The Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF) kicks off tomorrow night with the annual Opening Night Gala, featuring a screening of Lynn Shelton's Your Sister's Sister. This year marks the first time in the history of SIFF that work by a Seattle-based filmmaker has opened the festival. Check out the trailer below:

Shelton is not the only Northwest filmmaker getting some love at this year's SIFF. Check out this article that details a dozen more films with local connections screening this year. Congratulations to all involved!

SIFF runs May 17 through June 10. For more information and screening dates/times, check out www.siff.net. See you at the movies!

Lisa Magnuson

Register now for the upcoming two-day Strategic Selling Workshop, led by Lisa Magnuson of Top Line Sales LLC.

The workshop, held May 15 and 16 in Seattle, is designed for sales people, business owners and directors or VPs of sales and marketing. Attendees are guaranteed to:

• leave with a completed sales plan for their top opportunity
• have access to the full suite of tools and resources needed to land large deals
• benefit from four reinforcement sessions designed to continue focus and momentum

More details and registration info here.

Cost includes two-day session, lunch, workshop materials, “The 48-Hour Rule” book, electronic access to tools and resources, and four (one-hour each) post training reinforcement conference calls.

The summer program is open to students age 13-16. Participants will complete an intense course in documentary video taught by professional filmmakers, using pro production equipment, industry standard lighting, sound gear, HD cameras and Final Cut Pro equipped Macs.

PYD students create documentaries focusing on the most powerful force in our society today: their own voices. By turning the camera inward, they explore issues important to their lives and the lives of other project members. Working in small teams, students go through the process of producing, filming and editing a short documentary from start to finish.

In August, the finished films will screen at the Hollywood Theatre and all students will also receive a copy of their completed work on DVD.

For more information and/or to register, click here.  Don’t delay – the deadline to register is May 15th!

As the nation’s leading mail preference service, Catalog Choice created the MailStop Index to measure the communities that have opted out of the most unwanted advertising mail per capita. Each U.S. household receives, on average, over 700 pieces of direct mail a year—a number bound to increase courtesy of the U.S. Postal Service’s Every Door Direct Mail program.

“Unwanted mail is a burden on communities. Citizens are tired of it cluttering their mailboxes and cities expend time, resources and landfill space to dispose of it,” said Chuck Teller, executive director, Catalog Choice. “As the U.S. Postal Service’s Every Door Direct Mail campaign seeks to increase the amount of direct mail businesses send, residents in these cities are making a conscious choice to put an end to the junk—making a valuable environmental and financial impact in their communities.”

The Most Mail-Efficient Metro Areas in March 2012:
1. Seattle, WA
2. Santa Fe, NM
3. Boulder, CO
4. Ithaca, NY
5. Truckee, CA
6. Napa, CA
7. Bridgeport, CT
8. San Francisco, CA
9. Bozeman, MT
10. San Jose, CA
11. Corvallis, OR
12. Johnstown, PA
13. Boston, MA
14. Charlottesville, VA
15. Burlington, VT
16. Kingston, NY
17. Santa Cruz, CA
18. Salinas, CA
19. Lebanon, NH
20. La Crosse, WI

On the evening of Thursday, April 12, hundreds of Seattle-area ad industry folks gathered at 415 Westlake for the ADDY Awards. The annual competition honors the best work of the past year produced by Puget Sound agencies and creative firms.

And the winners are…

Best of Show went to Copacino+Fujikado for their Bernandez Campaign for the Seattle Mariners. The campaign also won a Gold ADDY in the “Mixed/Multiple Media” category.

The Judge’s Choice Award went to World Famous for a video they produced for Sasquatch Music Festival. The video earned World Famous a Gold ADDY in the “Advertising for the Arts & Sciences” category. The company earned another Gold in the same category for their Leonardo Museum campaign.

Other big winners included Wong, Doody, Crandall, Wiener (WDCW). The agency nearly dominated “Advertising for the Arts & Sciences,” winning 7 Gold ADDYs and 13 Silvers for their SIFF (Seattle International Film Festival) and Woodland Park Zoo campaigns. In addition, WDCW won a Gold and Silver ADDY in “Elements of Advertising,” two Silvers in “Out-of-Home,” and three Silvers in “Television,” for various campaigns.

