Vancouver Game Summit, "Selling Your Film", Clio Advertising Festival and Awards, Emerging Talent Film Festival, BMI Film/TV Awa

ASCAP invites you to attend the seventh annual Silver Lake Film
Festival running through May 12. The festival, happening in Los
Angeles, is an independent-alternative film and arts festival and ASCAP
is helping to expand the SLFF Music Fest programming with live musical
performances by various artists and bands. The regionally inclined
Vancouver International Game Summit is tapping into a growing pool of
game creators residing on the West Coast of Canada and the United
States. The Summit will showcase designers and leaders from the digital
entertainment community, highlighting latest trends in game development
and publishing, and offer perspectives on industry growth.
Author/Screenwriter Diana Wagman and Author Dara Marks discuss the
process of integrating character and depth into story for both books
and film during a May 5 meeting of the Alameda Writers Group in
Glendale. Diana Wagman has three published novels and a screenplay,
Delivering Milo, produced in 1999, and Dara Marks' book, Inside Story,
demonstrates how to identify your story’s thematic intention. IFP
Chicago conducts a May 5 session titled "Selling Your Film" in which it
will review workshops on trailers and materials, developing a website
and finding publicists and producer’s reps, as well as offer a chance
to pitch your film to industry pros. A Florida Media Market
Project-A-Thon Workshop opening May 5 in Miami covers budgeting,
negotiating techniques, how to prepare for a pitch session, how to
structure various deals, and the legal obstacles filmmakers should
avoid, when it runs for selected sessions till June 16.

Since
2002 Los Angeles based Instant Films has conducted a filmmaking process
where movies are made in 48 hours. In early May Instant Films is
looking for actors, writers and directors for its next production  that
will be screened May 6 in front of a live audience at LA Center Studios
when screenings are followed by a party and awards. Advertising's top
awards show, the Clio Advertising Festival and Awards, presenting the
best and most-celebrated names in advertising and design will be hosted
in South Beach, May 9-12, offering a mix of conferences, parties, and
networking. The mission of the International Emerging Talent Film
Festival is to discover and promote emerging cinema talent from around
the world, conducting its event May 12-15 out of Monte Carlo's Eastern
“Larvotto” Beach Quarter. Streaming Media East covers both the business
of video on the Net and the technology of streaming, downloading, IPTV
and mobile video delivery, with everything happening in New York, on
May 15 & 16. BMI Film/TV Awards is an Invitation-only event
honoring the songwriters and composers of the past year’s top film, TV
and cable music programs. BMI composer George S. Clinton will receive
the prestigious Richard Kirk Award for outstanding career achievement
at the May 16 Beverly Hills event. The seventh annual Florida Music
Festival welcomes the music, film and interactive gaming industry and
artistic community to Downtown Orlando for more than 40 screenings, 250
music showcases, and three full days of industry panels. The Indie Film
Jam event of Florida Music Festival is an international film
competition that screens music inspired documentaries, shorts and music
videos.

This year's Cannes International Film Festival gets
underway May 16 running till May 27. Each year, about 15 international
short films - as exemplified by selection "God's Own Devil," directed
by Alka C. Mehta (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GnIiCejksn8)
- compete for the festival's Short Film Palme d'Or. Alternatively, the
independently run Cannes Short Film Corner screens international short
films outside the official competition. And the festival's Producers
Network offers a host of original initiatives aimed at producers. These
and more form a small sampling of the many substantial offerings that
happen in the renowned area of Cannes. On May 17 in New York City, Jazz
Foundation of America presents its sixth annual "A Great Night In
Harlem" a pre-concert gala dinner and private gala dinner for corporate
sponsors, patrons and celebrities, that will be attended by Bill Cosby,
Danny Glover, The Duke Ellington Orchestra, Junior Mance, Ron Carter,
Gary Bartz, Odetta among others. A 2007 ASCAP Foundation Disney Musical
Theatre Workshop, happening in New York, will be conducted May 22 to 24
by Oscar and Grammy-winning composer/lyricist Stephen Schwartz, leading
sessions in which workshop participants will have the opportunity to
present selections from their original works in progress for
professional critique. The global debate on the future of copyright
will be played out in Brussels, May 30 & 31, at the International
Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers Copyright Summit
hosting the likes of policy-makers from copyright societies around the
world and anyone else involved with intellectual property. The May 31
opening of the Palm Springs Film Noir Festival fields filmmaker
discussions with the likes of Richard Anderson, Carroll Baker, Rhonda
Fleming, Kathleen Hughes, Stanley Rubin, John Saxon and others in
nightly discussions following screenings. Activities conclude with a
wrap party June 3.

The above events are only a sampling of what
is listed. Many of the reported events above have a submission process
for indie and/or performing artists to take part in. Complete details
are on the "Media, Entertainment and Performing Arts Industry News and
Events" page at http://www.actorschecklist.com/news.html.
Video and podcast versions of this news summary are now available at
various sites around the Web like YouTube and the Apple iTunes store
podcast category, as well as on The Actor's Checklist at http://actorschecklist.com/loudblog/. This month on video you will see  trailers and video clips of Italian film, "The Role Player" (www.myspace.com/theroleplayeronmyspace; www.theroleplayer.it/), opening a new way to movie production; music, and music oriented film, from the Florida Music Festival & Conference (www.floridamusicfestival.com; www.myspace.com/floridamusicfestival) opening May 17; alternative punk-rock band from the U.K., "Tripped and Falling" (www.myspace.com/trippedandfalling; www.trippedandfalling.com); French actor and music producer Vince Bosco (www.myspace.com/vincebosco; www.myspace.com/otissprods); German-based musical performer, Lando van Herzog (www.lando-van-herzog.blogspot.com),
with his voice, violin, biceps and pecs, and a hint of hip-hop; one of
the shorts selected for screening at the Cannes Film Festival this May,
"God's Own Devil" (www.youtube.com/alkaCM; http://audience.withoutabox.com/festivals/event_item.php?id=6385) a film by Alka Mehta loosely based on a true-life bombing in Mumbai in 1992.