Win or Lose Production Blog

DVD's on Sale Now

2010-04-09T05:21:00.001-07:00

Buy a DVD, help me make my next movie. The packaging is incredible - we used real plastic and wrap.

http://www.winorlosemovie.com/BuyDVD.html

If you live in NYC, look for a screening at the JCC in June.

Some Press & The Denver Film Festival

2009-09-17T05:39:00.000-07:00

Film will be playing at the Denver Film Festival. Check back with this website or the Denver Starz Film Festival site for details - http://www.denverfilm.org/festival/

Also, some recent press, awesome review from Pamela, a Chicago film blogger: http://www.scarlettcinema.blogspot.com/

And from the Chicago Screening:
http://abclocal.go.com/wls/video?id=6840764

Man, I blabber so much. I wish I could have been as articulate as Jeremy, it was so great to have him there.

Saulsilito Film Festival - Aug 22 sat @ 7pm

2009-07-17T10:08:00.000-07:00

Haven't checked in a while, the HP screening was amazing. I had such an awesome time and met so many great people. It was really cool to see former counselors of mine such as Daren Anixter and Adam Boehm. Both said that they thought my portrayal of me in the film (the animated dude) was completely false. They remember as a quality athlete. Impressions of ourselves are often different than reality. It was cool to hear them say that.

It was also amazing to have old timer Ojibwa guys come up to me after the screening with tears in their eyes telling me how much they loved the film. What an experience. I'll never forget it. I also met Harold Ramis in the lobby of the theatre and gave him a copy of the film. If you see him, tell him to watch it and email me.

By the way, if you live in California, come out to this screening of the film:
Aug 22 sat @ 7pm, film will be playing at the Saulsilito FIlm Festival.
http://www.sausalitofilmfestival.com/
Email me if you are coming so we can grab a beer/coffee/soda.
-Lou

Minneapolis Blogger Kathie Smith Reviews the film

2009-05-27T11:03:00.000-07:00

Nice review, very nice person. I met Kathie while up at the Minneapolis Film Festival.

http://kathiesmith.blogspot.com/2009/05/interview-with-louis-lapat-win-or-lose.html

New Blogger Review & Student Academy Update

2009-05-18T21:14:00.000-07:00

I didn't make it to the final round of the student academy awards. Here's how I found out. My mom called. She said she had some bad news. I knew they were announcing the awards this week and I figured she found out. Now I thought she was going to trick me into thinking I had lost but really tell me I had won. That is very like her. But that is not what happened. She really did have bad news, I didn't make it to the next round. That's totally fine although it would have been nice to go to LA for a week and feel important.

In other news, another blogger wrote a review of the film, enjoy:
http://wherethelongtailends.com/archives/independent-indies-%E2%80%93-win-or-lose-a-summer-camp-story

Student Academy Awards - I won, kind of

2009-04-24T19:20:00.000-07:00

About two weeks ago I was told that 'Win or Lose' was selected as a student academy award semi-finalist. Out of something like over 100 films, 'Win or Lose' would be competing with 3 other films to go onto the next round. These films screened yesterday at a theater in midtown at 3 pm. So I sat through the top 4 student documentaries chosen in our region. One was my film, one was about people who dance with wheel chairs, one about sick kids waiting for organs, one about some island some where...ummmmm, to be honest, I thought they were just OK. 2 of the 3 were not character driven and were kind of boring. The one that was character driven was about sick kids and played like a medical educational video: I had trouble watching it. By the time my film went on, the judge next to me was sleeping and about 15 people had cleared the room. As you could imagine, 'Win or Lose' did not play great. There was a group of dudes behind me that laughed at every joke but besides them, the crowd was tough. I was nervous.

Then I went for a run and then sat through the narrative category. Now here there was some really solid films in the narrative category including The Lone Star State, Mochi and Without You, or was it With You.....whatever, they were good films. The Lone Star State was one of the best student films I ever saw. The other two films were by Columbia University students and were really solid.

