My Past Event Producing Experience in the Entertainment Industry

By Joy A. Kennelly

Recently, I had the good fortune of re-connecting with a couple of good friends I haven't seen in many years who I knew through my short film festival, SPIFF. (If you click the link you can read about the first one I produced.)

Here, in short, is how it grew from a two-day screening at Sony Pictures Imageworks into an internationally recognized film festival. Because some of you don't know this side of me...

SHORT PICTURES INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL (SPIFF)

Hollywood, CA       1996 – 2001

I was the Founder/Producer. As such, I did the following with my wonderful volunteers:

Pioneered, produced and publicized (internationally & regionally) 4 successful annual film festivals and 16 supporting events in LA. 

Oversaw staff, filmmakers, judges, budgets, celebrities, festival programming, vendor negotiations, copywriters, publicist & on-site.

Scouted and selected films, talent, theatres and venues. You can read about some of the unique Los Angeles venues where I held SPIFF and other events in my past event producing promo here: Download Jkpresskit07.6-1

Branded festival name and image (SPIFF) world-wide including Mexico, Canada, Russia, Iceland, Northern Ireland and in Hollywood; HBO, MTV and others scouted & procured SPIFF films.

Secured high-level product placement & sponsorship: Lee Apparel, The Los Angeles Department of Cultural Affairs, Apple Computers, Saturn, The Omni Hotel, World Café, Eastman Kodak, Crest National, and others with my volunteer team.

Notable Participants included: Actor Forest Whittaker

and SPIFF Honoree, Actor Eriq LaSalle;  Director Jason Reitman (UP IN THE AIR, JUNO, THANK YOU FOR SMOKING,)

cork·y  adj. cork·i·er, cork·i·est1. Of or resembling cork.2. Informal Lively; buoyant.

---

cork

and Randal Kleiser (GREASE, BLUE LAGOON), Comedy Director/Writer /Producer and Stop-Motion Animator Corky Quakenbush;

TV & Movie Spoofs
Tags: Atom.com,Atom Originals,Atom Blog,Upload Videos

UPN's former Senior Vice President of Comedy and current NBC VP of Talent Development, Kelly Edwards; Entertainment/Law Attorney Jonathan Handel, and Bill O'Reilly (before he was The O'Reilly Factor), among others.

..... Click the link for more information.

I still stay in touch with some of these people, but need to get back in touch with some others.:) Was remembering some good times and thought you'd appreciate this peek into my background. After SPIFF I went on to produce an online film festival for Penton Media during the height of the dot.com craze and made a bunch of money before pursuing another career.

Might have to start event producing again real soon.

SBE boys can't have all the fun in Hollywood, now can they?:)

Comments

[Ana Vick]

I agree! They can't have all the fun. You should do another event soon & I can help ;) Hope to get together again soon, been too long!

[Joy Kennelly]

Definitely Ana. You have skills that complement mine and I think we'd be a power house team.

Talk soon!