MORGAN'S CAKE Wrap-Up (fests, reviews, good & unnerving screenings--The fate of a 'small' ($15,000) Improv AMERICAN (anti-war) INDIE FEATURE in the international marketplace! A rollercoaster!

(How I advertised MC on VIMEO/On-Demand: <https://vimeo.com/ondemand/morganscake>. (Free link ahead to watch-click on name).

"To capture real life on film, Schmidt fashions a creative weave out of the threads of narrative, documentary, and docu-drama film forms."
— Vic Skolnick, CINEMA ARTS CENTER

I’ll START WITH SHOWING an ad for MORGAN’S CAKE, created by friend Joe DiVincenzo (he also did POSTERS FOR A Man, a Woman, and A Killer, Showboat 1988, and Morgan's Cake (scroll farther down). Ad was used in one of the small, weekly periodicals (East Bay Express, maybe—a fairly affordable ad space then). It was for a week-long premiere theatrical run of the movie at the Roxie Theatre in San Francisco.

Just to mention, the feature did not immediately get ‘born’ with the great Janet Maslin, NYT review quote. It took 5-6 months of incredibly lucky film festival-selections to ever get to have a name-brand reviewer (especially at “The Newspaper of Record”), her being someone who could actually view it carefully, at a good facility, and then APPRECIATE the movie as their professional job!

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Here’s some interesting ups and downs I experienced before reaching this something-of-a pinnacle of indie success, at least “review-wise.”

I’ll start with the most humorous, yet telling story, of a “first home screening of MORGAN’S CAKE for friends,” who got to watch my near-final cut in my small living room located in Point Richmond, CA, screened from a double-system projector. These “interlocked”/heavy machines have one side for running a separate mag track (the movie’s sound track) and the other side for illuminated picture. And like most projectors, they can run a little loud, which will tend to certainly be less ideal than the perfectly controlled future screenings your proud movie would hopefully receive in the best theaters, with the best sound systems; like when MC enjoyed presenting at New Directors/New Films in NY and the Berlin International Film Festival following these nerve-wracking bumps in the road!

If you begin with “home showing, you may have little or no idea how well the freshly-edited movie is succeeding. This is the most vulnerable I’d hoped to be, since the artist/filmmaker wears his emotions on his sleeve. The movie seems like it is part of one’s fabric, like part of the skin, his/her baby, and one’s sensitive is a mile high. You may find yourself believing that you can detect the slightest sign of good (mostly less-than-good) acceptance of your “Perfect Cut.” You don’t notice that the very screening situation you’ve set up for yourself––projector in house, not behind a sound-proof booth in a theatre, playing host, etc.––makes it run slower, potentially harming the delivery of the media. You will also have to change the reels halfway through, because only 40 minutes of a feature film can fit on a projector’s reel at a time. Even LAWRENCE OF ARABIA would lose some of THE FILM’S PACE, but a lot less than yours, with a reel-change!

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OK, so that’s the set up for my screening. My three ‘film interested friends have graciously traveled by car from Berkeley, over to my house to ‘see something.’

I’ll jump to the chase. Let’s say that MORGAN’S CAKE (a low-quality Work Print—the finished quality print would come later) has successfully rolled through the projector successfully, without a cell phone interrupting anything (they hadn’t been invented yet-it’s 1987). And I pulled off a pretty efficient and short reel change. The sound seemed decent enough (I remember—I adjusted it a few times between scenes). So all in all a pretty decent show, given that it’s a work-in progress.

Well, the first comment was, “I think it ran a little slow for an hour-long movie.” As in, maybe the cut’s not too good (yet). Oh. OK. That’s what I heard. That was the downer I was maybe all to ready to hear (well, not really ready, because I’d want the opposite, of course!). They all left soon thereafter. Bummer! Even though I’d been through the ‘filmmaking mill’ a few times before (as my memoir can attest), it was never fun to hear this kind of negative response.

And I was sort of just standing there, in my front room, hanging around, rehashing what I’d just heard from friends - actually more than friends because they had been involved in ‘the making of.” So I took their comment to heart for about an hour or more. That is…until I suddenly realized that what I’d screened was NOT an hour long. It was actually a lot longer than that!

Wait a minute! IT WAS NOT 60 MINUTES! The first reel change had occurred at 40 minutes. Yes. And it had taken me a couple more minutes to change reels and rethread, before starting the projector rolling again. But…the SECOND REEL! It was also another 40 minutes long or so to screen the second half!

I had shown close to the final length of MORGAN’S CAKE, which was around 80 minutes of the 87 minute final cut (minus end credits). They THOUGHT it was “SLOW”…for 60 MINUTES!!

What my fellow workers on the movie had inadvertently handed me was actually a huge COMPLIMENT, dressed in a criticism. It took me the rest of the day to roll that around in my head before I moved on to the next emotional experience surrounding the birth of MORGAN’S CAKE. Ha, ha! How funny!

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Next, I’d submitted MC to the San Francisco Film Arts Foundation to get a screening, and when I heard back it was a glowing response. The head programmer, Bob Hawk (soon to become a dear friend) explained that he and the other four people on his screening panel had LOVED the movie, that it had hit solidly on all five decision points they evaluated, and agreed it would be a terrific selection for their series. So now I was a happy camper! I enjoyed my delight. Yes, it wasn’t a huge or world-famous screening like the festivals the movie would later attract, but it was headed for a very nice and technically-professional screening, with approximately 50-60 seats in a small but nicely appointed screener in SAN FRANCISCO, long with a little PR in the FILM ARTS NEWSLETTER. I was kind of proud to have a nice still to supply for the announcement, because I’d lit it with a single light bulb, shot with a couple-second exposure of Morgan and Leon Kenin, playing best friends in the movie, also in real-life. So little things like that helped, while wondering about a new film release.

