http://www.yellowlightsmovie.com/ Brian (Bennett Chabot) is a smart, athletic student at Isaac Newton College, near Boston. But ever since being dumped by his old girlfriend, he just hasn't been his fun self. When Brian meets Alex (Aja Munsell), a Wellesley student, he immediately becomes interested in trying a relationship - but he's terrified of being hurt again. Before Brian can have any kind of meaningful relationship with Alex, he must overcome his own risk-averse personality. Yellow Lights is a story about learning to enjoy things for what they are, taking risks, and just going for it. http://www.yellowlightsmovie.com/images/rsslogo.png http://www.yellowlightsmovie.com/ Brian (Bennett Chabot) is a smart, athletic student at Isaac Newton College, near Boston. But ever since being dumped by his old girlfriend, he just hasn't been his fun self. When Brian meets Alex (Aja Munsell), a Wellesley student, he immediately becomes interested in trying a relationship - but he's terrified of being hurt again. Before Brian can have any kind of meaningful relationship with Alex, he must overcome his own risk-averse personality. Yellow Lights is a story about learning to enjoy things for what they are, taking risks, and just going for it. http://www.yellowlightsmovie.com/blog/318 In addition to the awards of "Best Feature" and "Best Cinematography" that we received from Indie Fest USA, Yellow Lights has recently been selected as a DV Award winner and a Bronze Telly Award winner!                     The Telly Awards honor the finest film and video productions. Judges evaluate entries to recognize distinction in creative work — entries do not compete against each other. Instead, entries are judged against a high standard of merit. Judges score entries on a performance scale and winning entries are recognized and awarded as Silver or Bronze Winners based on the combined scoring of the judges who evaluate each entry. The DV Awards is a new and exciting international competition celebrating outstanding creative and technical achievements in the emerging world of digital video production. Kevin 2008-7-3T13:35 http://www.yellowlightsmovie.com/blog/317 Thanks to a tip from fellow indie filmmaker Pericles Lewnes, director of LOOP, Yellow Lights has been added to the lineup of Scene It Entertainment to be represented at the Cannes Film Market in May to hopefully garner some international sales.Tom and I aren't expecting big things, but at this point any foreign sales would be a blessing.On a side-note, Under the Boardwalk, my documentary about the game of MONOPOLY, starts shooting in late-May. Look to monopolydocumentary.com in the near future to find out more.Kevin Kevin 2008-4-10T13:11 http://www.yellowlightsmovie.com/blog/316 Hey All,Just thought I'd post a quick update on what Tom and I are each currently working on.Tom is in the middle of writing the script for his next feature, Morgan Lives. I've gotten to read an outline and just based on that, I'm really looking forward to seeing the final film.I'm producing and directing a documentary about the game of Monopoly, currently titled Under the Boardwalk. Shooting starts in May and will go throughout the next year, culminating with the World Monopoly Championship being held in Fall 09. I'm definitely looking for people with great stories to share about Monopoly so if you know someone or have a great story to share, send me an email at info @ monopolydocumentary.com.Cheers,Kevin Kevin 2008-3-25T2:57 http://www.yellowlightsmovie.com/blog/315 As yet another year draws to a close, this post wishes on behalf of all of the cast & crew of Yellow Lights that 2008 will bring you even closer to achieving your dreams.Happy New Years! Kevin 2007-12-30T14:38 http://www.yellowlightsmovie.com/blog/314 We got written up in the Boston Globe! Check out the full article by Cindy Cantrell here!  "ENGINEER WINS FILM AWARDS: Tom Kochem of Belmont said the most he was hoping for when he entered his independent movie at the recent Indie Fest USA International Film Festival was a student film award. But "Yellow Lights" received Best Feature Film and Best Cinematography honors. The 88-minute movie competed against 22 feature films and 75 total entries (including short films and documentaries) at the festival held in Anaheim, Calif. "I was totally surprised and totally happy." Although Kochem said the special effects in "Star Wars" inspired him to experiment with his father's camcorder in middle school, he didn't become serious about filmmaking until college. During his senior year at Franklin W. Olin College of Engineering in Needham, Kochem teamed with San Diego resident Kevin Tostado to write, produce, direct, and edit "Yellow Lights," a drama about a college student moving on from the painful end of a serious relationship. With fellow students serving as actors and crew members and local bands performing on the soundtrack, the movie was filmed on a $500 budget in Arlington, Wellesley, and Needham. Members of Olin College's inaugural class of 2006, Tostado is now pursuing video production full-time in California, while Kochem is a mechanical engineer at a product development consulting firm in Cambridge. Kochem is also seeking financing for his second feature film. "Aside from its artistic value, I hope 'Yellow Lights' inspires other filmmakers by showing them what you can do with a lot of focus and drive, but not a lot of resources," Kochem said. For more information about "Yellow Lights," visit yellowlightsmovie.com."                  -- Cindy Cantrell for the Boston Globe Kevin 2007-12-5T14:34 http://www.yellowlightsmovie.com/blog/313 Here are the long-since-promised links to the sites of other filmmakers from Indie Fest:Art of Suicide - Don't let the title faze you.  Based on a true story, the film is about a group of struggling artists trying to work together to establish themselves.  The title will make sense once you watch it.  It has great music and some great performances.  The writer and director are also two great guys, if you ever get the chance to meet them.From The 50 Yard Line - For all of the marching band nerds out there, myself included - this is a documentary that will make everyone else understand what it's all about.  It regularly makes grown men cry.  I didn't get the chance to see this one because of a scheduling conflict, and I was completely disappointed to miss it.  It has won some excellent awards at film festivals around the country, and all I heard from the people who went was how good it was.  If it comes to Boston, I will be there!Loop - Described by its director/star Pericles (Peri) Lewnes as a "psycho-political fable," this film is something different entirely.  The film is a true independent, essentially documenting the actions of a man who wakes up not knowing who or where he is.  Peri is the nicest guy, and I admire the boldness it took to bring his vision to the screen.Saturday Morning - we actually didn't meet the makers of this film, but it was one of my overall favorites at the festival.  The film is about a man who discovers that the world becomes a Utopia for 2 hours each week - Saturday morning, 6 to 8 AM.  He develops a relationship with the girl of his dreams, and hilarious results ensue as he attempts to carry over his perfect life to the rest of the week.Days Out Of Time - This is the only short I'm mentioning here, because I'd say it had more of an impact on me than any of the features.  It's about a woman who gets stranded on 9/11/01 when the air traffic all over the country is grounded.  She happens to be near a former love, so she decides to visit him until air traffic resumes.  It's a simple film, but it has excellent music, excellent writing, and excellent acting, and it is shot beautifully.  If you ever get the chance to see this, see it!What are you waiting for?  Go check these films out! Tom 2007-11-20T20:54 http://www.yellowlightsmovie.com/blog/309 I just returned from the awards ceremony at Indie Fest, and I am pleased to announce that Yellow Lights won two awards - Best Cinematography, and Best Feature Film!!!  The awards were given by the Academy of Independent Cinema Arts and Artists.  This makes Yellow Lights an Academy Award-winning film!  Okay, maybe not quite.  In any event, we were just hoping to win a student film award, so to win the Best Feature Film (overall) was a great honor!  Thank you again to everyone involved in making the movie!Indie Fest was a fun week of networking with other filmmakers, seeing their work, and talking with them about true independent film.  We will soon post links to the sites for some of the other filmmakers that we met this week.  Most importantly, for all of those who are wondering - we will soon be updating our website to include the graphics of the olive branches surrounding the two awards!  