The narrative section ends and we all go upstairs for a cocktail hour and food. This is where the announcing of the winners will take place. Besides being hors d'oeuvres & red wine there was a stage with a 9 foot plastic academy award statue. So when they finally announce the winners, the announce Win or Lose along with 3 other docs. Everyone was told they could say a speech but most people just said thanks and walked off the stage. They announced the narrative section and neither Lone Star or Mochi won, I was kind of floored but it just reinforced what I always thought about art. It is really hard to judge.

There are still 2 more rounds. 9 films competing in the doc section, 3 will be chosen to go onto to the finals. I'll keep you updated.

Minneapolis Film Festival & Student Academy Award Semi Finalist

2009-04-21T05:53:00.000-07:00

2 Things:
1st) Film has made it to the semi-final round for the student academy awards. It will be competing against 4 other films in this region on this Thursday, April 23rd. If it wins this region, it goes to the finals in L.A.

2nd) I Just got back from the Minneapolis Film Festival. The festival was a lot of fun. Check out the facebook page for some pics:
Minneapolis Film Fest Facebook Pics

Director's Cut PBS

2009-04-09T14:27:00.000-07:00

I'm too embarrassed to watch my self on video but here it is. Be warned, parts of the film are shown so if you don't want to be spoiled, don't watch it.

Enjoy:
http://www.wpt.org/directorscut/206lapat.cfm

Wisconsin Film Festival

2009-04-06T08:52:00.001-07:00

Screening went well. Had a good showing of about 180 to 200 people. Won the Jury Prize. Had a great time.

Another Article

2009-04-04T08:38:00.000-07:00

Here's another article written about the film, ahh yes, summer camp brings back memories:
http://77square.com/music/blog/dane/entry_445734

Kris Zimmerman's Critical Review

2009-04-04T08:22:00.000-07:00

This is good, first critic's review of the film. Over all, good review and fair criticism:
http://gbwmovies.wordpress.com/2009/04/03/win-or-lose-a-summer-camp-story-2008/

Oh yeah, and this is pretty funny too, he wrote this a day before the review:
http://gbwmovies.wordpress.com/2009/04/03/first-night-at-the-wisconsin-film-festival/

77 Square Article

2009-03-31T13:52:00.000-07:00

Another Madison Newspaper ran a story on the film, Check it out:

Minneapolis Film Festival & Wisconsin's PBS

2009-03-29T15:40:00.001-07:00

This has not been announced on the Minneapolis Film Fest website yet but the film has been accepted to the Minneapolis film festival. I will be heading to Minneapolis for the festival.

Also, there is a good chance, if I can figure out some travel arrangements, that the film will shown on Wisconsin PBS as part of the Director's Cut Show, here is the website:
http://www.wpt.org/directorscut/

Full Interview for CU Article

2009-03-07T21:01:00.000-08:00

http://spectacle.specblogs.com/index.php/2009/02/20/summer-camp-is-serious-business/

Wisconsin Jury Prize

2009-03-02T06:24:00.001-08:00

Win or Lose won a Jury Prize at the Wisconsin Film Festival, it'll be announced on the WFF website this or next week - http://www.wifilmfest.org/
I will use the $500 won wisely. Zach and I are buying tickets to come down to Wisconsin soon, looking forward to it.

New York Screening

2009-02-26T13:10:00.000-08:00

The New York screening was fun. My cousin's, boyfriend's band opened the show screaming and playing solid tunes. Prior to that, popcorn was served that we made the night before. Asher, Adam Korn, Zach and I did a QNA afterward. As far as the actual film, it played really well, granted it was friends and family. Still, there was lots of laughter and tension in the audience at the right places.

From Win or Lose: A Summer Camp Story - SCREENINGS

It's hard to see but check out this clip, this was right before the movie started:

Some Press

2009-02-19T12:57:00.001-08:00

Check out the new york times announcement of the screening above.