The awards

The entries

Gold ADDYS were also bestowed on the following companies/campaigns:

• Cole & Weber United/Washington’s Lottery (Interactive Media)

• Cole & Weber United/Washington’s Lottery (Mixed/Multiple Media)

• Creature/Expedia (Collateral Material category)

• Creature/Pacifico Beer (Elements of Advertising)

• Digital Kitchen/Paramount Pictures (Interactive Media)

• EMP Museum/EMP Museum (Advertising for the Arts & Sciences)

• Hornall Anderson/Hornall Anderson (Advertising Industry Self-Promotion)
  

  Some of the deserving winners!

• Wexley School for Girls/Seattle Sounders FC (Interactive Media)

• Wexley School for Girls/Wilson (Interactive Media)

• ZAAZ/Audi (Out-of-Home)

For more info, photos, and a full list of winners, check out www.adclubseattle.com and AAF Seattle’s Facebook page.

Come out of your office for a once in a lifetime opportunity to put your golfing skills to the ultimate test, with a 200-foot long golf range in the middle of Downtown.

Participants can receive a free golf ball, hit a bucket for $3 or improve their game with a 10-minute lesson by Coston himself for just $5—paid with plastic.

The event stems from Intuit’s GoPayment system, which encourages small businesses to improve their “game” with mobile credit card readers. The readers allow customers to pay via smartphones, eliminating the hassle of traditional shopping lines and cash registers.

The Intuit GoPayment production is hiring over 100 film crew work days, is working with numerous local vendors, and has booked 58 hotel room nights for traveling crew.

For more information, follow Intuit on Facebook, Twitter @GoPayment and event hashtag #DowntownSeattleGolf.

As someone old enough to enjoy playing Space Invaders when it was brand new, I’ve had the pleasure of watching digital trends emerge, morph and sometimes die off with an intense sense of wonder.

Digital marketing is incredibly fast-paced; tools and technologies seem to change by the second. Some instantly make sense and can give you that “why didn’t I think of that?” moment, others may take awhile for us to appreciate, and then there are those that just don’t cut the mustard.

Here are a few trends that have really struck me over the last few months in the realm of zeros and ones that are more than just flash-in-the-pan fads.

GREAT VISUALS
Not just good visuals; great visuals. Welcome to the Age of the Designer and if you aren’t working closely with one (or many) that really get your message, you should start now. The rise of infographics, video sharing and applications like Pinterest really illustrate how important visuals are to the online experience. They provide a pleasing format for users to consume information, while allowing them to have some amount of control over what they see. In other words, people are filtering their own content, so you had better make it a point to stand out.

Pinterest is a testament to the importance of images in digital marketing.

The advertising industry has always been pretty perceptive when it comes to the use of visuals—it’s nothing new to the world of media in general—but visuals in the digital realm have been greatly enhanced by new technology. Whether it’s cross-device compatibility or increased screen resolution, we have come a long way in offering a whole new visual experience to a massive online audience. Bland stock photos and bright, shiny buttons aren’t going to do you any favors. Images should tell a story, make a point, and have a purpose. From illustrations to animations and even something as simple as a logo, making it your own and a piece of art in and of itself will help to create a name for your brand.

INTERACTIVE APPLICATIONS
People want to see how they can affect the world around them, even in the smallest of ways. We need to know we have a choice, and have the power to make something our own. This is where truly interactive experiences come in. Visuals are a key component of our iconic memory, which has seemingly unlimited space, but only for short periods of time. Interactive experiences help to bridge that gap by reaching the long-term memory, so creating branded interactive experiences will really give you some staying power.

Sherwin-Williams uses an interactive application to spread brand awareness.

Interactivity isn’t only about being memorable; it’s also about ensuring you are creating relationships with people who will support your company through action. We live in a world overwrought with messaging. Creating something of value that users choose to spend their time on, and potentially share with friends and family, is where I really find that “sweet spot” of marketing—that place where everyone wins.

GAMIFICATION AND PLAY-CENTERED DESIGN

If images and interactivity support memory building, then play is the Elmer’s glue-stick that holds it all in place. Play is important. It has been proven to increase retention, engagement and brand loyalty. While we’ve been talking about gamification for a few years now, there is a whole new trend of play-centered design that follows the theme of gamification—bringing fun into otherwise mundane activities.

Spanning the worlds of toy making, illustration and music, Invisible Creature is an example of how these worlds can collide.

Many creative individuals and agencies in the comic book, toy and gaming worlds are crossing over to marketing and advertising, and it turns out there is quite an overlap in methodology. We will always be looking at ways to improve gamification to create experiences that bring entertainment and value to the users, so teaming up with someone that really understands the basic human need for play can bring a vibrant new voice to your campaign.

