[NEohioPAL]Indie Filmmaking - re: Christopher and Bill Van Nostran

Fri Nov 25 10:32:45 PST 2005

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Christopher K. Young and Bill Van Nostran,

  Hey guys, good input, however the very things that you mention, (that a lot of people mention) have been tried before, without success sad to say.

  Bill, there is actually a screenwriting group that meets once a month at CSU called, Second Shift Screenwriters and they post here and at clevelandfilmmaking at yahoogroups.com. I'm not sure if they are critiquing their work or creating a master work or what. I want to attend but haven't as of yet. You can contact Christine for more info: christinednfr at yahoo.com 

  Also, Bill and Chris, way back when The Film Society sponsored Cleveland Filmmakers, I suggested that we pool our talents. All writers submit their scripts, all shooters submit their reels, all directors, well you get the idea. Then the whole group would vote on the best of the best, hone it down to even better, then approach the city, businesses, etc. to get it financed and produced. 

  Well, either no one felt confident enough about their own work, or they didn't want their doubts exposed to an open forum, or they were just too busy, but the idea got a lot of kudos and praise, but very quickly fell into oblivion. Eventually the entire group was disbanded, probably for lack of involvement. Then along came another organization that held great promise; a creative alliance of artists that would be a force to be reckoned with, that too failed. I even tried to give an intensive two day seminar on DV Filmmaking to help raise the quality bar. I got one attendee, thanks Christine! 

  Chris, you mentioned that there are lots of people who want to work on other people's films and if you mean actors, sure, that only makes sense, but there aren't that many aspiring boom operators who's goal in life is to carry the crossarm of the indominable soundman. Even all the people who eagerly wanted to work on my feature, Madness have other aspirations besides crew work. And you're right they came to me, based on the quality of my previous works (thanks for your part in those successes by the way). However, I really hate using people for any great length of time for no-pay, so I kept the crew very small and they were and are very committed. 

  I guess what I'm trying to articulate is we don't need a Film Czar or Commissioner for the indie film scene. It pretty much takes care of itself. If you are willing to really take the time and make your work stand out for quality in all areas, the community of actors, crew, businesses and local governments, will respond and support your efforts. I had cast and crew come for a full time, two week long shoot, for no pay, from as far away as Canton, Youngstown, and North Olmsted, to shoot in a million dollar house that didn't charge us a thing, all because they believed the experience would be worth it. 

My biggest gripe is that in so many productions quality gets shoved to the bottom of the list and I walk into a landscape of burning bridges trying to find the few resources who haven't been burned or are willing to take a chance on one more independent film.

  As far as Cleveland Indieclub goes, we do network, but critiquing is forbidden. Attendance would drop to nothing if everyone worried their work wasn't good enough to please fellow filmmakers. One can only hope that as they see better work, they will incorporate that effort and ethic into their own projects.

  Thanks Fred for allowing this diatribe. I hope it gives the whole list some insight into the minds of indie filmmakers...

  For those actors interested in some guidelines when auditioning for Independent Film projects here are some tips:
  http://www.cinevidproductions.com/seminars/resources/AuditionTips.htm

  Thanks,
  Bill Johns
  www.cinevidproductions.com

From: "Bill Van Nostran" <wvannostran at neo.rr.com>
To: <alexcine at aol.com>, <neohiopal at lists.fredsternfeld.com>
Subject: Re: [NEohioPAL]Film Czar seeks Feedback on making Cleveland a Movie City
Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 14:08:22 -0500

As the adage goes, if it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage. Same goes 
for motion pictures. The good ones all start with a compelling story well 
told. So one simple way to encourage new work, foster a supportive 
environment, and help individuals gain feedback on their work could come 
from a group focused on helping local filmmakers develop and polish 
material. A monthly group giving individual writers an opportunity to hear 
scenes from an emerging draft read aloud, then receive feedback from others, 
is a small, but perhaps important step in developing a local environment to 
foster NEO talent. Perhaps twice a year, local actors might be persuaded to 
participate in readings of screenplays nearing completion--showcasing them 
to a larger audience.

