The 20th Anniversary Premier of The Empty Mind movie is this week. It was on October 21st 2004, The Empty Mind premiered at the Cinema Paradiso theater in Fort Lauderdale. This was part of the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival, at the time, the largest movie event in Florida.
The Empty Mind
Filming for our first movie, The Empty Mind began in 2002 and the bulk of the filming in Japan and China was done in 2003. I prepared by filming two martial arts masters in America before I left for Japan and China with Hirokazu Kanazawa 10th dan and Teruyuki Okazaki 10th dan. I will add that Kanazawa sensei was one of my instructors and I was a member of his federation.
Filming in Japan at the Aikido Hombu Dojo, 2003
Filming continued in Japan with at the Aikido Hombu dojo with Moriteru Ueshiba, perhaps the World’s most celebrated martial arts master. You read this first interview from 2003 here. On reflection, my first martial art documentary was overly ambitious and our schedule after this was very hectic, with filming at the major Karate Federations, Kyudo (Japanese archery) Federation and the Kendo Federation. Between these interviews we attended and filmed a number of Japan national championships. In China we filmed Tai Chi and Kung Fu in Beijing, visited Shaolin Temple in central China with the legendary Shaolin Monks Shi DeRu and Shi DeYang and went on to travel to Wudang Mountain to film the Taoist martial arts.
Interview with Shaolin Monk’s Shi DeRu and Monk Shi DeYamg at Shaolin Temple
Selling a Movie…
I did not expect commercial success with The Empty Mind, but I knew it would appeal to the martial arts community and hopefully have some small impact outside of this market. Bravely, I ordered 1,000 DVDs without even thinking where I would store the 20 boxes that would arrive! Do you remember the DVD? When The Empty Mind premiered there was no online streaming direct to a consumer. The traditional route was through distributors that would stock your DVD and sell through mail order and high street stores and we supplied two of the largest, Sunrise productions and Budo Video. Selling a single movie was very difficult and Amazon was the best way to reach consumers directly via DVD befor prime video. And we think Amazon is still selling The Empty Mind 20 years later!
Distributors would push you to enter film festivals as a means of marketing your movie and for an independent film studio a film festival was important, and there were an ever growing number. Every town in America seemed to have a film festival. I entered The Empty Mind to the Fort Lauderdale International Film Festival so I could premier at a local theater and take my family and friends and especially Marc and Genie who had helped me so much as part of my film crew.
The Film Festival program for The Empty Mind premier
The Empty Mind Premier
For my first film festival I was determined our premier evening was going to be a fun-filled affair. And on the evening our premier was a real carnival atmosphere. The Abbey Brewery on Miami Beach was a place we would go after karate practice for a beer and they soon became good friends. So much so that when they heard about my movie premier, they set up a table outside the theater and served draught beers! The musicians who I had enlisted a year earlier for the movie soundtrack, Richard Brookens and Yellowbell played on stage before the movie started. Even with this great atmosphere and surrounded by friends, I was very nervous to see my small film on the big screen. How would it look on the big screen was my main concern as most cinemas still screened movies on film not digital. Surprisingly it looked far better than I expected and the film won best Florida picture.
However, I found it difficult to sit in the dark theater waiting for The Empty Mind to end and then wait to see the audience reaction. Filming the movie in Japan and China was a great experience but sitting in the movie theater watching my own movie was agony for me. All you do is notice every mistake no matter how small or insignificant. I was expected to speak on stage afterward for a Q & A, so I came up with the idea of throwing a DVD out to anyone who asked a good question! In a dark theater a DVD flying acoss the seats can be a dangerous missile and we all burst out laughing as it whistled past an audience members hands and bonked them on the head!
The Empty Mind film premier was a family affair with friends
The surprise (small) success of my first premier however, did not lead me to consider other film festivals. The Empty Mind was never intended for a commercial festival.Yet some four months later I received a call from Debbie, a friend from Los Angeles. She told me one of her friends was organizing the Lake Arrowhead Film Festival and she had entered The Empty Mind… without asking me! Lake Arrowhead is located in the San Bernardino mountains and had become a retreat for some of Hollywood’s actor elite. So why not have their own film festival? I agreed to enter the festival but said I could not attend in person. A week later I checked the program on the festival website and changed my mind. One of my favorite actors, Kirk Douglas would be guest of honor. How could I miss that!
Jon Braeley on the theater stage for a Q & A after the premier
