Behind the scenes about Doug Hammer’s Flying High Piano Piece

It was sometime around early 2008.  I was navigating a music sight — not sure which one, but I beleive it was download dot com music which is no longer around — when I found a few piano peices that I really liked, so I downloaded them — either for free or some other way.

They were Flying High, A dream I once Lived, and In the Feilds. By a pianist and composer named Doug Hammer.  I was memzmerized by them and played them often.

Fast Forward to late 2010 early 2011 when I was putting together a trailer for Chardonnay for THE GOLdEN TREE premeire at the Del Oro in Grass Valley.

I created a trailer with just text and was not sure how it would play but the bed track was Flying High and the more I played it in the video, the more I knew it belonged.  So I used it and as it was showing I was nervousw about a trailer with just text, but when it was done there was not a dry eye in the theater. 

CHARDONNAY TRAILER 2011

So after realizing that I did not have the time to write my own similar peice and replace it, I contacted Doug and told him the story and offered him the soul composing rights to the movie when we get funded.

Nevada City Film Festival

I remember back in 2005 when I finished Paint, not an award winner by any chance, but proud what we did on it, well I heard that Nevada City had a film festival.  So I looked into it and first of they wanted the movie on MiniDV.  What?  So I never turned it in.

FORWARD to today, 2011, or at least to June of 2011 when we actually got a few responses from someone answering the FF email.  I mentioned that I wanted to submit my 42 minute version of THE GOLdEN TREE and he said drop it by, I told him I was local which is why he said drop it by the Magic Theater instead of mailing…

Anyway, I told him that I wanted to go through the proper channels to get legal IMDB credits and replied with a local fee wavier code. THIS WAS GREAT!!!  So I dropped off a copy, no one was there, the door was closed, so I put underneath the door.

Well, weeks later I got no confirmation that anyone received it so I sent an email; 7 days later I get a message from withoutabox that I now can put up an imdb page for the THE GOLdEN TREE.  But still nothing from the Nevada City Film Festival.

Tamara starts keeping and eye on their site to see if there is news about who they have chosen.  I keep sending emails to ask if they have watched it, selected it, or threw it out — anything really just some news — and nothing.  In fact, it was two weeks before the start of  the festival and their website was still showing things from last year.

Now it has started and I find out that this kid that won $40,000 from AJA has his movie in. Well of course. He’s buddies with the snobby little tv and film world up here.  Not saying his movie is not good enough, in fact I saw it as a SMPTE meeting at the Magic Theater with probably the Nevada City Film Festival social club, and it was good.

My point is AVOID this FF either going to it or sending anything in.  It is my second time trying it and you would think maybe they might play a movie by someone local about local things.  It’s not a bad movie, not an award winner by any means, but it is well put together and deserves a chance to be viewed.

But the biggest thing that I am upset about is I did not receive any further correspondence from them about my questions, concerns, or inquiries.  This shows a lack of care and professionalism and proves that they are a small, amateurish, snobby, little hole in the wall festival.