Get The Rebound

Plan ahead : The main reason I came to the US was to run a marathon in Chicago. But I knew about the AFM and planed to be there in order to meet funders and producers for my new next documentary production in Brazil.  

Volunteer: This year not only the Israel Film Festival took place at the same time with the AFM, but also the festival had an exhibition space to show and market Israeli films around the world. I helped around doing whatever needs to be done. It was great. I enjoyed it a lot and got to know many people. When the AFM started I helped also during it, got a pass to all the restricted areas and met many people. Win win situation.

Send emails: Before the AFM started, I went to their web site and found the contact information of all companies attending there. It took me almost 3 days to send a personal email to all of them, but it's worth it! I got very few answers but the best thing happen when I walked to one of the suites that had a big poster saying "inspirational films". I introduced myself and then the woman informant of me said" Yes, I got your email, i'm very sorry i didn't answer yet, please step in and let's talk". Amazing

Stay focused: My next documentary will be filmed during the Olympic games in Rio 2016. Walking through the suits, I saw one door that had a poster of dogs playing soccer and the title was “K9 world cup”. When I talked to their representative, it turned out that he is from Sao Paulo and has many connections in Brazil. Bingo!

Keep on connections: Last winter I attended Sundance Film Festival. I met many people and stayed in touch with many of them, mainly by Facebook. It happened to be that as I walked into the AFM main lobby, I recognized a friend from Sundance that told me she is looking for a producer. An hour later we sat with another friend of mine, a producer I also met in Sundance, to a meeting and started to make things happen. A producer, a director and a screen writer all next to one table in LA. This is how you make movies.

Be nice and make friends: Everyone at the AFM are busy, don’t know most of the people over there and want to get sell movies. Sometimes a smile is a key to a locked door and a short meeting could become a long lasting relationship.  

Be organise and write an spreadsheet - after the AFM i sat for a few hours with all the business cards I gathered and put all the contact information I got from people. Believe me, this one is a must. The main phrase you hear at the AFM is “Here’s my card” or “Do you have a card?”

Party - Film people love to party. Every night I crashed a different party, met interesting people and had fun ;)

Friends and Family - without the help of my friends here and my family at home this would not happen. Thank You!

I learned about the business side of filmmaking in a week at the AFM more then 4 years in Film&TV studies. It was a great experience and I recommend it to any film maker!

1. Choose a city you have some kind of an emotional connection to. Since being a child I visited Chicago. I have lots of family there and always loved it. It's where I went to my first NBA game, watching Michel Jordan and the Chicago Bulls. I was in Chicago a year earlier and made a commitment to myself to run the next year. So just being there already made the feeling so special.

2. Get to know the city. During the run I passed by so many places I have visited and are special to me. "Here is my favorite restaurant, here is the bar I met...., here is the place I Bought...., here is the the hotel I stayed a year ago..." I found myself pointing  at so many place and having personal moment to myself during the run. This actually made the run easier and more enjoyable.

3. Leave a lot of free time to pick up your bib runner number. I felt like a kid in a candy shop while visiting the Chicago Marathon centre, a couple of days before the run. With more then 200 booths of running equipment, clothes, shoes, beer, food, and many more I found myself wondering at the huge centre for hours. I got to meet other runners, ask all the questions I still had and buy the last things I needed for the marathon. So much fun.

4. Get a hotel that is walking distance from the start/ finish line. I was lucky, my family took care of this and I thank them for the privilege. Sleeping a few blocks from the start line made a huge difference. The marathon morning is such a stressful one. Waking up very early, preparing the equipment and so much more. Adding to it transportation in a new city you are not really familiar with adds a lot of unnecessary pressure. Another cool experience is going to the hotel's lobby and seeing it so busy at 5:30 am on a Sunday morning. Everybody already with their running clothes on, eating and drinking complimentary bananas and coffee. We stayed at The Palmer House and walked literally 5 minutes to the start line. From my traveling experience, this can be affordable to any budget with the right planning.

5. Make a cool playlist for the run. The best part of my run was the amazing and motivating playlist my family and friends created for me. It was so surprising and focusing, I decided to create an on line service to help other runners enjoy it also. it’s called marathonplaylist.com .It's a service that creates for you a playlist made of friends and family recording themselves wishing you a great run. After filling the contacts information of your friends and family, the site managers email them. Then the site managers ask the people on the list to record themselves for a few seconds, wishing the runner good luck and just talking to them during the run. There is an option to send your favorite songs and add them to the list. At the end they edit it together to one long playlist. Not only that I had my favorite tunes, But also I listed to my running coach a few times during the run telling me to pace myself and not to burn to much fuel at the beginning. After him I listened to my mom and sister wishing me good luck with a lot of passion and my friends makings me laugh during the run. When needed I pressed the Play button and felt like I'm running back at my local park in Tel Aviv.

