I produced and edited this project. Also composed music. It played all over the country. We are proud of it.

It’s in the P-I from The Common Language Project on Vimeo.

Thank you for your entry to the 2009 DC Shorts Film Festival. This year,
we have seen an incredible growth in interest in our festival –
receiving more than 680 films.  This made decision-making to fill the
final slots even more difficult.

We would like to CONGRATULATE YOU — your entry is an official selection
for the 2009 competition!

Dear Brad Hutchinson

Thank you for your submission of The Hot Dog Cycle to the 35th Seattle International Film Festival. Regretfully, I must inform you that The Hot Dog Cycle has not been selected for participation in this year’s festival.

Over three thousand films were submitted to us this year, a clear indication that the ability of filmmakers to get their vision to the screen is still growing. In our quest to bring our filmgoers a diverse and compelling line-up we do view and seriously consider every submission.

The volume of entries received does not permit us to comment at length specifically about your film. Once again, the quality of NW filmmaking has been exceptional, and because of this we are very excited for the future of Seattle filmmaking. With the talent pool of talented cast and crew growing, and fiscal support for films increasing, Seattle is a great place to make a film. I recognize that your efforts help make Seattle the fine film town that it is, we just simply are not able to screen all the films submitted to us.

Best of luck with The Hot Dog Cycle, and we hope you keep us in mind with your next project.

Kind regards

Beth Barrett
Programming Manager

Except I’m 29!

Morgan Dusatko, 20, is a Seattle videographer who made a film about a day in the life of a human in a hot-dog suit.

There is something about a costume, Dusatko says. He has also filmed a man who became a roadside attraction by dressing in a rabbit suit to advertise an Airport Way roofing company.

In the roles people play every day, humans all wear various disguises, Dusatko said. “A hot-dog suit just makes it obvious.”

Here is the whole article.

Dear Brad Hutchinson,

 

Thank you for submitting The Hot Dog Cycle to the 2009 CFC Worldwide Short Film

Festival. This year we received a record number of over 3900 submissions.

With a limited number of slots available, our programming decisions were exceptionally challenging and we were only able to select a fraction of the number of marvelous films sent to us for consideration. Unfortunately we were unable to programme your work; however we are pleased to say that the WSFF is committed to the promotion of every film submitted to us through our Digital Marketplace.

 

Every short film submitted will be available in the Festival Marketplace through our Digital Marketplace Library, accessible to industry delegates including buyers, distributors, and festival programmers looking for all manner of films. Your contact information will be published in our Marketplace Catalogue, provided to all festival delegates. Last year over 400 shorts were picked up for broadcast or distribution as a result of being included in the Marketplace, and the Festival responds to inquiries year-round by festival programmers, buyers and distributors about Marketplace films.

 

We invite all filmmakers to attend the festival and participate in the Marketplace, if you wish to apply to attend as a Marketplace Delegate please visit our website:

http://www.worldwideshortfilmfest.com/guest_info/ .

 

This year the festival will run from June 16-21 2009 in Toronto and will feature 12 programmes of competitive screenings, and special screenings including the perennially popular Midnight Mania, Sci-Fi Shorts, Slap ‘n’ Tickle and Celebrity Shorts.  The festival also hosts a Symposium on the art and commerce of short filmmaking, and the Festival Business Centre.

 

We thank you for your interest in the CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival and encourage you to continue sending us your work in the future.

 

 Best regards,

 

 

 Eileen Arandiga

 Festival Director

 CFC Worldwide Short Film Festival

 www.worldwideshortfilmfest.com

 

Several of my movies will be screening in the next few months.  Here is what they are where you can find them.

Jesus’ Package – Made for the 24 hour film race, I assistant directed this 3 minute movie about two superstitious vagabonds and a package they receive from a mysterious stranger.

Playing at:

7pm

Harvard Exit Theatre

807 East Roy at Harvard 

Seattle, WA 98102

Next is The Death of Diogenes.  A movie that I wrote, shot and directed especially for the Georgetown Super 8 Film Festival.  It is a modern retelling of the death of Diogenes, the Greek philosopher know for his foul attitude and nicknamed “the Dog.” 

The screening will happen in Downtown Georgetown.  I don’t think the venue is totally locked down but it will play multiple times during the day.  The fest starts at 2pm and the outdoor cinema starts at 9pm.

