Monday, 11/9 - HDSIFF Recap
Never before have two people sat through as many consecutive hours of film as we did this past weekend. Such is the nature of a short film festival so overrun with films that they need an extra day to show them all. This was the case with the High Desert Shorts International Film Festival in Pahrump Nevada; held November 6th to the 8th. It was, as many of you know, the first festival to accept one of our films and we flew down this past weekend to be there for the showing. The weekend was both exhilarating and exhausting, consisting of more films than you could wrap your head around, but also lots of talented filmmakers with unique and ambitious visions. The highlight of the weekend was meeting many of these filmmakers and exchanging ideas, as well as, of course, seeing our film up on the big screen. It was well received and it is one of the proudest moments of our young film company.
Sunday, 10/18 - Sentinel Films' First Film Festival
We recently received word that our most recent short film, One Day, was accepted into its first film festival. This is very big news for Sentinel Films as it is our first film to be accepted into a film festival. After our debut short film, Success?, made it through to the final round of selection at one of the festivals it was submitted to, having our second short film accepted into a festival is both very gratifying and incredibly exciting. The film festival One Day was accepted into is the High Desert Shorts International Film Festival in Nevada, which takes place from November 6th to the 7th. We are very excited and are looking forward to the world premiere of One Day. We would like to thank everyone who was involved in the making of this film. You all made this possible and being accepted into this festival is a tribute to the hard work everyone put in. We know that you’re only as good as those around you and we are lucky to be surrounded by some very talented and hard working individuals. We hope this is the first of many festivals for this film (we submitted the film to 12 festivals in total) and will keep everyone up to date with the latest news.
Monday, 9/14 - Broken Release
We have finished editing Broken and have released it to the public. We have made it available both on our website as well as on YouTube. Click here to view our YouTube page, where you will find the video posted. Let us know what you think, we always enjoy hearing feedback. Having completed this project, we look to move forward with our next short film, which we will announce shortly. Stay tuned!
Wednesday, 8/19 - Broken
Sentinel Films has officially announced its next project. With this next project, titled Broken, we will be dealing with the hotly debated issue of health care. This short piece takes a look at the impact our current health care system can have on everyday families, from all walks of life. As this issue is very current, we are putting this project on the fast track and will be shooting it this coming weekend. To read more about this project, check out the Broken project page.
Saturday, 8/15 - Sentinel Films on Facebook
We have officially released the Sentinel Films Facebook page. This page will have much of the same content as our website, as well as some photos from our recent short films. We will also have updates about all our upcoming events on our Facebook page. If you have a Facebook profile, check out the Sentinel Films page.
Wednesday, 8/5 - New Website Design:
We have made some changes to our website, as you can see. We consolidated the News section with the Updates section, making one section with more detailed updates. This will give people a more in depth look at what happens at Sentinel Films as we continue work on our current project and move forward with future ones. We have also made a few tweaks to our other pages, such as putting the preview for our latest film, One Day, on the homepage. We feel that these changes have improved our site and made it more accessible for people interested in our work. As always, we would love to hear what you think.
Wednesday, 7/1 - Sentinel Films Comes to YouTube:
We are happy to announce that we have made the previews for our two most recent films, One Day and Success?, available on YouTube. You can find them through our account, SentinelFilmsTM, or by searching for the title of the film. If you like our work, become a fan!
MAY
This past month Sentinel Films continued to move forward. We announced our next film, One Day, and spent the month gearing up to shoot it. Shooting is scheduled for early June. We also screened Success? for the cast, crew, and a few friends. Everyone had a good time and we’re glad we were able to get such a large audience for the screening. We need to thank John Struble for helping us get a place to show the film; a beautiful room at BU. We have received a lot of requests for DVD copies of the film and are filling them as fast as we can. If you have not gotten a chance to see Success? and would like to, let us know and we will send you a DVD. June looks to be another exciting month for Sentinel Films, as we expect to be nearing the completion of One Day at the end of the month. We will make sure to keep everyone updated along the way.
APRIL
The month of April saw the final touches being put on Success? and the film festival submission process being completed. In total we have submitted the film to 10 film festivals. We will be sure to keep everyone up to date about how the submission process goes. We are working to set up a screening for Success? and will let everyone know when and where that is once it is set. In addition to this, we have begun working on our next project, which we will be officially announcing in the coming weeks. We will be focusing on this project in the month of May and plan to begin production in the beginning of June. As always, we will be sure to keep everyone updated on our progress.