So, GREAT! I NOW HAD A SCREENING OF MY NEW MOVIE (my 5th feature film, if you counted in the CCAC Feature Workshops-made THE (LAST) ROOMMATE created with students at Oakland’s College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC), later name-changed to California College of the Arts (CCA) in San Francisco.

My new movie was getting a sign of life! So all was good, right? Oops. When I read that the Film Arts show was going to be the movie’s WORLD PREMIERE there was a sudden gut ache involved at my end. Why? Because somehow I had just given away one of the most precious aspects of a movie’s life away and hadn’t even seen it coming. A WORLD PREMIERE is what each BIG & IMPORTANT FILM FESTIVALS requires, to properly showcase a brand new motion picture, something they can tout to the world as maybe ‘the next big breakthrough in cinema,” or at least a movie that deserves their special and incredible discerning attention. THAT PR, for my dear movie, had just gone ‘poof'.’ So, dare I say, the screening had just become something less than a good dream come true. And I wondered how I could have fucked up any worse?

BUT…there was a big surprise brewing, involving BOB HAWK. The little screening, with its perfect projection and enthusiastic audience (my lawyer, Peter Buchanan was there, who I specially-thanked in the credits, who voiced immediately, “Now it’s time for a distributor,” had given Bob the confidence to try and battle its way into Sundance’s prestigious Dramatic Competition—the REAL WORLD PREMIERE! You can see how a filmmaker can get the bends going through all these ‘indie’ rollercoaster rides!

By the way, since I had spent my time in small DUNGEON-LIKE editing rooms (at W.A. Palmer Films, cutting my first three features for about 10-years straight, I DIDN’T EVEN KNOW HOW IMPORTANT “A SUNDANCE SCREENING” WAS. Just another festival to me, and a free-paid trip somewhere.

So, YAY, I was going to Utah, and got Morgan (almost 20), wife Julie and young son Marlon (3) airline tickets to play in the snow! Oh, and was going to show my movie. Unfortunately, though, the projection was terrible for the first sold-out night.

The projector was broken enough to destroy the quality of the screening. Aside from the image bouncing up and down in the projection gate (dizzy-making…). the image was drifting in and out of focus. I quickly noticed this, not to mention that all of the audience’s usual responses to scenes were gone (especially disturbing considering that the theatre was full at a good prime time of 8PM!). I went up and down the back stairs to work with the projectionist, but couldn’t improve it. The Variety review I got reflected the ruined pace, delivery of content, the ability to shin like it would a month later, when seen by reviewer Janet Maslin.

The other three Sundance screenings were saved with a new projector immediately exchanged by the Sundance programmer, Lawrence (Lory) Smith, who teamed up with Bob Hawk, convincing the Sundance programming committee to include my movie in the ‘Competition’ section against hundreds of other movies. Thanks again guys!————

Keep in mind, there were scores of much bigger, higher-profile (expensive) indie features from New York alone, that believed they were more deserving of a place at Sundance than my ‘little’ B&W flick, so some of that displeasure ultimately found its way to me in a couple negatively-leaning magazine articles up the road. And a New Directors programmer I met in Berlin International Panorama, since having had a hand at picking mine, admitted that, ‘Everybody from New York hates us.”

Ah…the movie business..getting in it, when I didn’t even know I had!

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New Directors/New Films (later Berlin International Panorama) would soon become my upswing experiences, emotionally that is, and certainly for Morgan too.

When I announced that Morgan was to join me on the dais after the screening at New Director festival (March, 1989, with the Maslin review happily supporting our show), there was a very loud and sustained applause for him from the audience, that lasted from his leaving his seat at the rear of the theatre to the long walk up front. And he did a masterful job of answering audience’s questions, holding his own as lead in a feature film—his good jokes, along with some serious responses. It was his ‘star/in-person’ performance, and certainly supplied him with the desire to join “the ‘business” up the road. He applied to the film/video program at CCAC soon after that, and some MC $ went in support of that. His success with owning and operating a high-end Production company/FILMSIGHT in Berkeley, CA, as its in-house Cinematographer and writer/director/producer, along with his output and success as writer/director of award-winning docs (don’t miss this great AUDIO DISCUSSION with MORGAN and Pam Uzzell!); with ON HER OWN (2015), THE RAVENITE (2018), and ANTON: CIRCLING HOME (2020), and his great COVEDeos , says it all.

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For a final glimpse of my indie filmmaking røller®coaster® here’s a surprising little positive moment Morgan and I experienced at Berlin International, the kind that doesn’t need to track as a “career advancement,” just something warm and fuzzy. It has to do with an unexpected compliment Morgan and I received after talking to a fellow filmmaker while hanging around the lobby awaiting the start of MORGAN’S CAKE. I chatted a lot with the guy about the IMPROV approach I took to make my movies—MC especially, like what I’ve posted on SUBSTACK recently—and he decided to attend the screening. He must have prepared himself to see something quite jumbled. But when Morgan and I were speaking to the audience and took a short lag during questions, I suddenly heard the guy call out very loudly from the back, “I CAN’T BELIEVE IT WASN’T SCRIPTED!”

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