"Running Funny" will be screening at the 10th Annual Method Fest on Sunday, March 30th at 4pm. If you live nearby please go check out our WEST COAST PREMIERE!! Visit www.methodfest.com for more info.
-Anthony
Monday, March 17, 2008
Thursday, February 28, 2008
Two Things
First I'd like to announce that "Running Funny" will be screening at the Lake Arrowhead Film Festival in Blue Jay, California in April. I hear it's beautiful out there, so I'm looking forward to going.
Second, my new short film "Skeeball" is finished! I watched it with Gene last night and we are both really happy with it. It's a sweet little movie that we worked really hard on and I'm very proud of it. We're probably going to submit to a few festivals, and then put it on the internet for everyone to enjoy! Stay tuned.
-Anthony
Second, my new short film "Skeeball" is finished! I watched it with Gene last night and we are both really happy with it. It's a sweet little movie that we worked really hard on and I'm very proud of it. We're probably going to submit to a few festivals, and then put it on the internet for everyone to enjoy! Stay tuned.
-Anthony
Wednesday, February 6, 2008
Festival News!!
I will be announcing some exciting festival news very soon!! In the meantime, go see No Country For Old Men and There Will Be Blood -- the two best movies of the year.
-Anthony
-Anthony
Saturday, January 19, 2008
From Here to Awesome
Over the last several weeks I've been doing a lot of thinking about how to get Running Funny out into the world. Film festivals are great to gain exposure and to talk to people about your film, but in terms of acquiring theatrical distribution, it's still extremely difficult to break through unless you get into a festival like Sundance or Toronto, and even then only a few films are lucky enough to get distribution. So how the heck do I get people to see the film that I worked so hard on for 2 years? I think the answer is online.
There is a new online film festival called From Here to Awesome and once you submit your film, audiences vote how "awesome" your movie is. The top ten features get some sort of distribution. Anyway, the point of this festival is that is democratizes distribution so you can build as big of an audience as you want. I think it's a really great idea and I intend to sign up. It's interesting how the internet and sites like myspace and youtube are changing the way we access music and movies. You don't have to leave your home anymore to discover new talent. It's all right there in front of you. It's give the power back to the artists who can build their own fan base without having permission from a record company or a movie studio to do so.
Having realized the potential the internet offers a no-budget film like "Running Funny," I intend to follow where the market is going (online) and I hope to bring the film to as many different people as possible. Stay tuned!
-Anthony
There is a new online film festival called From Here to Awesome and once you submit your film, audiences vote how "awesome" your movie is. The top ten features get some sort of distribution. Anyway, the point of this festival is that is democratizes distribution so you can build as big of an audience as you want. I think it's a really great idea and I intend to sign up. It's interesting how the internet and sites like myspace and youtube are changing the way we access music and movies. You don't have to leave your home anymore to discover new talent. It's all right there in front of you. It's give the power back to the artists who can build their own fan base without having permission from a record company or a movie studio to do so.
Having realized the potential the internet offers a no-budget film like "Running Funny," I intend to follow where the market is going (online) and I hope to bring the film to as many different people as possible. Stay tuned!
-Anthony
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
I'm Back!
I know it's been a while since my last blog, but I've made a new year's resolution to post more regularly and I intend to keep it. Over the last two months I've been focusing on other projects while waiting to hear back from a few festivals, which is why I didn't keep up the blog.
I shot a short film called "Skeeball" with Gene Gallerano that I am beginning to edit now. I'm hoping to have it finished within the next two to three weeks. I'm working with a new editor, Dan Solel, and I think the film is going to turn out really well. Gene and I have also been writing a feature film screenplay together. It's about an estranged father and son who find themselves on a road trip together. It's essentially about two strangers who try to reconnect and I'm really excited about it. If all goes according to plan I'll be shooting that with Gene in the starring role sometime in the next year, so keep your fingers crossed!
I plan to continue the "Running Funny College Tour" this semester with tentative screenings at Syracuse University and George Washington University. Running Funny will also be screening at the Contemporary Arts Center in Princeton, NJ on March 14th. Stay tuned for more information about upcoming screenings.
Also, look for an article about Charles Evered in the new issue of New Jersey Life on newsstands January 15th.
My other new year's resolution is to finally learn to play the guitar. I intend to keep that one too.
-Anthony
I shot a short film called "Skeeball" with Gene Gallerano that I am beginning to edit now. I'm hoping to have it finished within the next two to three weeks. I'm working with a new editor, Dan Solel, and I think the film is going to turn out really well. Gene and I have also been writing a feature film screenplay together. It's about an estranged father and son who find themselves on a road trip together. It's essentially about two strangers who try to reconnect and I'm really excited about it. If all goes according to plan I'll be shooting that with Gene in the starring role sometime in the next year, so keep your fingers crossed!