MARCH
The same trend continues for Sentinel Films. March was yet another very productive and exciting month. Most of March was spent editing Success?, our first short film. By the end of March we had a rough cut of the film, and expect to have it finished by early April. During the month of March the team also did some work with a score artist, Tony Diana, who wrote some nice pieces of music for Success?. Towards the end of the month, we started creating a list of film festivals that we will be submitting Success? to. We will keep everyone up to date on how this process goes. On a less exciting note, we received news that our last film, Project: Revelation, did not get accepted into the Independent Film Festival of Boston. However, the good news is that the project will soon be available on our website for all to see. It should be up soon and we look forward to hearing feedback from those of you who have yet to see the film. And as always, if you have any comments for us, regarding one of our films or anything else, you can always get in touch with us by visiting the Contact page.
FEBRUARY 2009
The past month was both exhausting and exhilarating for everyone at Sentinel Films. The month was spent working on Success?, our most important film to date. After working hard doing pre-production work in the beginning of the month, we shot the film over two weekends in the middle of the month. It was our largest shoot yet, and with the help of an amazing cast and crew, it went quite well. During the last week of the month we moved into the post-production phase of the project and as February drew to a close, we were just about finished with a rough cut of the film. We look forward to the coming month and the completion of the film, as well as the start of our next one.
JANUARY 2009
January was a busy month for Sentinel Films. After finishing Sentinel Films 101, at the end of December, we moved on to our first post-Sentinel Films 101 short film. This film, titled Success?, has been our primary focus during the past month. January also saw plenty of firsts. We held our first auditions, we have our first costume designer, first set designer, and hopefully, our first DP. In summary, it has been a very exciting month for Sentinel Films, one that signifies our growth as we push towards meeting our goals. We look forward to February, which will see the production of Success? Wish us luck, and we will keep everyone updated on our progress.
DECEMBER 2008
December marks a great month in the history of our Company. This was the month that saw the conclusion of Sentinel Films 101, which, as you already know, was a project dedicated to the growth and development of the creators of Sentinel Films. After the conclusion of Project: Revelation, the third and final part of Sentinel Films 101, the team is now confident it can go out and meet all of our goals. As the Young Boy says in Project: Revelation: this is the beginning. December also marks the first time Sentinel Films has submitted anything to a film festival. That’s right, Sentinel Films has submitted Project: Revelation to the Independent Film Festival of Boston! We hear back by March 15. We will keep you updated with any information or developments that occur from now until then. Anyway, the company continues to grow and it has decided that the next step is a short film that will open eyes everywhere, from small towns in Arkansas to big cities in New York, guaranteed. For more information keep checking the site; we will soon open up a new project page with information on our first real step into the movie industry.
NOVEMBER 2008
November was a very productive month for Sentinel films. It started with the premiere of Project: Showdown, the second step of Sentinel Films 101. From there we progressed to developing and shooting Project: Revelation, which is the third and final step of Sentinel Films 101. This project was developed in the first couple weeks of November and went into production on the 21st. After three days of shooting, we wrapped production and moved into the post-production phase. This is where we currently stand, and we look for it to be completed within the first couple weeks of December. We have also seen an increase in interest in Sentinel Films, and our contact list continues to grow. We hope this is a continuing trend in the upcoming month. If you would like to be added to our list, just let us know and we will start sending you our e-mail updates.
OCTOBER 2008
October has been the most eventful month for Sentinel Films. Let’s see, we completed the second version of our website, which we hope you like; we have finished our second part of Sentinel Films 101, Project: Showdown; we started working on the story for the third part of Sentinel Films 101, Project: Revelation; and we have also met and gotten in contact with some people who we will probably work with in the future. This is very encouraging for us and hopefully you will be able to realize the importance of all of these accomplishments. Make sure to stay up to date with all of our news by visiting our Quick Updates page. This is where we will be keeping you up to date on how our current project is doing and whether we need some assistance that you may be able to offer.