Bill Van Nostran

From: Christopher <kaimei at earthlink.net>
To: neohiopal at lists.fredsternfeld.com
Subject: Re: [NEohioPAL]All Hail Film Czar and Film Prophet

I see an attempt at buying some goodwill with the acting and crew community here, but if we shift ALL the blame on the filmmakers, then we will be ignoring the suffering of those majority of actors and crew who ARE professional enough to show up and try to finish scenes and projects in spite of the few who disappear and stop returning calls until they've settled into their Venice Beach apartments or found religion, or whatever excuse they give until one posts another audition notice.  Then, they resurface and send their headshots and resumes as if you won't remember them from the last burn, and to add insult to injury, some of them even put the picture they bailed on or got fired from ON THEIR RESUME! 
        Maybe if we all resigned ourselves to making short films that only have one or two locations, then the impact of this kind of behavior could be minimized.  But for those of us who dare to make feature films with multiple locations and scenes with significant cast interplay, then this work ethic, left unaddressed, will STAY the norm for a minority, but significant percentage of actors and crew in this area, thereby throwing a wrench not only into a director's work, but the work of the other actors and crew as well.  It only takes one actor doing this to shut down a film.  Ask around.  I have first hand experience with the phenomenon, and when filmmakers start to get a little ambitious around here, so will they.   And while I haven't been to an Indieclub meeting in a long time, I thought I was giving it the benefit of the doubt in my initial posting.  But if they're not networking their resources or helping each other improve their work, then what the hell are those guys doing
 there?  I hope it's not all about listening to someone who memorized an article out of videomaker magazine or congratulating each other for sticking it out in Cleveland for as long as they have.  Don't get me wrong!  This isn't a commentary on Indieclub!  I imagine that someone conversant with Indieclub's mission can articulate its significance with great ease.  The last meeting I attended (almost two years ago) was very helpful.  But if it's true that they no longer provide a resource pool and a constructively critical forum, then that which I hope it isn't, must be exactly what it is.  I'll attend one as soon as possible, with the hopes that we're both wrong.  But, all that aside, sway with city leaders is a necessary next step for Indieclub, or any organization that takes Cleveland's position in the greater media arts community to heart.  I mean, what's a film community if the COMMUNITY isn't involved?  Perhaps this is already underway, again, I haven't been attending.  But an US
 and THEM attitude won't help anybody, because THEY have the power to make US unwelcome... even more so than we already are from a socio-cultural standpoint.   One other issue I need to take on is the idea that Cleveland's indie scene is mostly made up of writers, producers and directors.  While it's true that most directors are also writers and producers, and all the other combinations therein, it's more than safe to say that the vast majority of those who consider themselves in the indie scene have little to no interest in writing and/or producing and/or directing a picture of their own.  Ask yourself, what's the largest number of actors you've had answer a casting call of yours?  My largest number is about 130, I imagine yours are similar, if not higher since you often cast on the coattails of success from a previous project.  This kind of turn out is not uncommon.   Now how many area filmmakers have you ever seen in one place locally, at one time?  Actual filmmakers with one or
 more credits in the above mentioned categories?  Even add those who aspire to have a credit and the number's still pretty small.  The reason I bring up this otherwise picayune issue is because it's symptomatic of a trend this community has, and I've been guilty of too:  leaving out actors and crew in the dialogue over the needs of this film community.  Because when you include those people in the mix, then we see that in fact, a vast majority of this community DOES WANT to work on someone else's film.  They're just waiting for something they can believe in.   Some find it, many don't, and some are just easy to please.   You know us creative types are an unorganized lot with major attention deficit, so one more time.  What was the point?   Christopher K. Young 
www.shallowfocus.com   P.S.: Amen to your last two paragraphs 

