Amost Famous Filmmakers

Seattle is an indie-film-adoring town. So who will be our first breakout indie filmmaker?

Seattle loves independent film. The city is home to more than 10 cinemas screening indie flicks daily. Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF), the biggest, longest-running film festival in the country, just celebrated its 35th year and filled 142,500 seats last summer—almost a quarter of the city’s population. Local independent-media organizations Northwest Film Forum and 911 Media Arts have more than 30 years between them.

“This is a film-mad city,” says Lyall Bush, executive director of Northwest Film Forum, Seattle’s only cinematheque and an institutional backer of independent film. “Per capita we’re the 10th largest market in the nation. We watch a lot of movies.”

And we make them. Walk into Ravenna’s Scarecrow Video, one of the largest independent video-rental stores in the country, and you’ll find almost 200 short and feature-length films made locally and regionally.

OK, so name a few. We’ll wait. Uh-huh.

Even though Seattle is film mad, the city’s indie-filmmaking scene still cannot claim to be home to a breakout indie filmmaker like Portland’s Gus Van Sant (Drugstore Cowboy, My Own Private Idaho) or Austin’s Richard Linklater (Slacker, Dazed and Confused). Notably, while Van Sant, Linklater and others such as Steven Soderbergh (Sex, Lies, and Videotape) were conducting an indie-film train that carried a national consciousness in the late ’80s and early ’90s, Seattle was full-bore busy exporting another brand of indie entertainment: grunge music. Local filmmakers have been chasing this train ever since.

Complete article HERE

MTV and the Univ of Rhode Island

For those of you in Rhode Island, I'll be giving a presentation as part of the 2009 Honors Colloquium at the University of Rhode Island. You can check out the details HERE.

Our Outsourced TV show is still in development with NBC and it sounds like it may be picking up steam again, stay tuned.

Right now I'm racing around Seattle shooting a series of mini-docs on Seattle bands that are featured in the MTV series $5 Cover Seattle which will air early 2010. More to come...

Outsourced in Poland

Sorry for the lapse in posts, it hasn't been due to a lack of activity. I'm writing a new script and everything else has fallen into the background. I did just get news that Outsourced would be screening in Poland and I thought that was interesting enough to warrant a posting. So for all of you in Poland who have yet to see the film, here you go!

“Poland has become an important destination for Bollywood in eastern Europe. What the Soviet Union was for Raj Kapoor in the 1950s and 1960s...

Tarun Mansukhani’s “Dostana”, John Jeffcoat’s “Outsourced”, Atul Agnihori’s “Hello”, and Vijay Krishna Acharya’s “Tashan” will also be screened during the festival.

“The set of films will present the true and various colours of a contemporary India to a Polish audience. We await the verdict of Polish audience,” said Srikumar Menon, head of the commercial wing at the Indian embassy here.

Read the entire article HERE

Outsourced releases in India January 2nd

After many false starts, Outsourced will be released theatrically all over India on January 2nd. It's a nice way to kick off the new year. We don't have all the details on screening locations but it should be playing at multiplexes in all of the Major cities. Tell your friends and family in India and Happy New Year!

Outsourced on iTunes

For those of you who watch movies on iTunes, I'm happy to announce that you can find Outsourced there to Rent, Buy, or Gift (a last minute Christmas present with no shipping charges!).

The Canadian Release

CinemaVault has been rolling Outsourced out in theaters across Canada. Here are some of the dates and a link to the CinemaVault website:

Toronto ON - Now Playing - Carlton Cinemas
Calgary AB - Now Playing - Uptown Stage & Screen
Edmonton AB - December 12 - Princess Theatre
Ottawa ON - December 12 - Bytowne Theatre
Kitchener Waterloo ON - December 12 - Princess Cinema
London ON - December 19 - Hyland Theatre

Outsourced Hits Costa Rica

Outsourced continues to play venues across the US and abroad, most recently winning the Best Narrative Feature Award at the Montezuma International Film Festival in Costa Rica.

We have also heard that January 2nd has become our release date in India. Still no word on the UK.

Outsourced Returns to Seattle!

If you missed OUTSOURCED on the big screen in Seattle, you'll get another chance this week when it plays at Seattle's only pizza & beer movie theater, Central Cinema , September 18th- 25th. For directions and screening times go HERE.

Director and co-writer, John Jeffcoat, will be on hand FRIDAY night at the 7pm screening to introduce the film and chat over a cold brew and some tasty pizza. Don't miss out!

No Outsourced in Blockbuster or Walmart

Outsourced ranked #1 in the Netflix most watched instant downloads last week but it is still not available in Blockbuster or Walmart. If you buy or rent movies from either of these places be sure to request Outsourced and ask them why they don't carry it.

Aside from Netflix you can find Outsourced on Amazon.com, Hollywood Video, Target, Best Buy, and many other independent video stores.

For right now, the only place to buy the soundtrack is still www.outsourcedthemovie.com

USA TODAY features Outsourced

USA Today's 'Watch, Listen & Read: The month in media' features OUTSOURCED:

Seattle-based director and co-writer John Jeffcoat researched what life is like on the other end of the phone by visiting call centers in Bangalore and by collecting stories from a source who does training for Microsoft.

One of Jeffcoat's initial aims was to excite Americans about investigating other cultures, but he's been surprised by the attention the film has drawn in the business world and academia.

"I spoke recently at the University of Washington to a group of business students who are about to go to India," Jeffcoat says. "And ShadowCatcher (the film's independent production company) has been producing a curriculum to send to schools because there was an interest in it."

The movie also caught the eye of NBC. Jeffcoat is currently co-writing a pilot for a TV version, which he's billing as a global workplace comedy featuring ex-pats from different companies working under one Indian call-center roof.

Read the entire USA Today column HERE