Columbia University's newspaper ran a story on the film, check the one mentioned above here.

Wisconsin Film Festival Anyone?

2009-02-09T06:23:00.000-08:00

Win or Lose was accepted to the Wisconsin Film Festival. Nice!

Done

2009-01-14T09:11:00.000-08:00

Last night Mike exported his last audio file. We finished sound design. The movie is finished. I had 3 beers, went to sleep, then woke up with nothing to do. Now comes marketing and distribution. Anyone know how to do that?

Poster Brainstorming...

2009-01-05T09:30:00.000-08:00

We've been brainstorming some poster ideas. Here is what we've come up with, we're still in the conceptual phase:

Concept 1:

Concept 2:

Concept 3:

We'll be going with concept 1 as a starting point. Adam Mirkin did the concepts. What do you guys think?

First Iteration of Website up

2008-12-30T11:56:00.000-08:00

I've been spending the last few weeks working on titles, there is a lot of them in this movie. Ian, the web developer also finished a first iteration of the website. It's solid. Check it out: http://www.winorlosemovie.com

I still need to make a real trailer for the film...on the way.

This Week

2008-12-12T17:23:00.000-08:00

This week I submitted to some big festivals: Hot Docs, SXSW and True False and Tribecca SXSW seems like a good match for the film but there is no way to tell what festival will take it. I'm trying to come up with a tag line for the film, this is what I came up with or stole from the internet:
1) To win the game is great, to love the game is greater but to lose the
game sucks.
2) The only way to prove your a good sport is to lose.
3) Most games are lost not won,
4) Winning isn't everything but its way better than losing.
5) If winning isn't everything, why do they keep score?
6)You win some, you lose some and then you go home.

What do you guys think?

Oh, and here are some new titles I thought of:
Learning to Lose: A Camp Story
Pulling The 12: A Camp Story
Camp Loser
To jump or to throw: A Camp Story

Yeah, I don't like any of them either.

Denny Screening, Sound Design & Film Festivals Rejections

2008-12-06T08:45:00.000-08:00

Last week I screened the film to Denny Rosen, he is the director of Camp Ojibwa. 3 1/2 years ago when I showed up to Camp Ojibwa we had made a signed agreement when I started filming that Denny would have final say on the whether the film would be released. If we disagreed over something in the cut an arbitrator would be brought in. Naturally I was nervous when I screened, but it went great. He was brought to tears at the end. Although he didn't sign any official location releases he definitely loved it and didn't make any threats to my life at the end.

This week I got several unfortunate replies from film festivals. I got rejections from Sundance, Slamdance and Palm Springs. Blasts to the ego but no sweat for the film. There's dozens of more festivals, I'm sure eventually it will find some nice festivals.

We are very close to finishing sound design and music composition. Just a few last songs to tweak and two temp songs to replace. I think I'm going to start color correction soon as well.

Long Road of Consultants

2008-11-22T07:47:00.000-08:00

After graduating film school I had a film in my hand but it was far from done. I knew this because upon showing it to people they would ask me questions like 'what was the name of that kid in your film?' and 'who actually won?' - they couldn't follow who was who and they didn't care about any of the characters in the film: slight problems. I began to work with another consultant, Eric Taylor. He created the series Unsolved Mysteries. He's more 'old school' in his approach to filmmaking, we worked off paper-cuts (scripts) of the film instead off of the computer. Eric really helped make the film not suck. He helped me find a narrative through line that made sense. After 5 months of editing with him, he said we were done and it was time to go to a fine-cut editor.