    Bill wrote:   All Hail Film Czar and Film Prophet You know, most of the time I sit with calm amusement as I read the various ramblings as to why Cleveland isn't 'on the map' when it comes to motion picture film and TV production. However, these latest posts are just too funny to ignore... A self proclaimed Film Czar? What the hell is that? Alex, I thought you were joking! And Christopher, you seem to have so much intelligence and yet you completely miss the point. Ya wanna know the reason why we can't all just get along and make movies together? Well here it is. There's too much crap!!! And widely varying degrees of crap. One of the only reasons our monthly Indieclub meetings are successful is because we're not trying to create a consortium; we're not trying to unite our resources, we're not even trying to improve eachother's work. We're j ust watching videos. And guess what? We see a lot of crap. We see some good stuff too, but mostly we see Learners, Yearners and Burners. Now,
 Learners are novice filmmakers who make crap because it's their first film and rather than learn the trade first, they go ahead and make a movie as practice and hopefully they'll improve. We sit politely and smile, wishing they had thought about lighting, sound, acting, dialogue, and camera work before making us sit through their experiments. Yearners are filmmakers who really want to make good films, so they use everything at their disposal to make the best possible film they can. However, they're still somewhat plagued by compromise and the results are never what they hoped for, nor what a real distributor will buy. Much easier to sit through though. Burners are the worst. These are filmmakers (u sually prolific) who make crap every time out of the gate. Their camera work is mostly hand-hell shaky cam. Their lighting is barely more than ambient and they often use the on-camera mic to capture dialogue. The acting is wooden and undirected; the stories are either so deep you need
 waders, or so shallow you can't find a point; and to top it off, they're fully convinced they are great filmmakers. But why do I call them Burners you ask? Well, because they burn the bridges that sincere Yearners might someday want to use. They burn bridges with actors who get soured against indie filmmakers because they have nothing decent to show for all their hard work (not even copy). They burn bridges with locations because they are so unorganized that they overstay their welcomes, mess up property and never send copies of the video, like they promise to do. They burn bridges with investors because the investor never sees a dime of their money back. They burn bridges with the legitimate film commission, because, as I said before they make crap and what film commission is going to support and encourage more crap??? Yet that's not the reason why we don't need a film czar or film prophet or any other coordinating force. The real reason is no one wants to work on someone else's
 film. You see, most of the people that comprise the indie scene here in Cleveland are writer/producer/directors and we're all working on our own projects. And guess what. I'm not all that interested in spending my valuable time working on someone's project which I consider to be crappier than my own. I can just as easily be spending my time and resources creating my own crap. Sure everyone would like to think there's a benevolent brotherhood of filmmakers; a selfless society where everyone submits ideas and work samples and then the members vote on what script to do and who to direct it. The commu nity is presented with the proposal and since it bears the backing of so many filmmakers, the businesses get involved and support the project with services and finances. The best actors come from all around to have a part in the project and a glorious motion picture is produced that wins the Oscar for Impossible Dream... That would be a good plot for a fantasy picture, but in the real
 world, writers will lose interest if their script isn't picked. Directors will bail if they can't direct and actors will walk away if they can't be the lead. And you guessed it the end product would probably be... well, I don't need to say it again. (though I really want to) Bill Johnscrappy writer/producer/and directorwww.cinevidproductions.com P.S - I guess I'm in a sour mood because just yesterday I lost a serious investor (producer of two features in LA) because she said the acting in one of the scenes I sent her wasn't very good. I knew it when I shot it that I was compromising, and even though we're reshooting that scene, it's too late to regain that contact... ah CRAP!   
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Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 22:25:22 EST
To: neohiopal at lists.fredsternfeld.com