I plan to continue the "Running Funny College Tour" this semester with tentative screenings at Syracuse University and George Washington University. Running Funny will also be screening at the Contemporary Arts Center in Princeton, NJ on March 14th. Stay tuned for more information about upcoming screenings.
Also, look for an article about Charles Evered in the new issue of New Jersey Life on newsstands January 15th.
My other new year's resolution is to finally learn to play the guitar. I intend to keep that one too.
-Anthony
Friday, November 9, 2007
PRESS!
A new article came out in the Princeton Packet in anticipation of our New Jersey Film Festival screening next Friday. I pasted it below, but there is also a link to the article in the "Press" section of my blog.
DIY Cinema
‘Running Funny,’ about two friends just out of college, presents the same state of confusion its maker faced when he first read the play by his uncle Charles Evered.
By Elise Nakhnikian
On first impression, Anthony Grippa strikes you as a likeable, somewhat diffident guy, as much a watcher as a doer. But he obviously knows how to get things done: His first feature is one of the homegrown movies being shown at this year’s New Jersey Film Festival in New Brunswick.
The film is Running Funny, and it’s part of the crop of extremely low-budget, do-it-yourself features by young filmmakers with a prosumer (professional consumer) video camera and a story to tell. “I decided two or three years ago that I’d get a day job and make my life about getting this film made,” says Mr. Grippa, 25. “I watched as more and more of my friends started making more money and getting cool cars and apartments. But I have this film, which to me is a lot more valuable.”
Based on a play by Princeton-based playwright Charles Evered — who’s also Mr. Grippa’s uncle — Running Funny tells the story of Ed (Gene Gallerano) and Mike (Maximilian Osinski), friends just out of college who rent a garage together for a few weeks from a wise elderly landlord (Louis Zorich) while trying to figure out what to do with their lives.
Grippa read the play after graduating from Rutgers, when he was living in the same state of confusion as Mike and Ed. He contacted the man he calls “Uncle Chuck,” who has written movies as well as theatrical plays, and proposed that they turn his 1988 play into a screenplay.
The two agreed not to stray far from the play’s script. “We didn’t want to open it up too much to become something completely different, because the heart of the story is these two guys living in this small apartment-garage,” explains Mr. Grippa. “Also, we knew we couldn’t afford to open it up too much, since we’d need to shoot most of it in that one location.”
Mr. Grippa grew up in Upper Saddle River with his psychotherapist mother and two younger sisters. (His father, who runs a business in the Fulton Fish Market, lives with a second wife and their two children.) For the last couple of years, he’s been living in Hoboken, working a day job at the Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education, and making and marketing this film on his time off.
”I didn’t want to write a script and wait for somebody to give me $5 million to make a movie, because it just wasn’t going to happen,” says Mr. Grippa, who started making short movies in high school. “I wanted to just grab a camera and go do it. I think when you have less resources available, you really learn how creative you can be.”
Making his first feature was a much bigger production than making those high school shorts — but it was essentially the same process on steroids. The most important thing, Mr. Grippa says, was “just committing to it, saying ‘This is what I want to do with my life.’
”I’m the co-writer, I’m the co-producer, I’m the director, I’m the marketing guy, I’m the caterer, I’m the sales guy. It’s basically the best film school I could ask for.”
Making the movie was “definitely a grassroots process,” he says. The key to success was telling everyone he came across about what he was doing, since “you never know who might want to help you out.”
The whole thing cost only $10,000, which he raised from “friends and family, and friends of friends and family. No amount was too small. Some people gave 20 bucks; some people gave 1,000 bucks.”
Other things were donated too. He found the garage where they shot in Upper Saddle River after his hometown paper ran a story on the movie and a reader called to offer his garage, free of charge. “It was the first one we looked at, and it was perfect,” Mr. Grippa marvels.
An indie filmmaker operating on a shoestring has to be “a great communicator,” he adds. “You have to be able to get people as passionate as you are about what you’re trying to do.”
For his cast and crew, he rounded up a group of people, most of them also starting out their movie careers, who volunteered their time in exchange for adding a feature to their resumes. Mr. Grippa was hardly the only one who did more than one job. “The gaffer was also the sound guy; the grip was also helping out with wardrobe,” he says. “Everyone was wearing many different hats. I think everyone was working on it for two reasons: because they really cared about the story and to gain experience.”
For the actors who play Mike and Ed, there was a third reason: “the chance to work with Louis Zorich. They couldn’t turn that down,” says Mr. Grippa.
