On October 9th I woke up to the awesome news that EXIT PLAN had been selected to be in the 3rd Annual New York Short Film Festival which was held from Nov 2 to Nov 8 at Cinema Village. After sharing the good news with the cast, friends and family and after the euphoria wore off I was filled with anxiety about how EXIT PLAN would not only look and sound in a movie theater I as a life time New Yorker had never been to but how it would measure up to all the other short films that were selected. I would soon learn that my old English Professor and Video Editing / Movie mentor Mario Chioldi had produced a short film by Michael Vaynberg that had also been selected to be in the festival called 9.8 m/s2. Ironically, Mario had reached out to me last year about being a second camera man on that film but at that point I had already begun shooting EXIT PLAN so I couldn’t commit. I did get to see Mario’s film which featured some great cinematography and acting in it so that didn’t help with my anxiety leading up to my screening days later. Anxiety aside I was already enjoying the festival. After Mario’s screening we had drinks and caught up on things and made loose plans to work together down the road. To feel for the first time that I was contemporaries with my favorite teacher mean’t the world to me. A few days prior to that I went to the festival kick off show and met some of the other film makers that made the festival. Lisa and I met a wonderful director/cinematographer Vivian Rivas who made a heartwarming, award winning documentary called Ebb Tide about Zee Pacifici an 86 year old music teacher that is reunited with one of her favorite students. Vivian works in film and TV and just completed her masters in Film at City College so I was all ears when she waxed poetic on some of the finer points of film making. When it came for Exit Plan’s screening, Nov 6th at 6:30pm I was a nervous reck. Being the third film in the block I sat through some well produced, funny shorts as I found myself sinking lower and lower in my seat. When Exit Plan came on everything I feared melted away. It looked and sounded great and more importantly I had some great friends and family, the cast and the crew to cheer it on. It’s good to sit in an audience and see what they react to. One gets a good sense of what works for them and what doesn’t. At the end of the day this was a huge accomplishment and certain to be a fond memory. Exit Plan is in consideration for several more festivals and with any luck I’ll get to feel all that crazy anxiety all over again.