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<DIV>Christopher K. Young and Bill Van Nostran,</DIV>  <DIV> </DIV>  <DIV>Hey guys, good input, however the very things that you mention, (that a lot of people mention) have been tried before, without success sad to say.</DIV>  <DIV> </DIV>  <DIV>Bill, there is actually a screenwriting group that meets once a month at CSU called, <STRONG>Second Shift Screenwriters</STRONG> and they post here and at <A href="mailto:clevelandfilmmaking at yahoogroups.com">clevelandfilmmaking at yahoogroups.com</A>. I'm not sure if they are critiquing their work or creating a master work or what. I want to attend but haven't as of yet. You can contact Christine for more info: <A href="mailto:christinednfr at yahoo.com">christinednfr at yahoo.com</A> </DIV>  <DIV> </DIV>  <DIV>Also, Bill and Chris, way back when The Film Society sponsored Cleveland Filmmakers, I suggested that we pool our talents. All writers submit their scripts, all shooters submit their reels, all directors, well you get the
 idea. Then the whole group would vote on the best of the best, hone it down to even better, then approach the city, businesses, etc. to get it financed and produced. </DIV>  <DIV> </DIV>  <DIV>Well, either no one felt confident enough about their own work, or they didn't want their doubts exposed to an open forum, or they were just too busy, but the idea got a lot of kudos and praise, but very quickly fell into oblivion. Eventually the entire group was disbanded, probably for lack of involvement. Then along came another organization that held great promise; a creative alliance of artists that would be a force to be reckoned with, that too failed. I even tried to give an intensive two day seminar on DV Filmmaking to help raise the quality bar. I got one attendee, thanks Christine! </DIV>  <DIV> </DIV>  <DIV>Chris, you mentioned that there are lots of people who want to work on other people's films and if you mean actors, sure, that only makes sense, but there
 aren't that many aspiring boom operators who's goal in life is to carry the crossarm of the indominable soundman. Even all the people who eagerly wanted to work on my feature, Madness have other aspirations besides crew work. And you're right they came to me, based on the quality of my previous works (thanks for your part in those successes by the way). However, I really hate using people for any great length of time for no-pay, so I kept the crew very small and they were and are very committed. </DIV>  <DIV> </DIV>  <DIV>I guess what I'm trying to articulate is we don't need a Film Czar or Commissioner for the indie film scene. It pretty much takes care of itself. If you are willing to really take the time and make your work stand out for quality in all areas, the community of actors, crew, businesses and local governments, will respond and support your efforts. I had cast and crew come for a full time, two week long shoot, for no pay, from as far away as Canton, Youngstown,
 and North Olmsted, to shoot in a million dollar house that didn't charge us a thing, all because they believed the experience would be worth it. </DIV>  <DIV><BR>My biggest gripe is that in so many productions quality gets shoved to the bottom of the list and I walk into a landscape of burning bridges trying to find the few resources who haven't been burned or are willing to take a chance on one more independent film.</DIV>  <DIV> </DIV>  <DIV>As far as Cleveland Indieclub goes, we do network, but critiquing is forbidden. Attendance would drop to nothing if everyone worried their work wasn't good enough to please fellow filmmakers. One can only hope that as they see better work, they will incorporate that effort and ethic into their own projects.</DIV>  <DIV> </DIV>  <DIV>Thanks Fred for allowing this diatribe. I hope it gives the whole list some insight into the minds of indie filmmakers...</DIV>  <DIV> </DIV>  <DIV>For those actors interested in some guidelines when
 auditioning for Independent Film projects here are some tips:</DIV>  <DIV><A href="http://www.cinevidproductions.com/seminars/resources/AuditionTips.htm">http://www.cinevidproductions.com/seminars/resources/AuditionTips.htm</A></DIV>  <DIV> </DIV>  <DIV>Thanks,</DIV>  <DIV>Bill Johns</DIV>  <DIV><A href="http://www.cinevidproductions.com">www.cinevidproductions.com</A></DIV>  <DIV> </DIV>  <DIV> </DIV>  <DIV> </DIV>  <DIV> </DIV>  <DIV><BR><FONT face=arial,helvetica><BR><BR>From: "Bill Van Nostran" <wvannostran at neo.rr.com><BR>To: <alexcine at aol.com>, <neohiopal at lists.fredsternfeld.com><BR>Subject: Re: [NEohioPAL]Film Czar seeks Feedback on making Cleveland a Movie City<BR>Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 14:08:22 -0500<BR><BR>As the adage goes, if it ain't on the page, it ain't on the stage. Same goes <BR>for motion pictures. The good ones all start with a compelling story well <BR>told. So one simple way to encourage new work, foster a supportive
 <BR>environment, and help individuals gain feedback on their work could come <BR>from a group focused on helping local filmmakers develop and polish <BR>material. A monthly group giving individual writers an opportunity to hear <BR>scenes from an emerging draft read aloud, then receive feedback from others, <BR>is a small, but perhaps important step in developing a local environment to <BR>foster NEO talent. Perhaps twice a year, local actors might be persuaded to <BR>participate in readings of screenplays nearing completion--showcasing them <BR>to a larger audience.<BR><BR>Bill Van Nostran<BR><BR>From: Christopher <kaimei at earthlink.net><BR>To: neohiopal at lists.fredsternfeld.com<BR>Subject: Re: [NEohioPAL]All Hail Film Czar and Film Prophet<BR><BR>I see an attempt at buying some goodwill with the acting and crew community here, but if we shift ALL the blame on the filmmakers, then we will be ignoring the suffering of those majority of actors and crew who ARE professional enough
