Great Lakes Film Association

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I would like to welcome all our friends and visitors to the Great Lakes Film Association site. Thank you for wanting to be a part of the world of cinema, art, and music with us. We here at the Great Lakes Film Association want to help all those craving for their work to be read and seen by others, making a difference one page and a film reel at a time. We are on a mission to make the world Scream, Cry, and Smile.

Mission Statement

Dedicated to presenting the works of independent filmmakers, artists and musicians.

The Association

The Great Lakes Film Association celebrates the art of film as it makes a dynamic transition from celluloid to binary code.

Founded by Steven M. Opsanic, the Great Lakes Film Association strives to accomplish their mission by showcasing new independent films, recognizing outstanding filmmakers, artists, and musicians; conducting screenplay competitions, and hosting public workshops.

The Great Lakes Film Association is a non-profit organization that relies on contributions, sponsors, and the hard work of its volunteers.

Founding the Great Lakes Independent Film Festival and the Eerie Horror Film Festival, the Great Lakes Film Association is Northwest Pennsylvania’s only association for independent film and is the first to organize an independent film festival. Our focus is on improving and enhancing the independent film industry and tourism climate in Northwest Pennsylvania. This is not something that we feel we should do, but something that we know in our hearts and in our minds that is our responsibility to do as a film association.

Great Lakes Independent Film Festival

The main focus of the Great Lakes Film Association is our Independent Film Festival, which includes works of all genres such as documentary, narrative, animation, experimental, spiritual, music videos, and horror films of various lengths, from all over the world.

Among the top 100 most popular film festivals in the world, we accomplish our mission by showcasing new independent films and by awarding outstanding filmmakers. Our film festival has showcased over 330 films over the past 5 years including numerous films that have been aired on HBO, PBS, and the Sundance channel, and with "The Collector of Bedford Street" nominated for an Academy Award.

Music

If there is anything as universal as the ageless storytelling of motion pictures, it’s the music that makes up life’s soundtrack..

From founding the Great Lakes Music Video Festival to simply working with independent musicians helping to advance music as an art, the association has worked with many local, national, and international musicians over the years. Phantasm; Trevor Huster; Karen Jeffries; Starfish; Lake Trout; Bedouin Soundclash; DJ Boogs; Hello Kitty Death Squad; The Real Truth; Digital Database; The Dogs; The Killerinas; Duppy Conqueror; Chaka; One World Tribe; Hayden Sayers Band; Greg Ropp; The Void; 5 Empty Chambers; Telefonics: Canadian Friday: Mans Room Band; Black Rose Diary; Coffin Bangers; East Ave.; snmnm; Johnson Big Band: Joe Pops Weirdo Theater; GG Allin’s band, The Murder Junkies; Big Mac Blues Band; Rodger Montgomery Blues Band; Blue Fire; Orphean Son; Face Down In High Water; The Trashed; Darth Johnzo; Dj Dollar Bill; Professor Small; Final Rest; and Bad Habits to name only a few of the performers that we have worked with.

The Arts

The Great Lakes Film Association works to facilitate the works of established artists and to bring to light the talents of those artists who have yet to be discovered. Every art organization has their own goals and purposes in mind and must work toward those goals and purposes. Each and every organization operates independently of the others.

One of the goals this association is to pull together all of the arts organizations in the Erie area for the greater good of the arts community.

We at the Great Lakes Film Association believe the members of the arts community should work as a family. When one organization has a performance or show, we all should pull our resources and help to promote that show, collectively, and finally creating not an arts industry, or even an arts community, but an arts FAMILY.

The arts are here to open minds to what can be achieved in a short time period and with even a small or 0 budget. The arts are not just for the wealthy, red carpet type of people, but also for the guy that lives next door to you with a wife and 5 kids and wakes up every morning to head off to the shop, plant, or the restaurant or store. These are the people that we try to introduce to the arts in general.

Charities and Community Organizations

The Great Lakes Film Association has a strong commitment to our community. It is our belief that no organization can prosper without the contribution of the community, and likewise, no community can grow without the participation of organizations and business within.

It is in this spirit that the Great Lakes Film Association has, and shall always participate in events that better the culture, and the arts community of our region. Presenting film exhibitions, each year we take part in local arts and music festivals such as ”Celebrate Erie” and “Blue Cat Stew.”

Throughout the year we also host benefit fundraisers for such organizations as the Hospice of Metropolitan Erie; Gifts for Kids; Tickets for Kids and Unity in Edinboro church.

The Great Lakes Film Association takes great pride and pleasure in being able to participate and host these community events and fundraisers, contributing to these organizations, and all those people that are benefited.

The Future

With minor exceptions, Erie's theaters virtually ignore foreign, independent and documentary films despite the fact that there is a large art and cultural community in Erie County. The Great Lakes Film Association will continue to fill that void. Offering alternative cinema allowing the public a chance to see these movies locally, keeping the crowd that normally travels to Pittsburgh and Cleveland here at home.

In the coming years we will further pursue our mission in several ways which include, expanding our educational outreach to include, establishing the first film arts educational program in our area, organizing a grant endowment program for not only the cinematic arts but for all forms of art, negotiate additional film distribution packages for film makers, and launch a genre-specific international Student Film Festival.

Again, with extremely rare exceptions, not one theater or college in the local Erie area offers the public screenings of classic movies, and none of them have ever presented an entire night dedicated to one particular genre of film or an evening featuring the work of one particular filmmaker or star. The Great Lakes Film Association will endeavor to make this a thing of the past, presenting classic and forgotten films of all genres to the people of this area.