CROSS-PLATFORM ACCESS
There are so many devices and platforms for viewing digital content, sometimes it can get a little overwhelming. Luckily there are some great new tools that can help bring digital campaigns to multiple devices without affecting the integrity of the content. Thanks to the concept of responsive Web design, HTML5, and frameworks like PhoneGap, the world of Web development is a much more mobile-friendly place.

Some examples of well-implemented responsive Web design from Media Queries.

That being said, not all content is being produced in a multi-device-friendly manner. To ensure that your digital marketing efforts get the most ‘eyeball time,’ you have to plan accordingly and create mobile-friendly content. Be sure you are working with the right vendors or keeping your integrated team up-to-date on the use of these tools so that your campaign gets the visibility it deserves.

HUMAN COMPONENT

The massive Hunger Games campaign provides an example for effective use of all five components.

We are entering the Post-Digital world, and we are bringing our devices with us. People are not interested in giving up the modern conveniences that technology can afford us, but there is a certain fear we carry with us that we will lose our sense of humanity amidst the beeps and blips of cyberspace. So what do we do? Remember the human component.

Great digital marketing isn’t about creating the most advanced applications with a cacophony of bells and whistles. By creating digital experiences that are beautiful to look at, worth our time, fun to play with and easy to access, you have an opportunity to not only reach new markets, but to create something that improves the human experience even if only to make it more enjoyable for a few moments. When you take a good, hard look at your digital campaign, ask yourself: “Would I pay attention to this?”

Vicky Tamaru is co-founder and executive producer of Plexipixel in Seattle. www.plexipixel.com.

By Jessie Wilson, Communications Consultant, Washington Filmworks

FLASHBACK TO 2011:
In June of 2011, the Motion Picture Competitiveness Program sunset, in essence halting five years of significant effort to maintain Washington’s viability on the national filmmaking scene. Efforts to renew the legislation that funds our state’s film incentive program passed the Senate in 2011. Unfortunately, the bill stalled in the House of Representatives and was never called to the floor for a vote.

The sunset of this program was an undeniable blow to our state’s film industry. The Joint Legislative Audit and Review Committee (JLARC), an independent body of the legislature, had recommended the Motion Picture Competitiveness Program be reinstated. JLARC backed program renewal because it offered a return on the state’s investment and effectively maintained Washington’s position in a competitive marketplace. Yet despite significant contribution to Washington’s economy, the bill to renew the Motion Picture Competitiveness Program sunset on June 30, 2011.

The law establishing the program provided that Washington Filmworks could collect up to $3.5 million each calendar year from contributors who were eligible for a dollar-for-dollar B&O tax credit from the Department of Revenue. The Washington Filmworks board was able to gather this amount before the tax credit expired. This enabled the organization to provide incentive funds for 11 projects in 2011.

Knowing that the renewal of the program was uncertain, the Filmworks board developed a contingency plan, which would allow the portion of the program that serves as the state’s film office to continue on a limited basis through June of 2012. After reviewing the organization’s budget, the board took action to reduce staff and all other expenses, while still allowing for meaningful assistance to productions interested in filming in Washington. This also allowed staff, the board, and the community to prepare for another round of lobbying in Olympia the following year.

CUT TO 2012:
Slightly battered, Washington’s film community had pulled itself up by the bootstraps and was ready for take two on the road to renewal. Facing another state budget shortfall, combined with a short legislative session, provided challenges for the program’s renewal. However, the legislature had made it clear that creating and maintaining jobs was a priority. This gave some hope; the Motion Picture Competiveness Program was designed to create jobs and provide sustainable work for the local film industry. Coming to terms with our bill’s underdog status in this economic climate, Washington Filmworks had become a little leaner and meaner. We were officially savvier and determined to keep our supporters informed. As a result, we launched a legislative blog to keep the film community in the fight.

Since the bill had stalled during the 2011 legislative session, it once again landed in the house of origin—the Senate. We continued to have great support from our champion, Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles (Seattle), but this time the landscape had shifted slightly. The Motion Picture Competitiveness Program passed out of the Senate with an overwhelming majority—40 yeas, 8 nays, and 1 excused.

The bill, now known as 2ESSB 5539, was headed back to the House of Representatives where the bulk of our fight would still lie. We were somewhat anxious at this news, as the bill had been significantly amended in the House Ways and Means Committee the prior year.

Simultaneously, we had reason to feel cautiously optimistic. Washington’s film community was rallying in a way not witnessed in 2011. Washington Filmworks was hearing word that people were taking action, calling legislators, writing letters and e-mails, and visiting Olympia. We were copied on thousands of e-mails to elected officials across the state in support of the Motion Picture Competitiveness Program.

