Jaap Ruurd Feitsma - Journal » NaFF

‘Letting Go’ premiere at the Northern Film Festival!

Jaap Ruurd Feitsma — Mon, 23 Nov 2009 15:07:37 +0000

On the 11th of november I went back to the Netherlands for 6 days to be at the Northern filmfestival (NFF) in The Netherlands, Leeuwarden. Thanks to a teacher from my faculty in The Netherlands I was able to enter a workshop ‘Making Documentaries’ given by two famous Dutch documentary makers Pieter Verhoeff and John Appel.

The next day the short films that were nominated a few months earlier were shown in the ‘filmhuis Leeuwarden’ which included my short film Letting Go which ended up in second place in the highest catagory (Semi-Pro). I’m very happy with the second place of Letting Go, also because at first I wasn’t planning on sending it to a festival in the first place! I added the film in this blog below.

The competition was also very enjoyable because some friends & family came along and also the crew and actors were there. Koen Leerink (DOP), Arne Mulder, (DOA) Boa Mulder (set photographer), Christopher Morgan (actor) and Vassilena Valchanova, who was the actrice in the film, came to the festival from Bulgaria to the Netherlands. In the end it was a great week for me of networking, inspiration, motivation, agknowledgement that we made something good, and off course meeting up with family and friends.

And now it’s finally time to put the short film Letting Go on my blog! Hope you enjoy it

‘Letting Go’ Soundtrack

Jaap Ruurd Feitsma — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 13:55:35 +0000

In this blog I would like to share two songs from ‘Letting Go’. I made other versions after I finished the script and never used those. After we started shooting I was able to compose more ‘visually’ then before.

The first video is the song Iyi Yolculuklar. I wrote it for the film under a different title at first, but later I kind of took some elements from a previous song (iyi yolculuklar) that I was unable to finish before.

Iyi yolculuklar is Turkish for ‘Safe journey’ or something like ‘happy traveling’. I promised and enjoyed composing it for a very good friend of mine from Istanbul.

The second song is called ‘Brand New Start’ and basicly begins during the end credits of the short film.

Hope you enjoy the music and stay tuned for the short film!

‘Letting Go’ – 4 still frame shots

Jaap Ruurd Feitsma — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 19:27:39 +0000

In this blog I want to share a few stills from ‘Letting Go’. In the next blog I will be putting two songs I composed and conducted for the film as well, but I won’t be able to do this tonight.

I hope you like the still frames from the film. I think it will give you an honest idea of the look and feel of the short film, which for the moment is better than nothing I suppose!

After the 14th of november I’ll be uploading the full film on YouTube, Vimeo, Facebook, Hyves, and off course my blog. In other words: stay tuned two of the stills contain shots that were filmed with a crane, one shot contains an over shoulder and one shot is a close-up of Christophers expression. The other two are a thumbnail and the begin screen of the DVD menu.

Enjoy the stills!

‘Letting Go’ nominated for Naff – Part 2

Jaap Ruurd Feitsma — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 20:45:58 +0000

So, as I’ve written earlier, my short film ‘Letting Go’ has been nominated on the Noordelijk amateur Film Festival in the student catagory. You can find some more information about it on the website of the Noordelijk amateur Film Festival (click here). On the page ‘dagprogramma’ you can find the time table of all the catagories and a short synopsis about ‘Letting Go’ in Dutch is also available. I hope to see you there, I’ll probably be flying home for the intire filmfestival that will last a full week! Keep it in mind that my Dutch phone got stolen here in Lisbon, so I might not yet be able to answer by phone while I’m in Holland, unless I can allready get a new one. I’ll inform you about this later!

Location: Filmhuis Leeuwarden, Ruiterskwartier 6, 8911 BP, Leeuwarden

Date: saturday, 14th of november 2009

Time & catagory: 12.00 – 13.20 UUR CATEGORIE STUDENTEN AUDIOVISUEEL / SEMI-PROFS.’

In English, I’ve translated the synopsis as followed:

Jaap Ruurd Feitsma – Friesland – 5’39 min.

A romantic meeting between a couple in love in a beautiful poetic scenery can easily find a dramatic turn.

(English spoken, Dutch subtitles).