More information will be available at Button Makers the day of the showing.

ButtonMakers

6012 12th Ave S

Seattle WA 

GS8 Festival Poster

The Hot Dog Cycle was accepted to the Seattle True Independent Film Festival and will be playing in a collection of shorts.

Tuesday June 9th at 6:15

The Jewel Box Theatre

2322 2nd Ave

Seattle, WA 98121

You can find out more here.

Also I movie I directed and edited is premiering at SIFF.  More on that to come.

We need to fill these seats!  If possible, please come out to any and all of these screenings!

Thanks for reading.

In excitement,

Morgan

an old blog from when I was in school.

Here are some of the better posts:

This one is about a shrimp.

This one is about chimps and cyber altruism.

This one is about the fluxus art movement.

And this brain bender is about DJ Spooky and AfroFuturism.

This last one is about a Chineese blog.

Morgan

http://opensourcecinema.org/

I just wanted to write a quick post and share this everyone.

This is a movie about the open source movement.  In fact, the movie itself (or at least a version of the movie) is open source itself.  It features Girl Talk, Gilberto Gil (Minister of Culture of Brazil), and Lawrence Lessig (the creator of the Creative Commons and author of many books on the subject of copyright law).

The issue here is specifically about music and remixing.  I have thought about this issue a lot, from the point of view of a musician that is using unlicensed samples, from the point of view of a DJ, and as a musician trying to make a few dollars on my “original” compositions.

An initial question is: what is this issue like from the perspective of a musician?  What is the issue about for the record industry?  The musicians that make remixed or sample based music are usually using technology in ways that were unimaginable in the past.  When a major music studio says “you can’t use this,” or that what a remix artist does with sound isn’t valid (as a commodity) unless you have enough money to pay for the licencing fees for the samples, that basically comes down to corporations trying the shut down a whole art movement.

I see remix artist as the forerunners of and an extention of the postmodern art movement.  They express the way this movement alive today.  In the music industry, mash up and sample based artists like Girl Talk are alive and striving.  So to connect this thought to the issue:  Copyright laws were first set up to deter plagiarism.  Sample based music however is a different animal.  Owning a Girl Talk album would never deter anyone from buying a Jackson 5 album.  They are not the same thing.  Not even close.  So using laws that were designed for plagiarism and enforcing them on artist that are re-purposing cultural memes makes me think that the record industry has another agenda.

By the way, this has nothing to do with the illegal downloading of music or other media.  I don’t think they should be lumped into the same conversation.

I don’t want to write a diatribe about this, there are many books and lectures about this by people who know way more about the subject that I do.  I think it’s important.  I think that the debate is about way more that about the major labels and bands making a few dollars.  

Here are a few websites that explore this more:

http://www.lessig.org/blog/

http://www.djspooky.com/

Thanks,

Morgan

From the email they sent to us…

Congratulations on being accepted to Seattle True Independent Film Festival!  We’re really looking forward to this year’s festival and we’re glad that you’ll be a part of it.  Below are some festival details and a list of things that we’ll need from you beforehand. 

The festival runs from June 5^th through the 14^th.  We’re still finalizing our program and will be sending out the screening dates for all of the films within the next week.  It’ll probably be around 2 weeks or so before tickets are available for purchase.  We’ll send an update with firm dates once that gets worked out. ..

STIFF will select the winner of our festival and present that filmmaker with the Grand Jury Award.  The winner will receive a 1 hour meeting with a Hollywood Video acquisitions executive (travel not included).

 

Grand Jury Award

The award ceremony will be on Saturday, June 13th at 6:15 PM.  There will be some films shown after the awards.  You will get in with your filmmaker’s badges and we’ll have some tickets available for purchasing as well.

 

Press contacts

We will continue to hound the local press (in a good way) but you are welcome to reach out to them as well to promote your screening.  We’ll be sending out another email with a list of press contacts before long as well.  

Q&A’s

We love them and so do our audiences.  If you and/or someone close to the film could do a Q&A after the film that would be great. Our audience loves the interaction with the filmmakers, crew, and cast and we feel it’s a big part of the experience for everyone.  Just look for one of our crew or volunteers the day of your show and we can work out the details.

Badge Info

 

 

Each filmmaker will receive a pair of all-access badges.