ours was a Thursday night screening and I figured we'd have 100 people at the most, but most probably about 30... I find that it helps to be realistic (some would say pesimistic) about these things.

I was off. Way off. By about a 1000 people! Thanks to the amazing outreach done by the festival and a very supportive community, we had about 1,100 people show up for the screening at the Staller Center in SUNY Stony Brook. The projection and the screen were impeccable. The only thing that I've had come close to it, was screening our last short Ping Pong Love at the Castro in San Fransico last year. And the staff at the festival, espcially fest director Alan Inkles and fest coordinator Pat Kelly, were incredibly welcoming. A final added bonus was that one of our actors Kathryn Merry took the trip out and got to see herself up on the big screen.

Our latest short THIRSTY makes it’s debut at the DC Independent Film Festival:

DC INDEPENDENT FILM FESTIVAL
Screening Date: Sunday March 5, 03:45PM

In THIRSTY, a man overshadowed by his deceased mother’s legacy begins the process of letting go of the past, no matter where it may be buried.

The film stars Jonathan Sale and Bridget Barkan (EVERYDAY PEOPLE; SHERRYBABY), featuring a score by Jason Snell (FOREST GROVE) and music by indie rock God Paul Schneider.

You may have noticed that the blog recently changed it's name from "Amanda Doss' Blog" to "The Ugly Betty Blog" - then again you may not have, since I'm never sure if anyone reads this thing!

But the deal is that I wasn't writing enough, so I thought getting my partner Bo involved in the blogging would hopefully get us posting things more frequently. So look for his blogs to start appearing soon.

Also, thanks to James @ indiewire and the folks at GMD for helping with the changes.

Evetually we're hoping to change the overall look of the page, but that's down the road...

We have more screenings coming up in San Francisco over the next 2 weekends as part of FRAMELINE: THE SAN FRANCISCO LGBT FILM FESTIVAL:

June 18 11 AM
June 26 2:15 PM
(part of the "Fun in Boys' Shorts")

Bo & I will be there for the June 18 screening.

We're going to be jumping coasts this week with 2 screenings for our short Ping Pong Love:

SEATTLE INT’L FILM FESTIVAL (May 19 – June 12)
Screening Date: June 9, 4:30 PM, Broadway Performance Hall

NEWFEST: NEW YORK LESBIAN & GAY FILM FESTIVAL (June 2-12)
Screening Date: June 11, 3:15 PM, Loews 34th St., Theater 9

We have an SF screening coming up... More on that later.

Our short film Ping Pong Love is having it's world premiere as part of the Turin Int'l Gay and Lesbian Film Festival which starts tomorrow and runs thru April 28. We're very psyched to be a part of this amazing festival and have the world premiere there.

Sadly we won't be there to represent... but if anyone reading this does actually attend, please let us know how it is.

I'm getting ready to head off to Sundance for a week of movies and more cold weather… But before I go, I wanted to post some stills from a recent music video shoot, directed by my partner Bo Mehrad for Blue Note artist Amos Lee. Amos is an incredibly talented young man who has a bright future ahead of him. Our production and edit went exceptionally smoothly, thanks to our always amazing crew and the wonderful folks at Blue Note.

We handed the video in last week and it should hopefully start showing up on various outlets around the time Amos’ album comes out in March… Probably not on MTV, since they don’t play music videos anymore (don’t get me started).

I’m hoping to have a chance to blog while in Park City, but then again, no promises, since it can get a little crazy when I’m out there.
[photos © Ugly Betty Productions, Inc.]

As the year nears an end, I'm finally coming up for air. Just wrapped shooting a music video, more to come on that soon... But in the meantime, I thought I'd share some pics from our shoot for Thirsty last month.

Our fantastic actors Jonathan Sale & Bridget Barkan-

Director Bo Mehrad and Luci Westphal-Solary (Script Supervisor)

Running the scene

Bo worships the devil while directing actress Kathryn Merry

[photos by Sean Gannet, © Ugly Betty Productions, Inc.]

I’m having a fundraising party for a short film I’m in pre-pro on called, THIRSTY.

The party is Tuesday night at Remote Lounge in NYC and I’m really excited. In order to produce THIRSTY we applied for fiscal sponsorship through DCTV (Downtown Community Television), this way any donations we receive can be tax-deductible. I’ve done a lot of shorts, but this is the first time I have ever gone through the process of fiscal sponsorship, sending out appeals to people and throwing a fundraising party.

Though I am familiar with dealing with for profit projects, working as a non-profit is a new experience. And I have to say – so far, I like it! First, I don’t have to feel guilty if the project doesn’t make money. And let’s face it, shorts very, very, very rarely do. Second, so far, we have been able to raise a decent amount through letters. Third, planning this party has been really fun. I’m used to planning shoots, but planning a party is kind of exciting – because, instead of figuring out how and when people are going to work, I get to figure out how to get people to have the most possible fun. And I truly hope they do. I also hope we raise enough money so we can shoot in November. But that will be revealed at the end of tonight.

Before I forget! I want to thank everyone who has already donated time and money to THIRSTY and I want to thank our beer, wine and soda sponsors and everyone who has donated raffle prizes for tonight. YOU ALL ROCK! See you at the party!