Mr. Zorich, who plays the landlord, is best known for his role as Paul Reiser’s character’s father on TV’s Mad About You and for co-founding the Whole Theater in Montclair with his wife, actress Olympia Dukakis. “Louis became involved because he was in my uncle’s play ‘The Size of the World’ about 10 years ago when it ran off-Broadway,” says Mr. Grippa.
”In a way, making the movie was the easy part,” continues Mr. Grippa. “The hard part is getting people to care about it. How do you get them to see it?”
Hoping to interest a distributor in putting the movie into theaters or on DVD, Mr. Grippa submitted it to film festivals. So far, it’s been accepted by three, including the Woods Hole Film Festival, where he won the emerging filmmaker award. He does advance publicity for festivals, plastering area coffee shops with flyers, contacting the media for stories like this one, and “telling everyone I see about the movie.”
And he doesn’t stop with film festivals. “I’ve done all this work for two years, so why do I want to put the life of this movie in the hands of these festival programmers?” he asks. So he’s also screening it at colleges that accept his offer to show the movie and answer questions afterward.
”I think you become a filmmaker by making films,” says Mr. Grippa. “I made my feature film for a third of the cost of one year of tuition at NYU film school. The technology is so accessible — it’s all digital now. You just need a desire to do it and a camera.
”The bad thing is, since more and more people are making films it becomes more difficult to break through the pack.”
Running Funny will be screened as part of the Jersey Fresh film and video program at the New Jersey Film Festival, Scott Hall #123, 43 College Ave. (near the corner of College Avenue and Hamilton Street), Rutgers University, New Brunswick, Nov. 16, 7 p.m. Director Anthony Grippa will speak at the screening. Admission costs $10, $9 seniors/students; (732) 932-8482; www.njfilmfest.com
DIY Cinema
‘Running Funny,’ about two friends just out of college, presents the same state of confusion its maker faced when he first read the play by his uncle Charles Evered.
By Elise Nakhnikian
On first impression, Anthony Grippa strikes you as a likeable, somewhat diffident guy, as much a watcher as a doer. But he obviously knows how to get things done: His first feature is one of the homegrown movies being shown at this year’s New Jersey Film Festival in New Brunswick.
The film is Running Funny, and it’s part of the crop of extremely low-budget, do-it-yourself features by young filmmakers with a prosumer (professional consumer) video camera and a story to tell. “I decided two or three years ago that I’d get a day job and make my life about getting this film made,” says Mr. Grippa, 25. “I watched as more and more of my friends started making more money and getting cool cars and apartments. But I have this film, which to me is a lot more valuable.”
Based on a play by Princeton-based playwright Charles Evered — who’s also Mr. Grippa’s uncle — Running Funny tells the story of Ed (Gene Gallerano) and Mike (Maximilian Osinski), friends just out of college who rent a garage together for a few weeks from a wise elderly landlord (Louis Zorich) while trying to figure out what to do with their lives.
Grippa read the play after graduating from Rutgers, when he was living in the same state of confusion as Mike and Ed. He contacted the man he calls “Uncle Chuck,” who has written movies as well as theatrical plays, and proposed that they turn his 1988 play into a screenplay.
The two agreed not to stray far from the play’s script. “We didn’t want to open it up too much to become something completely different, because the heart of the story is these two guys living in this small apartment-garage,” explains Mr. Grippa. “Also, we knew we couldn’t afford to open it up too much, since we’d need to shoot most of it in that one location.”
Mr. Grippa grew up in Upper Saddle River with his psychotherapist mother and two younger sisters. (His father, who runs a business in the Fulton Fish Market, lives with a second wife and their two children.) For the last couple of years, he’s been living in Hoboken, working a day job at the Lincoln Center Institute for the Arts in Education, and making and marketing this film on his time off.
”I didn’t want to write a script and wait for somebody to give me $5 million to make a movie, because it just wasn’t going to happen,” says Mr. Grippa, who started making short movies in high school. “I wanted to just grab a camera and go do it. I think when you have less resources available, you really learn how creative you can be.”
Making his first feature was a much bigger production than making those high school shorts — but it was essentially the same process on steroids. The most important thing, Mr. Grippa says, was “just committing to it, saying ‘This is what I want to do with my life.’
”I’m the co-writer, I’m the co-producer, I’m the director, I’m the marketing guy, I’m the caterer, I’m the sales guy. It’s basically the best film school I could ask for.”
Making the movie was “definitely a grassroots process,” he says. The key to success was telling everyone he came across about what he was doing, since “you never know who might want to help you out.”
The whole thing cost only $10,000, which he raised from “friends and family, and friends of friends and family. No amount was too small. Some people gave 20 bucks; some people gave 1,000 bucks.”
