Snip Snip - New Cut of The Big Deal

The original cut was almost 14 minutes long and the new cut is almost 9 minutes long. I applied to 10 festivals, got into four and won the 2011 Imagen Award for Best Theatrical Short.

Friends and family were surprised that me, their favorite optimist would be so devastated by this. Of course I am grateful for the festivals the film has screened at and winning the Imagen Award BUT, I want more for The Big Deal. My team and I worked too long and too hard on this film to have the film’s life end there.

I am a dreamer, an optimist and I am proactive. If I was  an optimistic dreamer without the hard work supporting those dreams then I would be very happy with the small successes that The Big Deal has been showered with. I worked too hard and too long putting this film together for me to be happy with just that.


The film has been well received by the audience but it was rejected by 6 of the 10 festivals.  I kept asking myself why. I asked some filmmaker friends for feedback and I think they were being polite because not one of them gave me the answer I needed.  

As luck would have it, one of my friends was raving about a book she had read and the book changed EVERYTHING.

How Not to Make a Short Film: Secrets from a Sundance Programmer by Roberta Marie Munroe