Ironically, as our state’s film community was fighting to maintain their industry, Washington Filmworks’ filmmaking alumni were raking in awards and nominations. 2011 films produced through the incentive program were charming the pants off critics and audiences on the 2012 film festival circuit. Safety Not Guaranteed was a darling of Sundance, where it earned worldwide distribution, while Eden and Fat Kid Rules the World premiered at SxSW, both eventually going on to win Audience Awards. It was clear, Washington had a slew of successes to share with our legislators.

A new rally call was put to the film community. Washington Filmworks asked them to get informed, get involved, and get renewed. We knew we could not pass this legislation without their involvement. By early March, things had intensified in Olympia and the legislative session was slated to end in less than a week. By now 2ESSB 5539 had been declared necessary to implement the budget (NTIB), but Olympia had taken a page from Hollywood’s book and things were starting to get dramatic. On the evening of March 2, the GOP seized majority control of the Senate and passed their own version of the budget. Suddenly we were witnessing rare political and parliamentary maneuvers that had not been seen in Washington for over 25 years.

Was it time to worry? Was 2011 doomed to repeat itself? Washington Filmworks’ legislative team still felt there was a chance to be heard in the House, and the Washington film community had turned up the heat. Calls and e-mails were flooding into legislators’ offices yet again. Elected officials in each district were hearing from constituents in support of the incentive. There was word from Olympia that their voices were being acknowledged, but it was getting down to the wire.

One tremendous hurdle still faced our film community. The bill was referred to the House Ways and Means Committee, where it was amended during the 2011 legislative session. In fact, Ways and Means Committee Chair Representative Ross Hunter had cut the annual funding for the program in half, crippling its effectiveness and stopping the momentum that has been created through the film program. Not wanting a repeat performance, on March 7, Washington Filmworks and members of the community headed to Olympia to testify in front of Representative Hunter and members of the House Ways and Means Committee.

We were prepared for an underdog scenario, and while Representative Hunter was expectedly outspoken, the support from the rest of the room was apparent. The majority of Representatives in the room spoke in favor of the bill and opponents appeared to have become the minority. Phenomenally, before the Committee could vote on the bill, it was pulled to the Second Substitute Calendar, making it eligible to be heard on the House floor.

On March 8, Washington Filmworks and much of our state’s film community spent the day watching the House Floor debate on television. The anxiety was palpable in our office and on our social media platforms. We were fielding questions on parliamentary procedure as other measures came to the floor.  By the afternoon the film bill had not been scheduled for a vote and we knew there were no guarantees one would happen. The House had until midnight to consider any bills, and as day turned into evening, 2ESSB 5539 was still not up to be heard. We could only watch and wait, all the while recalling last year. Would that night’s dinner be the equivalent of a last meal for the Motion Picture Competitiveness Program?

Around 9pm, Washington Filmworks heard word from our legislative team that the film incentive bill would indeed come to the floor. We were glued to our televisions and computers to watch what unfolded. We had done all we could do.

If our strategy had worked, cautious optimism told us to expect renewal of the Motion Picture Competitiveness Program, but the vote would tell the true story. The Representatives began to speak in support of the bill and the legislation was opened to a vote. Our jaws dropped as the number of “yeas” on the tally board rose higher and higher, finally closing with a count of 92 in favor and 6 against.

After 2ESSB 5539  passed out of the House of Representatives, the bill was sent to Governor Gregoire’s office for her signature. It was officially signed on the evening of March 29, 2012, and will become law 90 days after the end of the 2012 legislative session, or June.

A HAPPY ENDING
This legislative renewal campaign had all of the elements of a Hollywood blockbuster, but one made in Washington. The story is born out of the classic underdog plotline. There were definitely protagonists and antagonists, there have certainly been overwhelming odds, and there was undeniably a lot on the line.

When the credits roll, there are many heroes to recognize. None of this would have been possible without the support of the bill’s sponsors, especially Senator Kohl-Welles and Representative Phyllis Gutiérrez Kenney. Washington Filmworks would also like to acknowledge the Speaker of the House, Representative Frank Chopp, who was essential in bringing the Motion Picture Competitiveness Program to the floor for a vote. Watching our industry take ownership of their future has been amazing and we tip our hats to the tremendous grassroots efforts of the film community. It has been an inspiring thing to watch.

Here’s to our future, Washington.