I showed the film to several editors, about 10. Many said the film was done and they were willing to work on it. Which was great. But two said the film was far from done and needed major work. One of them was Kurt Engfer, who edited many of Michael Moore's films. I respected his opinion. He had agreed to look at my film for free and offer his critique, which was far from pretty. One of the other editing-dissenters was Flavia Fontes, she agreed to work on a consulting basis with me to fix the film. For another 4 to 6 months we worked on the film, meeting on a weekly basis. She was phenomenal to work with; she had a knack for creating likable characters and expressing universal themes. Eventually, she, like many others before her, said the film was done. Flavia and I talked about going to sound design. We also talked about several film festivals to enter into but I was hesitant. I had been here before. I showed the film to two new faces. People that never saw the film before. One was an editor who I highly admired, his name was Chris White.

After showing Chris the film, he said something I had heard before: 'you're a loser, why did you make this piece of sh*t?'. Just kidding, he said it wasn't done. The good news was he thought the last 2/3rd's of the film just needed to be touched up. The bad news was the first act needed to be re-structured. I worked with Chris only over the phone on a consulting basis and continue to work with Flavia. Chris and I didn't meet more than 5 times total, but in those few meetings he helped me solve the beginning of the film.

Finally, I took the film to Sound Design with Mike Furjanic, who also did my sound design for a short film I made in grad school. I also began music composition with Nadim Issa who is a member of the talented, New York based band Mancino. Nadim also did music composition on my short film. Both are very talented. Mike did the sound design for Jesus Camp and Mancino has been featured in Spin.com. We are so close to finishing, can't wait to be done.

The First Year of Production

2008-10-31T04:46:00.000-07:00

3 1/2 years ago I started production on a documentary about my camp. I needed to make a thesis film to graduate film school. I had never made a documentary before but I liked the idea of the minimal pre-production involved with doc filmmaking and of course I had many documentary filmmakers I adored. I thought collegiate week at camp Ojibwa was a good story for a documentary. All the drama takes place within 2 weeks at Camp. I wouldn't have to follow someone around for many years, I wouldn't have to work on this documentary for many years, at least that is what I thought.

So I called the camp director Denny and pitched him my idea and he said yes. I asked my good friend Zach if he would do sound and help me direct and he also agreed. I rented a camera package from the film department and showed up at camp a month later for the last two weeks of camp. I had never shot a second of documentary footage before that. Zach had never held a boom pole. And the first thing Denny says to us when we get to camp is something like 'you screw me over and I'll cut your balls off.'

For two weeks we shot 12 to 15 hour days. We shot everything. We shot completely on instinct; if we liked something we'd shoot it. By the end of the two weeks we knew we had something funny, emotional and energized. We had 70 hours of footage. There were clear-cut characters with stakes, at least in my mind. There was also a clear ending to our story. We thought we had it in the bag. I went home eager to edit.

I got home and watched all 72 hours. It was exhausting, not nearly as fun as filming. Not really knowing what I was doing, I began to cut together scenes. I put together a 20-minute cut and showed it to my professor at school. I was hoping he would t0ell me how brilliant we were and how amazing the story was. Perhaps I could finish editing in a few months and graduate sooner than later. Film festivals were just around the corner, months away.

Instead he said I have a lot more work to do, I was getting a little ahead of my self. He didn't know who any of the characters were. He explained that the characters needed to be properly introduced. Of course, seems so obvious in retrospect but at the time I didn't know. He recommended I film the main characters at home kind of like in the documentary Spellbound. I called Zach and told him we'd have to do more filming. We would spend a month traveling around the mid-west filming campers in their houses and at counselors at their colleges. By the end we had accumulated 30 more hours of footage.

I cut together some more scenes and put together over an hour long cut with rough character introductions. I think I had over 6 main characters in the film. My professors and I worked on it until we thought it was satisfactory for me to graduate with. About 1 Year after I initially started filming I would graduate film school with this doc as my thesis. I was excited to graduate and almost be done with the film. I began to send emails out to campers and counselors explaining the film was almost done. I figured it would just need some fine-tuning and it would be all ready to go. I could move onto my next project in no time. This was a slight miscalculation.