Fanny's on Facebook

Well, I've begun serious work on Fanny's story and ran across her facebook page last night! According to Joy Frisch Lewis, who started the page, "My niece (who is 38) and I had been talking about Fanny and trips to Slater Park, so I decided to do it [start the page]."
Rght now I'm trying to contact several of the posters to see if we can talk about their memories of Fanny.
Check it out at
http://www.facebook.com/#!/group.php?gid=117477074949195&v=wall

What came after...

Premiere Day went off without a hitch. The Museum was stuffed (forgive the pun) and we went into a second showing of Roger for an overflow crowd. I was honored to see that even the elephant manager from the zoo, Jen Warmbold, was there! Unfortunately, I didn't know she was in the audience until after the show was over. If I'd known, I would have called her up to field questions from the crowd.

Since then, I've given two interviews with local reporters who are interested in the project as a whole. They asked some great questions and I'm eager to see the results of our conversations in their next issues at The Jamestown Press and The South County Independent.

Roger's video is now available on Amazon.com, which is pretty thrilling, and the book that goes with it, The Ballad of Baby Roger is available from me personally (I'll even autograph it for you!) at tapit@ care2.com.

Premiere Day!

Tomorrow is Roger's premiere at the Museum of Natural History in Providence. This is all very exciting for me and for the others who are involved. Because the actors all worked for credits, this is my chance to give back to them by making them all stars! (I wish I had a red carpet for them!)

The Ballad of Baby Roger is now available on DVD at Amazon.com, right alongside of "The Ballad of Easy Rider" and a three CD boxed set of "Memories" by Elvis. Quite the company!

The first viewer reviews are in and included this kudo from Chicago- Great story, well told, and nicely put together.

The weather report for tomorrow is dicey. Snow is supposed to be coming in at precisely the few hours we need for the premiere and set up, etc. I'm crossing my eyes and fingers that the weathermen, who are so often wrong, will get it wrong this time...

Updates, updates, updates....

Best news in the world for The Ballad of Baby Roger!

Everything has been finished, the premiere is ready to happen, RI International Film Festival has accepted the application to consider it for their festival, the duplicates are being made, I will get the preview copy of the disc from the video on demand source that will make it possible to buy Roger from the web, the RI Film Collaborative gave it good marks when it was reviewed there, the IMDB (Imdb.com) has granted Roger its own page (and me and all my cast and crew as well) and, as of today, Rhode Island PBS has notified me they're happy to broadcast Roger once I finish jumping through all their hoops!

It is a long and sometimes frustrating process, but it feels good to see Roger in public.

And I have begun serious work on the story of Fanny the elephant! Her film will be called, "Uproar in Pawtucket".

Correction-

We

I have now nailed in the final arrangements for Roger's premiere. It will definitely be at 1PM on Monday, President's Day, at the Museum of Natural History at Roger Williams Park. I'm very excited about this and hope to see everyone there.
In the meantime, I'm doing the final tweaks on the film itself(the music, at last, arrived...) and will be sending a disc to the duplicators ASAP. One of the things I've had to do to get ready to send the baby pachyderm on his festival round is to make a press packet. I've finished that, and one of the items requested is a production still, a photo showing a scene of how Roger got made. I've included it here. Enjoy!
Keep your eyes peeled for more info.

The Year of the Elephant!

Everything has been going swimmingly these days.
We've got the date for the grand premiere scheduled at the Roger Williams Park Museum. It's February 21st, President's Day, and what a great way to celebrate it will be.
Still waiting for the final music to come through, though I do have a plan B if necessary. The composer PROMISES me I'll have the score by the end of the year.
And speaking of the end of the year, I'd like to wish everyone a happiest of holidays and huge thanks for making this project come through.
Here's to Baby Roger in the New Year! Let 2011 be the year of the elephant!

Ta-da!

The final cut of Roger is finished, and even has a workable score on it, though the final version of the music is still at the composer's... I am delighted. It's gotten good reviews from those who've seen it, including the members of the RI Film Collaborative up in Pawtucket, who made a few tweaking suggestions, but agreed it was pretty decent.

RI PBS has expressed interest in seeing it for possible airing, the official premiere is set for February 23rd at the Roger Williams Park Museum, and I'm trying to find a place for the wrap party next month.

I've also printed booklets with the whole story of Roger, including the stuff that got left on the cutting room floor. So the creative stuff is finished and the business stuff is kicking in. It's been hard, oddly enough, to accept the fact that I don't have to work on the film now. Somehow I keep saying "there are just a few more things to do." That's true of the business end, of course, like letter writing, marketing, etc., but the film itself is actually DONE!!!

Now to move on to the next in the series- "Uproar in Pawtucket; the Story of Fanny the Elephant."