34th CIFF Promotional Trailers

Cleveland film lovers were the stars of the film festival promotional trailers this year. We asked people to complete the sentence: "...because of the Cleveland International Film Festival" and about 350 people sent in their thoughts. We invited about 100 people to the 2-day shoot, and the results are funny, clever, thoughtful, emotional, and more. SHOOT magazine honored the :30 spots in their Best Work You May Never See column in their publication. The best news? This was a record-breaking festival in almost every way: attendance was 71,554 over the 10-day event.

Thanks to everyone who helped make it all a huge success, and a special thanks to the film crew who donated time, equipment and resources to produce the promo trailers, seven versions in all:

Directed by Kevin Kerwin

Editor Jon LaGuardia

Co-Director of Photography John Turk

Co-Director of Photography Jon LaGuardia

Producer Grace Nowak

Associate Producer Bob Stefanov

Assistant Director Matthew T.

2nd A.D. Robert Ruggeri

Location Manager William Garvey

Gaffer Donnie Schneider

Key Grip Keith Nickoson

Grip and Projectionist Rick Stern

Sound Recordist Kip Gynn

Makeup Artist Kylee Nicole Cook

Makeup Artist Danielle Muad'Dib

Translators: Shizuka Ochiai, Walter Centuori, Helen W. France

Original music written and performed by Michael Seifert and Dave Padrutt recorded and mixed at Ante Up Audio (Cleveland, Ohio)

Studio courtesy of Center for Creative Arts, Cuyahoga Community College Metro Campus, special thanks to Inda Blatch-Geib

Equipment provided by Phantom Power Grip and Electric, Colortone Staging and Rentals, Fusion Filmworks, Authentic Films, and Dodd Camera

Film transfer by Technicolor, special thanks to Rick Hannigan

Duplication by Videodub International, special thanks to Fadi Kdayssi

Production note: these were shot with the new Canon ID Mark IV and blown up to 35mm film, as well as output to HD files. We were thrilled with the final product and Colortone did a great job projecting them. While the Canon HDSLRs are not the answer for every challenge, they are a tremendous benefit to a project like this one, and the film print was gorgeous. Thanks to Rick Hannigan at Technicolor Toronto for attention to detail with the film.