It’s time for the first women’s epee world cup of the season in the lovely city of Doha, Qatar. We will also be competing at the same time as the men’s epee event. Go Team USA!

I just happen to be poking around the Qatar Fencing website and saw that a still from “Speed of Fencing” is being used as an icon on the main site! They didn’t ask me, but whatever. Kind of cool that a federation half-way around the world has seen my film.

You can watch the competition live on the Qatar Fencing site, Feb 10-13: http://www.qatarfencing.org/front.htm

Happy New Year! After several donations, I have finally been able to submit Speed of Fencing to a good group of festivals! Some of these festivals are very prestigious and some are smaller but have programming that is more related to my film.

So what kind of film is Speed of Fencing? Well, since the final version is only 3 minutes, it’s a short film and can even qualify as a short short film (no, not a typo). It’s not exactly a documentary but it’s not exactly a scripted film. Depending on the description of the festival, it can qualify as an experimental film. My biggest strength is that it is an action and sports film. For the few festivals that specialize in sport or action short films, those are the one I have submitted to.

And here’s my grand list…so far 🙂 I’ll be sure to update if I hear anything from the festivals. Since this is my first time, I’m not sure if it’s like applying to college (where they accept or reject you) or more like an interview (where they don’t really say anything until, out of the blue, they want you tomorrow). I guess we’ll just have to cross our fingers and wait for the notification dates to roll though. Yay!

I had the pleasure of meeting Craig Harkins, one of the moderators of fencing.net, at the Kansas City NAC this weekend. He posted Speed of Fencing to the site back in October, so it was cool to meet him in person. Fencing.net is really the best website and online community out there for US fencers. So if you haven’t been, check it out!

Another reason it was cool to meet him was to talk about how the slow motion replay system in fencing has evolved. For those who don’t know what I’m talking about… beginning in the round of 32 at World Cups and the top 8 at US NACs, there is video replay available for the fencers and referees. The fencer gets two chances to call for a replay, and like in football, if you are correct there is no penalty. If you are incorrect, you lose one of your replay chances. I’ve seen it more in sabre and foil, but sometimes the referee goes straight to the replay because they are unsure of the call. The plan is for me to do an article/video about the replay system for fencing.net. I’m super excited because I think when people learn how video works, it will give more information to fencers on how to use their replay chances better and how to improve the current video system.

What’s wrong with slow motion replay? You’ll have to wait for the article to come out. But here’s one thing I find especially poor as it relates to Speed of Fencing: The cameras they use don’t have a high enough frame rate. We used the Phantom HD Gold camera, which can shoot 1500 frames per second (for some perspective, a movie is shot at 24fps and TV is 30fps). I’m not saying they need to go with 1500fps, but when the blade is moving so fast, sometimes the camera misses what happened. And that’s all I’ll say for now. 🙂

Olympic and World Medalists Come to Kansas City for the North American Cup This Weekend | News | USA Fencing.

This weekend is the first Division 1 event of the season, counting toward Olympic Team qualifications. Good luck to all the fencers!

I received a nice email note from a French fan this weekend. I thought I’d share since it was translated for me. 🙂

Mademoiselle,
Je viens de voir votre court-métrage nommé « Speed of fencing ».
Je tiens a vous féliciter du travail que vous réalisé. Un tel court-métrage aide à faire connaître l’escrime.
Encore Bravo.
Cordialement
Denis SAINRAT

Miss,
I have just seen your short film named ” Speed of fencing “.
I like has to congratulate you on the work that you realized. Such a short film helps to become known the fencing.
Still bravo.
Cordially
Denis SAINRAT

My first comment on YouTube! Loving the support 🙂

Stay tuned for a festival submission update…

Check it out! Thanks to my first Donation, I was able to enter the Vail Film Festival in the category of Adventure Films. So what does that have to do with the IMDb page? Well, I was trying to make my own page and there was just no way to create it. After my film was sent to the Vail Film Festival, the IMDb page was automatically created. Translation: “This is a serious video, it gets a page!” You can read about the film and it is searchable on the largest film database in the world. I’d say that’s pretty cool.

So when will we find out if Speed of Fencing was accepted? Not until January 20, 2012. This is a slow process, so in the meantime I’ll be researching and applying to more festivals and spreading the word. To help me apply, send a donation on my Donate page!

I was refereeing this past weekend at the Temple Open and ran into people who have seen the video in a new web location. With the help of Mark Basile, Speed of Fencing is now being highlighted on the homepage of the NYAC Epee program! Check it out here: http://www.nyacepee.com

You can also watch Speed of Fencing on YouTube! I realized that vimeo.com videos don’t embed into all websites, so now I’ve post the long version to YouTube as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z86tpjRaiK8&feature=colike