Fame News!

What a great month it was seeing the footage and pictures from the L.A. Fame reunion concert. A huge thanks to everyone show shared their footage, pictures and experiences, especially to Scott Appel for organising the event and to friends Sue Hinds and Joseph Nicholas Defilippis.

This month we continue to post each song as performed at the Reunion and pictures to accompany the songs. We still don't have a full version of Jesse Borrego sing "The Other Side of the Road" Does anyone out there have a copy they could share?

The August issue of Kids from Fame Media Magazine will be an L.A. Concert Special and that will be posted on 22nd August.

Last month we got an email from Dennis Scott who wrote the season 2 song "Songs".

Hi Mark,

I enjoyed reading your blog about the 35th Reunion Concert for the cast of “Fame.”  

My only disappointment about the concert is that they didn’t perform a song that I wrote which was used on an episode of the series with guest star Jimmy Osmond. It’s called “Songs” and it was also included on one of the albums they released.

Keep up the good work.

Best,

Dennis Scott

Dennis if you're reading this, I tried responding to thank you for your email but it came back saying it couldn't be delivered. "Songs" is a great song and we would have loved for the cast to perform it too.

Also this month we continue to Celebrate the 35th Anniversary of the U.K. broadcasts of season 1, with more reviews, sheet music and general information of the episodes. Plus our continuing look at the U.K singles and album charts as we plot the rise and fall of the Fame related releases.

The episode of the Month is "Ian's Girl" from Season 6 and posts start for that on 21st August.

Sadly Carol Mayo Jenkins Couldn't attend the L.A. Reunion on July 13th and she explained to Erica Gimpel on Facebook why:

"Erica, my dear.... I would so love to be with you all on Thursday, but I will be teaching a summer workshop for high school kids, and I would have to miss two of the ten days to get to L.A. It is a commitment I made last winter, so it just wouldn't be right to back out now. I will be thinking of you all with so much love!!!"

When Carol discovered Debbie Allen was singing "A Special Place" she also commented:

"Debbie is singing A Special Place?!? OK - my heart is now officially broken!"

Valerie Landsburg gives an update on her "Offer & Compromise" film:

T"hank you to one of our backers for reminding me how important these updates are. First and foremost, I am so happy with the film. We have gotten great feedback and now it's our job to find the right people and companies to move it into the world.

For other filmmakers submitting to festivals for the first time, I learned an important lesson. We were in the final stages of post production and SXSW gave us a post-deadline wavier and we submitted. Festival programmers create an incredible matrix of films to be shown and if you get in there when 99% of it has been set up, there may not be a place to put your really terrific film.

We are currently submitted into: The Toronto International Film Festival (We will be notified in late August), The Hamptons Film Festival (We will be notified in late September) and The Austin Film Festival.((We will be notified in late November) You have to position your submissions carefully as one will not premier if there is another one that it has premiered with. So we stack the submission in order of where the most prospective buyers are. We submitted to upper end of the festivals as our cast members are viable commercially known actors. It is like any other business you have a product to sell.

We are also seeking out distributors. Selling a movie can be a very slow process. Most people don’t know that after you complete a movie  lightening could strike it and it's a short path into theaters and or VOD.  Most of the time it takes longer. I financed 90% of the movie myself. I chose the risk because I believed in movie and I do now more than ever. I have no doubt it will find its place.

Thank you again for you willingness to be on this road with us."

Valerie and the O&C Team

 

Have a great Month

Mark