While focusing on education in the cinematic arts, the Great Lakes Film and Arts Institute will also instruct individuals in arts of all kinds such as music, painting, sculpture, and arts of an abstract nature. In doing this we will overall enhance the arts climate in general in this region.

Our agenda would include weekly workshops instructed by such film industry professionals as world famous make-up artist Tom Savini; director Bobby Logan, most famous for the Naked Gun Films; director Oscar Daniels, who’s credits include Among Thieves; Academy Award-winning make-up effects wizard Stan Winston; Stuart Freeborn, known for his excellent make-up artistry on the first Star Wars trilogy, 2001: A Space Odyssey and Superman, and Sarah Monzani, who over the last 20 years, has captivated audiences with looks that she has created for dozens of acclaimed Hollywood films, including The Next Best Thing, Angela's Ashes, Alien, Midnight Express, interview with a Vampire, and Quest for Fire. She has also teamed up with Max Factor.

The classes offered at the Great Lakes Film and Arts Institute will not be limited to directing and make-up but will encompass all areas of filmmaking. Which would include editing, cinematography, lighting, pre-production, postproduction, sound, visual effects, FX effects, screenwriting, animation, film interpretation, theology, casting, and of course not forgetting acting itself. The post-production facilities would be intended to fully train students in editing and sound in both traditional and non-linear editing systems and equipment, and eventually separating the concentrations with the latter incorporating sound design, sound effects creation and sound recording.

Ultimately we are working to establish the first and only independent film and entertainment complex of its kind in Northwest Pennsylvania. It would be at this venue that that the Great Lakes Film Association would host all of our annual events including our proposed educational programs, fund raisers, and administrative offices. This complex would also bring to this region the first complete, state of the art sound stage facilities which would be available to all independent film makers. This facility would house a state-of-the-art training sound stage film and video production complex that embraces a variety of filmmaking functions in a totally integrated and dynamic setting. This facility will bring in business and finances for all.

The 62,036-square-foot film and video complex will house various production, post-production and exhibition activities, and would serve as a "back lot environment" where exterior scenes with a variety of looks can be filmed. The village would include several key buildings that are fashioned in a range of architectural styles and facades from Main Street, USA to the Chicago "El." One of the key objectives of the complex is to build facilities that have a range of scale from the large block sound stage buildings to smaller structures, such as a brick classroom building. Included in this complex would be a 4,000 square feet, specialized, state-of-the-art music recording stage, large enough to accommodate an entire 100-piece symphony orchestra, designed to record live music for inclusion in film productions.

Electrical and other utility outlets would be staged throughout the film and video complex so that filmmakers can easily support their equipment without running long lines of cable. The entire inner compound is designed so that exterior filming can take place undisturbed, with access to the facilities available around the perimeter of the filming area.

Three sound stages varying in size from 8,000 square feet to 4,000 square feet to 2,500 square feet would provide professional production environments for film and video projects. The main stage shall boast a 36-feet-to-the-grid workspace, and an overhead lighting grid.

Production volumes in the film and video industry for production companies have exceeded $60 million over the past year. A $20-million increase in production is expected as a result of growing demand in the independent film industry. Each large film production requires a ‘cast of hundreds'.

Every $10 million in annual production volume generates about 110 film industry jobs. For a typical production, about 30 per cent of the budget is spent on services such as hotels, food, vehicle rentals, construction materials, equipment rental and insurance. For example, based on a $25 million production, budgets would fund 4,400 hotel rooms, 63,000 catered meals, $310,000 in vehicle rentals and $1.25 million in equipment rentals.

It is in all these ways and more that we hope to continue advancing and enhancing independent film in both our region, and through out the world.

Organization

Board of Directors:

Steven M. Opsanic - Chairman
Kelly Hecker
Bob Nelson
Fran Schanz
John Delterzo
Ruth Sprague
Michael Mahler
Jeremy Beightol
Aaron Pacey

Executive Staff:

Steven M. Opsanic - Executive Director
Kelly Hecker - Secretary/Treasurer
Robert Nelson

Officers:

Steven M. Opsanic - Executive Director
Kelly Hecker - Secretary/Treasurer

Advisory Board:

Edward C. Coleman
Scott Wohlstein
Bonnie Bogovich
Shawn Phelps
Rick Liebel
Jim Welle
Gary Cacchione

Great Lakes Independent Film Festival Staff:

Steve M. Opsanic - Festival Executive Director
Kelly C. Hecker - Festival Director
Paul Gorman - Programming Director
Keith Riede - Internet Marketing Director
Christian Lestat Bussiere - Festival Coordinator
Kim McClelland - Artistic Director

Film Fest Committee:

Kelly Hecker - Chairperson
Steven M Opsanic
Dean Dickson
Paul Gorman
Christian Lestat Bussiere
Joe Gallagher
Keith Riede

Fundraising Committee:

Ruth Sprague - Chairperson
Robert Nelson - Fundraising Event Director
Kelly Hecker

Art Committee:

Fran Schanz - Chairman
John Delterzo - Co-Chairman

Jeremy Beightol Film Judges:

Floyd Lawrence - Narrative Features/Comedy
Brian Sheridan - Narrative Short
Joe Gallagher - Experimental
Steve Aschmann - Religious/Spiritual
Kelly Hecker - Horror
Alex Bolla - Gay/Lesbian
John Johnston - Music Video
Gina Rullo Johnston - Music Video
Christian Lestat Bussiere - Documentaries
Bonnie Bogovich - Animation
Steven M. Opsanic - Best of the Fest
Ruth Sprague - Screenplays/teleplays
Kim McClelland - Stage Plays

Our Mailing Address is:

Great Lakes Film Association
P.O. Box 346
Erie, PA 16512
814-873-5069 Ph.

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