 to show up and try to finish scenes and projects in spite of the few who disappear and stop returning calls until they've settled into their Venice Beach apartments or found religion, or whatever excuse they give until one posts another audition notice.  Then, they resurface and send their headshots and resumes as if you won't remember them from the last burn, and to add insult to injury, some of them even put the picture they bailed on or got fired from ON THEIR RESUME! </DIV>  <BLOCKQUOTE class=replbq style="PADDING-LEFT: 5px; MARGIN-LEFT: 5px; BORDER-LEFT: #1010ff 2px solid">  <DIV>  <DIV>  <DIV>Maybe if we all resigned ourselves to making short films that only have one or two locations, then the impact of this kind of behavior could be minimized.  But for those of us who dare to make feature films with multiple locations and scenes with significant cast interplay, then this work ethic, left unaddressed, will STAY the norm for a minority, but significant percentage of
 actors and crew in this area, thereby throwing a wrench not only into a director's work, but the work of the other actors and crew as well.  It only takes one actor doing this to shut down a film.  Ask around.  I have first hand experience with the phenomenon, and when filmmakers start to get a little ambitious around here, so will they.   <DIV>And while I haven't been to an Indieclub meeting in a long time, I thought I was giving it the benefit of the doubt in my initial posting.  But if they're not networking their resources or helping each other improve their work, then what the hell are those guys doing there?  I hope it's not all about listening to someone who memorized an article out of videomaker magazine or congratulating each other for sticking it out in Cleveland for as long as they have.  Don't get me wrong!  This isn't a commentary on Indieclub!  I imagine that someone conversant with Indieclub's mission can articulate its
 significance with great ease.  The last meeting I attended (almost two years ago) was very helpful.  But if it's true that they no longer provide a resource pool and a constructively critical forum, then that which I hope it isn't, must be exactly what it is.  I'll attend one as soon as possible, with the hopes that we're both wrong.  But, all that aside, sway with city leaders is a necessary next step for Indieclub, or any organization that takes Cleveland's position in the greater media arts community to heart.  I mean, what's a film community if the COMMUNITY isn't involved?  Perhaps this is already underway, again, I haven't been attending.  But an US and THEM attitude won't help anybody, because THEY have the power to make US unwelcome... even more so than we already are from a socio-cultural standpoint.   <DIV>One other issue I need to take on is the idea that Cleveland's indie scene is mostly made up of writers, producers and
 directors.  While it's true that most directors are also writers and producers, and all the other combinations therein, it's more than safe to say that the vast majority of those who consider themselves in the indie scene have little to no interest in writing and/or producing and/or directing a picture of their own.  Ask yourself, what's the largest number of actors you've had answer a casting call of yours?  My largest number is about 130, I imagine yours are similar, if not higher since you often cast on the coattails of success from a previous project.  This kind of turn out is not uncommon.   <DIV>Now how many area filmmakers have you ever seen in one place locally, at one time?  Actual filmmakers with one or more credits in the above mentioned categories?  Even add those who aspire to have a credit and the number's still pretty small.  The reason I bring up this otherwise picayune issue is because it's symptomatic of a trend this community
 has, and I've been guilty of too:  leaving out actors and crew in the dialogue over the needs of this film community.  Because when you include those people in the mix, then we see that in fact, a vast majority of this community DOES WANT to work on someone else's film.  They're just waiting for something they can believe in.   <DIV>Some find it, many don't, and some are just easy to please.   <DIV>You know us creative types are an unorganized lot with major attention deficit, so one more time.  What was the point?   <DIV>Christopher K. Young <BR>www.shallowfocus.com   <DIV>P.S.: Amen to your last two paragraphs <BR>  <BR>    <DIV>Bill wrote:   <BLOCKQUOTE TYPE="CITE"><B><I><FONT face="comic sans ms"><FONT color=#ff0000><FONT size=+2>All Hail Film Czar and Film Prophet</FONT></FONT></FONT></I></B> You know, most of the time I sit with calm amusement as I read the various ramblings as to why Cleveland isn't 'on the map' when it comes to motion