Apparently, that's how you know your movie is real. Tom 2007-11-3T1:41 http://www.yellowlightsmovie.com/blog/308 Well, the screening for Indie Fest USA is over. We didn't get the turnout we were hoping for due to a lack of publicity by the festival's organizers, but it was great to have our movie play on the big screen at an AMC theater. Those that did come seemed to enjoy the screening and had some nice comments afterwards.One of the attendees at the screening is a Film columnist for OCWeekly.com. In his blog post about the first day of the festival, he had a nice write-up of Yellow Lights, the relevant sections of which are reposted below. The full article can be found here. From OCWeekly.com:   "Two features came next. The first, YELLOW LIGHTS, was a truly pleasant surprise. A college movie made by college students on their weekends off for approximately $500, it belongs in a class with Tom Huang’s 1999 feature FRESHMEN (full disclosure – I did the DVD commentary for that movie with Tom, but only because I was a fan of the film and asked if I could; I accepted no payment). Hollywood has an incredibly distorted view of colleges when compared to the truth. Dorm parties generally aren’t that exciting, but merely crowded room were one can maybe get drunk if the keg doesn’t run out too soon. Nerds don’t manage to steal the football quarterback’s girlfriend. Students are dirty and untidy, and their rooms are minuscule. YELLOW LIGHTS, directed by Kevin Tostado, gets it right, though the campus seems so empty at times that it’s almost Kafka-esque; only one character decorates her room with any flair. The movie opens with an answering machine message (clunky exposition device, yes, but makes sense in context) to our mopey protagonist Brian (Bennett Chabot) from his girlfriend back home, telling him it’s over and never to call her again. But hey, it isn’t long before he meets Alex (Aja Munsell), a total babe who’s totally into him. In an atypical gender-role-reversal, the only problem here is that Brian wants to jump back into an ironclad commitment immediately, and Alex isn’t sure she’s done sleeping around. Also, Brian gets obsessed with his friend Chris’ love life way too much, determined to make sure he keeps his commitments. Tostado ultimately seems to come down on the side of commitments being detrimental, or at least obsessions about them – I’m not sure I agree, and even though Alex is a babe, the idea of winning her heart while she’s still determined to maybe sleep with other guys doesn’t seem quite like the prize one would want. But Brian’s not me, and as an audience member I’m rooting for what he wants. The sex scenes may be of the extremely truncated “fade-to-black” PG variety, but they turned me on and I’m not ashamed to admit it, dammit. A better sound mix is needed – early on, it’s clear that Chabot and Andrew Tsang, who plays Chris, recorded their ADR at different times, even though they’re in the same scene. It’s distracting at first, but eventually I stopped noticing. And Tsang needs to bring it more – in scenes where he’s supposed to be mad, I’m not feeling it like I should. Still, I can’t hold these things against the movie because it rings true in ways that teen movies generally don’t."  --Luke Y. Thompson Kevin 2007-10-31T1:47 http://www.yellowlightsmovie.com/blog/307 Long time, no post!  It's amazing how busy a full time job can keep you.Kevin and I arrived at Downtown Disney yesterday to scope out the scene and hand out some fliers advertising Yellow Lights and Indie Fest.  There's a photo posted here.  As Kevin wrote in his blog, we were mentioned in the local newspaper, which is exciting - most of the films are shorts, so hopefully the fact that we're a full feature will draw some extra attention.We also learned that Morgan Freeman will be at the awards banquet this coming Friday night to receive some sort of recognition of his achievements - it will be totally cool to see him in person.  Apparently we had missed this memo. Tom 2007-10-28T15:00 http://www.yellowlightsmovie.com/blog/305 So here it is, the day before our screening as part of the Indie Fest USA festival and Tom and I are both extremely excited! We passed out some flyers advertising the screening yesterday in the Downtown Disney center and we're attending the opening reception of the festival tonight.The Orange County Register did a write-up of the festival this last Friday and included a brief mention of Yellow Lights in the article! The article can be found here.Here's hoping that the screening goes well! Kevin 2007-10-28T13:28