deadCENTER film festival 2008 starts!
deadCENTER Film Festival begins
Journal Record
June 11, 2008
OKLAHOMA CITY – What started seven years ago as an effort to spark some local interest in the film industry has turned into a popular addition to the downtown setting.
The deadCENTER Film Festival began in 2001 and will begin another run today at various venues in the downtown area. It began as a one-day event and has turned into a five-day festival and will run through Sunday.
Kim Haywood, chief operations officer of deadCENTER, has watched it grow and anticipates about 6,000 people to attend the program. Haywood said deadCENTER will have over 100 films, some the feature variety and some considered short films.“We’ve gone from one venue to eight throughout downtown, and we’ve added a panel and workshop series that we consider kind of a mini-camp for filmmakers,” Haywood said.
“Our numbers have really increased and what we’ll have is a nice mix of local people and as many visiting filmmakers as possible.”A composer from Los Angeles will discuss musical scores and the operator of Indy Go Go will share alternative ways of funding films, and they’ll be joined by several more professionals who specialize in various areas.
The filmmakers involved in this year’s festival took from one day on up to three years to make their films, which range from a few minutes to full-length features.“We have one film, The New Year Parade, which is a beautiful narrative feature that took filmmakers three years to make,” Haywood said. “The films vary in costs from hundreds of dollars to hundreds of thousands of dollars.”The deadCENTER Film Festival has kept its innocence despite its growth, Haywood said. Not all are that way, she added.“The example a lot of people give is of the Sundance Festival and how it’s sort of changed from a being a space where people can come and enjoy independent films and meet with filmmakers into an incredibly sponsor-heavy, almost corporate party place,” she said. “We created this as an outlet for independent filmmakers here in Oklahoma to gather and network and talk about films. I think we’ve successfully done that. We’ve added our parties and special events, but our primary focus is showcasing these films and giving people a platform where they can not only watch these films but afterward speak with the filmmakers about their processes.”
The deadCENTER festival invites anyone with an interest, she said. “Another reason we stand out is that we don’t exclude people,” she said. “This is really a festival where anyone can come and meet and greet with filmmakers. I don’t think we’ve lost that goal at all.”Haywood said deadCENTER is a nonprofit business funded through individual sponsorships.
One of its venues – the Kerr Auditorium owned by SandRidge Energy – was donated for the event, and others are rented, including the Oklahoma City Museum of Art, Harkins Bricktown theater, Independent Artists of Oklahoma, the Ronald J. Norick Downtown Library, and outdoor venues at Lee and Sheridan avenues and at Third Street and E.K. Gaylord Avenue.
Tickets are $100 for all-access passes, $50 for screening passes and $10 for individual films. The deadCENTER organizers will take a short breather after the final day of the festival on Sunday. But then they will be back to it.“The festival itself is a year-around operation,” she said. “After the festival we evaluate and see what we could do better for next year. Then we start planning in July or August. We contact venues and open up submissions for films. It takes almost a year just to plan these festivals.”
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