Other things were donated too. He found the garage where they shot in Upper Saddle River after his hometown paper ran a story on the movie and a reader called to offer his garage, free of charge. “It was the first one we looked at, and it was perfect,” Mr. Grippa marvels.
An indie filmmaker operating on a shoestring has to be “a great communicator,” he adds. “You have to be able to get people as passionate as you are about what you’re trying to do.”
For his cast and crew, he rounded up a group of people, most of them also starting out their movie careers, who volunteered their time in exchange for adding a feature to their resumes. Mr. Grippa was hardly the only one who did more than one job. “The gaffer was also the sound guy; the grip was also helping out with wardrobe,” he says. “Everyone was wearing many different hats. I think everyone was working on it for two reasons: because they really cared about the story and to gain experience.”
For the actors who play Mike and Ed, there was a third reason: “the chance to work with Louis Zorich. They couldn’t turn that down,” says Mr. Grippa.
Mr. Zorich, who plays the landlord, is best known for his role as Paul Reiser’s character’s father on TV’s Mad About You and for co-founding the Whole Theater in Montclair with his wife, actress Olympia Dukakis. “Louis became involved because he was in my uncle’s play ‘The Size of the World’ about 10 years ago when it ran off-Broadway,” says Mr. Grippa.
”In a way, making the movie was the easy part,” continues Mr. Grippa. “The hard part is getting people to care about it. How do you get them to see it?”
Hoping to interest a distributor in putting the movie into theaters or on DVD, Mr. Grippa submitted it to film festivals. So far, it’s been accepted by three, including the Woods Hole Film Festival, where he won the emerging filmmaker award. He does advance publicity for festivals, plastering area coffee shops with flyers, contacting the media for stories like this one, and “telling everyone I see about the movie.”
And he doesn’t stop with film festivals. “I’ve done all this work for two years, so why do I want to put the life of this movie in the hands of these festival programmers?” he asks. So he’s also screening it at colleges that accept his offer to show the movie and answer questions afterward.
”I think you become a filmmaker by making films,” says Mr. Grippa. “I made my feature film for a third of the cost of one year of tuition at NYU film school. The technology is so accessible — it’s all digital now. You just need a desire to do it and a camera.
”The bad thing is, since more and more people are making films it becomes more difficult to break through the pack.”
Running Funny will be screened as part of the Jersey Fresh film and video program at the New Jersey Film Festival, Scott Hall #123, 43 College Ave. (near the corner of College Avenue and Hamilton Street), Rutgers University, New Brunswick, Nov. 16, 7 p.m. Director Anthony Grippa will speak at the screening. Admission costs $10, $9 seniors/students; (732) 932-8482; www.njfilmfest.com
Tuesday, October 30, 2007
Back from Williamstown!
I got back from the Williamstown Film Festival on Sunday, and we had a great time! We woke up early on Saturday morning to participate in the "Theater Into Film" breakfast seminar. It was cool to hear everyone's experience making the film and it definately brought back a lot of memories from the shoot.
Louis was absolutely hilarious! Apparently he turned down a major role in Steven Spielberg's next movie in order to do Running Funny. I think he was kidding. Louis is the greatest guy and I feel really lucky that I got a chance to work with him.
Our screening went really well and we did a Q&A afterwards and everyone had nice things to say. I was really happy that the cast was there with me. There was a feeling of comraderie among us that was really nice.
On Saturday night we all went to the "Grace is Gone" screening. What a powerful film. I really appreciated the spareness of it. It was refreshing to see such a subtle and moving film. I got a chance to speak to the director, James Strouse, afterwards and told him how much I enjoyed his work. He actually heard about Running Funny and said he was interested in seeing it!
So anyway, back to the real world. We're screening at the New Jersey Film Festival on November 16th and hopefully many other festivals after that.
Stay tuned...
-Anthony
Louis was absolutely hilarious! Apparently he turned down a major role in Steven Spielberg's next movie in order to do Running Funny. I think he was kidding. Louis is the greatest guy and I feel really lucky that I got a chance to work with him.
Our screening went really well and we did a Q&A afterwards and everyone had nice things to say. I was really happy that the cast was there with me. There was a feeling of comraderie among us that was really nice.
On Saturday night we all went to the "Grace is Gone" screening. What a powerful film. I really appreciated the spareness of it. It was refreshing to see such a subtle and moving film. I got a chance to speak to the director, James Strouse, afterwards and told him how much I enjoyed his work. He actually heard about Running Funny and said he was interested in seeing it!
So anyway, back to the real world. We're screening at the New Jersey Film Festival on November 16th and hopefully many other festivals after that.
Stay tuned...
-Anthony
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