We are absolutely thrilled to announced that JesusCat (or How I Accidentally Joined a Cult) will be making its World Premiere at the 13th Los Angeles Comedy Festival on Wednesday, May 15th at 9:00pm. The screening will be followed by a Q&A session with members of the cast and crew.

Julia Morizawa and Shaina Vorspan will be in attendance, as well as most of the rest of the cast (hopefully), but specific appearances are still to be determined. Additional information regarding parties or other festival events will be announced at a later date.

The LA Comedy Festival runs May 9-19, 2013. It is the largest comedy festival in the United States featuring film, live comedy acts, and a screenplay competition. Their dual emphasis is on “discovering” great comedic talent with the purpose of promoting it to both the entertainment industry and the LA public, as well as, showcasing the works of seasoned professionals and well known stars.

The premiere screening of JesusCat (or How I Accidentally Joined a Cult) will be on Wednesday, May 15th, 2013 at 9:00pm at the Let Live Theatre, 916 N. Formosa Ave., West Hollywood, CA 90046. Tickets are $10 online or $12 at the door (cash only). Purchase tickets and view a complete festival schedule at: www.lacomedyfest.com. 

Written by Shaina Vorspan

I would also like to give a "meow out", this time to the wonderful Steve Roloc for his amazing technical help last weekend.  

Let me set the scene for you:  Julia and I have been spending almost two years making the best gosh darn movie we can make.  We wrote it, shot it, then spent what was (or at least felt like) severalty hundred hours editing it.  Most of that time was spent trying to figure out the technical stuff that neither of us have much training or experience in (A.K.A. no training, and little to some experience).  We began to pull our hair out.  Then, a pale light shines upon us and Steve comes along to lift up our chins and tell us our hair will grow back.

Okay, that might be a slight dramatizing (just slight), but really, you try understanding what the difference is between thirty different codecs all with the same name.  

The bottom line is, we shot in HD, the raw footage looked great, but we were doing something wrong because our final product was looking a bit like us, tired and frustrated...well, mostly fuzzy and liney (yes, liney).  We met up with Steve, whom Julia had worked with before on the hit webseries, "Star Trek: Odyssey " and with just a few simple steps, he made a huge difference.  The fuzz cleared, the lines parted, and our plucky selves could be found again.

Thank you Steve, you helped us more than we can thank you!

And if you'd like to learn more about this Renaissance Man, check out his website, he's quite impressive. 

Written by Julia Morizawa

In case you didn't get it, "Meow-Out" is, like, "Shout-Out" - except with a cat reference.

About a week-and-a-half ago, I was in Norfolk, Virginia for the inaugural Reel It Out Hampton Roads Queer Film Festival (which, I believe, was the first LGBT film festival in the entire state), for their screening of Judas Kiss - an indie feature I played a supporting role in that was released in 2011. I was accompanied by the film's writer/producer, Carlos Pedraza, whom is someone I have periodically bugged throughout post-production of JesusCat, mostly with questions like, "How did you guys make your website?" and "Do you happen to know why Final Cut keeps doing this to us?" And after two days of chatting with him, mostly about producing, I figured I could write them a special shout-out (I mean, meow-out) on our website as a way to say "Thank you."

And also because they have a pretty large fan-base and it never hurts to cross-promote between projects or production companies (aka name-drop) that are larger than one's own.

So, having said all that, I'd like to thank Carlos Pedraza and J.T. Tepnapa of Blue Seraph Productions for their sporadic words of wisdom and support in the making of JesusCat. They may not even know it, but I referred quite a bit to their online presence and how they promoted Judas Kiss in social media to get ideas on getting our project out there. They gave me referrals and ideas and sometimes just plain motivation. I'd also like to thank J.T.'s husband and associate producer, Adam Browne, and Blue Seraph's production manager, Tellier Killaby. J.T., Adam and Tellier attended a private JesusCat test screening last month and offered us some really strong feedback. At the test screening, we asked for anonymous written feedback only, but I think I could pretty much tell who was who. Especially because when J.T. left that night, he said something like, "Feel free to call me if you have questions about my feedback. That is, if you still want to talk to me after reading it..."

We took some of their feedback and left some of it behind. There were other attendees at the test screening, so we basically took a look at things that were commented on across-the-board. Right now we are working on the end credits for the film and getting outside help with transferring, outputting, rendering (or whatever) the final film to different formats at its highest quality. We have a handful of film festival submissions under our belt already and plan for JesusCat to screen in Los Angeles this year - soon - hopefully more than once. And in other cities too.

Crossing fingers. I mean, paws - or claws.

Blue Seraph Productions is a production company committed to strong progressive values that shed light on the human experience. Blue Seraph Productions doesn’t focus on a lifestyle; we tell stories built on the universal principles that make us human. Laughter or tears, we’re all the same. (Taken from their website: www.blueseraph.com)

Their current project is The Dark Place, a quick-paced and suspenseful thriller, with a dash of humor. Borrowing a page from Sherlock, Britain’s hit TV series, The Dark Place depicts a flawed hero with an incredible gift, a witty and sexy sidekick, and a deadly mystery that will sneak up, grab a hold of and propel viewers to the edge of their seats. (Taken from the website: www.thedarkplacemovie.com)