SUMMER 2008
With Zack’s return from Hong Kong in the middle of June, things picked up for Sentinel Films. After some discussion, we decided on our next move: a project called Sentinel Films 101. It is a project that consists of three steps and is our way of developing ourselves as filmmakers; by using three different short films to work on different elements of film with the goal of putting them all together for our next project. The first of these three steps is Project: Crosswalk. Upon Zack’s return, this was the first thing Sentinel Films went to work on. After a few days of planning, Project: Crosswalk was shot on July 19th. After a couple weeks of editing, we have completed step one of Sentinel Films 101, and have put it up on the website for those of you who are interested in seeing it. To view it, go to the Project: Crosswalk page and you can download it from there. If you would like to learn more about Sentinel Films 101, you can find more information about the goals of this project and what it means for us on the Sentinel Films 101 page, which you can get to by clicking on the link above, or by going to the Projects section of our website. As the summer comes to a close, we are beginning work on the second part of Sentinel Films 101, which is title Project: Showdown, and hope to have it completed before the leaves turn here in New England.
SPRING 2008
The spring was rather slow for Sentinel Films. With Zack still in Hong Kong, not much was able to happen in terms of shooting. Progress was still made however; a lot was talked about in regards to the direction of the company. We talked about our goals for this company and came up with a Mission Statement, which has been put up on the website. We also worked on a lot of ideas for short films, so look for more content to be added over the next few months in the Projects section. In addition, more progress was made with our website. We have been constantly tweaking it and adding to it since it first went up over the winter, and these past few months were no exception. As we have said before, we welcome, and encourage, people to give us their input on the layout of our website and any suggestions they might have. If you want to contact us about our website, or anything else for that matter, you’ll find all you need to know in our Contact section.
FEBRUARY 2008
Version 2 of our website is now up and running. Though to be fair, version 1 was never really up, so I guess this is more like version 1. Regardless, we now have a real website and are very excited about it. Please give us any feedback you have and let us know about any bugs you may have found. Since neither of us has ever built a website before, I'm sure there will be plenty. To let us know about some, or just to give us feedback on our page in general, visit the Contact section and shoot us an e-mail. We look forward to hearing from you.
JANUARY 2008
I'll admit, I never gave much thought to why most production houses have taken up permanent residence in southern California. After shooting outside at night in the middle of a New England winter, I understand their decision. In under an hour we were almost frozen solid. I would say I got the worst of it, being the one behind the camera, but Ramon couldn't wear cloves, so his hands were pretty icy after the shoot. And on top of that, he had to smoke what seemed like a dozen cigars. Let's hope they don't have any lingering effects on his health, especially since our company health care plan leaves much to be desired. Never the less, after hours of careful editing and perfecting, we are finally ready to unveil our official logo. The Sentinel is our first fully completed project, and though only 19 seconds long, its completion marks a milestone for Sentinel Films. If you're viewing this page, chances are you've already seen it (it's the first thing you seen when you go to SentinelFilms.com), but if you'd like to see it again click here to go back to the first page.
OCTOBER 2007
On a chilly night at the end of October we shot the second scene of Collision Course. Though everyone was very cold at the end of the shoot, things went well and we are now nearing the end of production. We need to send a big thank you out to all the people who helped us with that shoot, especially given the conditions. We appreciate everyone who made the effort to join us and made the shoot go as well as it did. On another note, as many of you may know, half of our development team, meaning Zack, is adventuring abroad and has been doing so for the past several months. Currently he is in Hong Kong, and while this is a great experience for him personally, it puts a bit of a chink in the production process for Sentinel Films. Due to this, the production of Collision Course will not finish until probably sometime next summer. While we all miss him, he has promised to come back even more energized and ready to go than when he left.
SUMMER 2007
The first summer of Sentinel Films' existence saw the beginning of our first production, Collision Course. After spending all spring writing and planning it, we finally put it into production in June. The first scene was shot and went quite well. We are looking forward to working on it more in the future and hopefully completing it sometime soon. As soon as we do, we will be sure to make it available to all who want to see it (and maybe even some that don't).
SPRING 2007
Sentinel Films is born. After much discussion about a name, Sentinel Films was settled on. With our film company now official, we set about figuring out what to do first. We decided working on trying to shoot a full length feature film was probably a bad idea since neither of us have any experience with a production of that size. We wanted to do something shorter, and since we only had one script (Watch Your Back), which was too long, we sat down to write another one. Over the next few months Collision Course came together and we spent most of the spring writing and storyboarding it, with plans to put it into production in the summer.
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