If the film community had a town crier (and why don’t we have one, anyway?) he or she would be wandering the cobblestone streets with a hand bell delivering this message:

“Here ye, here ye, local feature Phasma Ex Machina to go to IFP Narrative Labs in New York City! Here ye, here ye!”

And why would the Film Community Crier be walking the streets with that message? Because Phasma is one of only ten films in the country to be accepted to the program. The Lab, as it’s referred to, provides filmmakers with five days of mentorship, technical advice and support from industry experts. In other words, it’s totally rad.

The film’s writer and director, Matt Osterman, producer, Jennifer Kramer and co-producer/title designer, Jon Thomas will be in New York from June 8th through the 12th to work with their editing mentor, Lee Percy (Boys Don’t Cry, Maria Full of Grace, Single White Female). Originally, the team planned to have finished the final cut of the movie by June 4th. They had already completed color correction and a sound mix. But then they found out they were going to the Lab. “Our post partners (Darin Heinis at Aaron/Stokes and everybody over at Crash+Sues) have been incredibly supportive and totally open to the process of attending the IFP Lab with an open mind,” Matt Osterman said. “We all decided that if we get great feedback from the Lab that we’ll get back and re-open the edit if necessary.  Of course, this could mean a slight re-do of the color correction, sound design, score, and sound mix.  But we all want to see the best movie possible and no one has wavered from this position.”

While in New York, they will also consult with Alan T. Chan (Half-Life) about “festival world” and marketing the film.

Acceptance into the program is just one achievement out of several that point to the fact that the film is headed for great things. Osterman was one of seven nominees for the McKnight Fellowship for Screenwriters last year for the Phasma script. And when they put the trailer online back in March, they had websites all over the world talking about it and sharing the video within two days. They experienced a tremendous rush of interest; festivals and sales agents swamped them with requests for the film. But Osterman, speaking like a true Minnesotan, warns that no one has seen the finished product yet so it may all be a moot point. “I think everyone got excited because they saw a spooky flick that didn’t fall back on cheap gags and or talk down to them,” he said. “I’ve found there’s a big subset of movie fans who abhor things like the Saw franchise and are desperate for smart supernatural fare.  It seems most people pinned the trailer as a Primer-meets-The Six Sense.  I’d say that’s pretty close to accurate in the most obvious way.”

So when can we see the film in Minnesota? It’s too soon to tell. They had hoped to have a festival premiere in late summer or early fall of 09  and then a local premiere in October. Now they will wait to see what wisdom Chan can offer them at the Lab. “They bring in numerous people who’ve been through this many times before and can really help cut through all the BS advice that’s floating out there,” Osterman said. “Our producing mentor premiered a movie called “Half-Life” at Sundance last year.  From the looks of it, he’ll serve as our general counsel and act as a sounding board for our many questions.  I’m excited to meet him.”

Osterman is largely a self-taught screenwriter and director. He graduated from the University of Minnesota with a degree in Rhetoric and Scientific and Technical Communication. After  graduating college, he eventually taught himself how to write screenplays and, once he felt competent in that, started to direct his own shorts. “Once I got decent at that, I decided to make the leap to a feature. In the meantime, I helped work on a National Geographic magazine cover story and that gave me the confidence that I could accomplish big audacious goals,” he said. He went on to  produce a documentary that Jon Stewart executive produced and it aired nationally on SpikeTV.  “It was after that gig that I wrote the script for Phasma Ex Machina and began the long laborious process to bring it to the screen (with TONS of help of course),” he said.

Tags: IFP Narrative Lab, independent feature film, Jennifer Kramer, Jon Thomas, Matt Osterman, Minnesota, Phasma Ex Machina

This post was written by Rebecca Collins, Thursday, June 4th, 2009 at 3:40 pm and is filed under Directing, Film Production, Headlines, Interviews, News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.