6. Be a part of the marathon. Even though what I just wrote, don't have your music all the time. Feel the environment. The big marathons are very organized. Thousands of people are involved. From one side, the volunteers that hand you water, snacks, power bars, bananas, tissue and even beer. And from the other, the thousands of fans coming to cheer and make your run a bit easier. Listen to their cheers, read their home made posters, smile, high five them. In Chicago the south neighbourhoods were the loudest and most colorful with drums and lots of flags. Feeling the crowd raised my spirit and helped the run.

7. Focus on the important stuff. I practiced for many months for this marathon. Waking up at 5 am, 6 times a week, during the hot summer to practice with my running team. During those months I got to know an amazing group of people that became really close to me. I learned to enjoy hard training, the early mornings, discipline, commitment and grew up as a runner and a person. When I saw the 25 miles mark, I couldn't believe it will be over in a few minutes. All the work I put in will be done soon. I wished I could extend the marathon and add more miles to it. After our last practice in Tel Aviv I told my team members and coach that there are two important things when you run a marathon: the practices and the picture at the finish line. The score is also important, but, unless you're a professional runner, it's not the top priority. Enjoy and Respect the process.

I finished the Chicago Marathon with the time of 3:23 hours. 23 is Michael Jordan's number. Perfect time :)

Want to be updated and to GET THE REBOUND?  Subscribe to our newsletter today!

"Life just starts, I'm very young and there are so many things I can do" Olmert says and acts like.

Watch Olmert speaks about motivation and fear :

Ehud Olmert, You totally Get the rebound!

1- Feed your passion! Make sure that you are telling stories that you really care about and you are not just faking it for the wrong reasons.

2- Build your network by really smart committed people that add to your skills set and do things you don’t do.

(DOCNYC 2015 program, I enjoyed all the docs I saw during the festival)

3- Always be open to new ideas. You don’t know it all!

4- Take time and do a propper research of the subject of the movie and to how would it come out at the end by poeple

5- Try not to take it too seriously! Documentary filmmakers deal with a lot of heavy metarils. Enjoy!

(Justine talked with artistic director of DOCNYC, Thom Powers during one of the morning panels)

When asked about her motivation she answers very simply “ I love working with the filmmakers and see how the movies connect with the audience”

Get The Rebound!

2- Don't submit your movie too early. Take the time to show the movie to professional people and hear their thoughts about it. Don't rush it!

3- Surround yourself with people who have done it before. Teamup with an experience executive producer or a sales agent to get some advice before submitting your film. They don't have to be on board full time, but remember experience is not something you can learn at home.

(Martin Scorsese talks about filmmaking during one of the festival's night)

4- choose the right festival for you! Everybody wants to get in to Sundance or Toronto, but that is very hard. There are many genres Festivals: by nationality, Sci-Fi , gender and many more. Do your homework! Build a strategy and submit to what is most right for your movie.  

5- decide what you want to get out of the festival. Is it a sales agent? Distributer? Press? The more you know what you want, your chances are better. And last tip from Powers " surprise me! I see so many movies that are sent to the festival. The thing I look for the most is to be surprised!

(Q&A after the screening of another great documentary)

Get the rebound!

3. Come fresh to work.

4. Have very shot sessions! What ever you are talking about, never have the meeting for more then 90 minutes!

5. Always take a decision at the end of a meeting! No matter what you must take a decision and have to grow the right personality to take decisions.

Olmert summaries his advice to decision making "decision making is the profusion of politics and the profession of prime minister"

Get the rebound!

After writing the new sentences we put the papers all in a the middle of the table and each one took a note and read it loud. The reactions were totally different and much funnier.  

The last round was to guess who wrote what.

Sometimes all you need is a small change in life to get a new experience.

Don’t have sex before a sex scene- Being ready is very important. A porn star must deliver the goods in real time in front of the rest of the crew and cast. Keep it simple and don’t put more pressure on yourself to preform. Put your professional life before private sex life.

Be nice and groom, do your Nails - You are part of a porn movie. You will be naked and have to physical with other actors. Be clean and don’t make their work harder. Girls like it, and they are your co- start. This is the first step to build chemistry between you.

Know your dialogue - Just like most acting role, this one comes with a dialogue. Be professional, do your homework and don’t waste other people time by not knowing the words for your scene.

Bring a girl with you - Almost every one would like to have sex with Jenna Jamison for free, there are plenty of young male willing to do porn. Make sure you have a lady partner with you and many closed doors will open.

If you don’t feel comfortable with the way you preformed in a scene just ask for another take from the director. It his responsibility that the movie will come up as good as possible.

Don’t worry you will still enjoy sex - If you are a men, and for some women most chances that whatever happens you will still want to have sex.

1- Keep on writhing in rewriting and rewriting, it’s like exercise you mussels in your brain - Just like in sports, there is no replacement to hard work.

2- Never give up - Keep moving forward until you get to your goal and don’t let anyone to discourage you.

3- Write on something you really know - We’ve seen everything on TV already. Nobody wants to see another policemen, doctors or lawyers cliché on the bring screen. Write on what you know and bring to the audience your unique point of view.

4- it’s important to figure out how to bring your materiel to the right people - in this business Networking is just as important as working. People always look for talent and for good scripts!

Now go and Make it happen!