 picture film and TV production. However, these latest posts are just too funny to ignore... A self proclaimed Film Czar? What the hell is that? Alex, I thought you were joking! And Christopher, you seem to have so much intelligence and yet you completely miss the point. Ya wanna know the reason why we can't all just get along and make movies together? Well here it is. There's too much crap!!! And widely varying degrees of crap. One of the only reasons our monthly Indieclub meetings are successful is because we're not trying to create a consortium; we're not trying to unite our resources, we're not even trying to improve eachother's work. We're j ust watching videos. And guess what? We see a lot of crap. We see some good stuff too, but mostly we see Learners, Yearners and Burners. Now, <B>Learners</B> are novice filmmakers who make crap because it's their first film and rather than learn the trade first, they go ahead and make a movie as practice and hopefully they'll
 improve. We sit politely and smile, wishing they had thought about lighting, sound, acting, dialogue, and camera work before making us sit through their experiments. <B>Yearners</B> are filmmakers who really want to make good films, so they use everything at their disposal to make the best possible film they can. However, they're still somewhat plagued by compromise and the results are never what they hoped for, nor what a real distributor will buy. Much easier to sit through though. <B>Burners</B> are the worst. These are filmmakers (u sually prolific) who make crap every time out of the gate. Their camera work is mostly hand-hell shaky cam. Their lighting is barely more than ambient and they often use the on-camera mic to capture dialogue. The acting is wooden and undirected; the stories are either so deep you need waders, or so shallow you can't find a point; and to top it off, they're fully convinced they are great filmmakers. But why do I call them Burners you
 ask? Well, because they burn the bridges that sincere Yearners might someday want to use. They burn bridges with actors who get soured against indie filmmakers because they have nothing decent to show for all their hard work (not even copy). They burn bridges with locations because they are so unorganized that they overstay their welcomes, mess up property and never send copies of the video, like they promise to do. They burn bridges with investors because the investor never sees a dime of their money back. They burn bridges with the legitimate film commission, because, as I said before they make crap and what film commission is going to support and encourage more crap??? Yet that's not the reason why we don't need a film czar or film prophet or any other coordinating force. The real reason is no one wants to work on someone else's film. You see, most of the people that comprise the indie scene here in Cleveland are writer/producer/directors and we're all working on our own
 projects. And guess what. I'm not all that interested in spending my valuable time working on someone's project which I consider to be crappier than my own. I can just as easily be spending my time and resources creating my own crap. Sure everyone would like to think there's a benevolent brotherhood of filmmakers; a selfless society where everyone submits ideas and work samples and then the members vote on what script to do and who to direct it. The commu nity is presented with the proposal and since it bears the backing of so many filmmakers, the businesses get involved and support the project with services and finances. The best actors come from all around to have a part in the project and a glorious motion picture is produced that wins the Oscar for Impossible Dream... That would be a good plot for a fantasy picture, but in the real world, writers will lose interest if their script isn't picked. Directors will bail if they can't direct and actors will walk away if they
 can't be the lead. And you guessed it the end product would probably be... well, I don't need to say it again. (though I really want to) <FONT face="comic sans ms"><FONT size=+1>Bill Johns</FONT></FONT><FONT face="comic sans ms"><FONT size=+1>crappy writer/producer/and director</FONT></FONT><FONT face="comic sans ms"><FONT size=+1><A href="http://www.cinevidproductions.com/">www.cinevidproductions.com</A></FONT></FONT> P.S - I guess I'm in a sour mood because just yesterday I lost a serious investor (producer of two features in LA) because she said the acting in one of the scenes I sent her wasn't very good. I knew it when I shot it that I was compromising, and even though we're reshooting that scene, it's too late to regain that contact... ah CRAP!   <HR SIZE=1>  <A href="http://pa.yahoo.com/*http://us.rd.yahoo.com/evt=36035/*http://music.yahoo.com/unlimited/">Yahoo! Music Unlimited - Access over 1 million songs. Try it free.</A></BLOCKQUOTE>From:
 PatrickJCarroll at aol.com<BR>Date: Thu, 24 Nov 2005 22:25:22 EST<BR>To: neohiopal at lists.fredsternfeld.com<BR>Subject: [NEohioPAL]Christmas Massage Therapy Gift Certificates<BR><BR><FONT face=arial,helvetica>  <DIV align=center><FONT lang=0 face="Times New Roman Baltic" size=5 PTSIZE="18" FAMILY="SERIF"><B><U>TO MY FELLOW PERFORMERS:</FONT><FONT lang=0 style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" face="Times New Roman Baltic" color=#000000 size=4 PTSIZE="14" BACK="#ffffff" FAMILY="SERIF"><BR>  <DIV align=left><BR></B></U>Today starts the official Christmas Season!<BR><BR>Why not give your loved one (or yourself ;-) ) something that will<BR>actually improve their health and or state of mind.<BR><BR>  <DIV align=center></FONT><FONT lang=0 style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" face="Courier New" color=#000000 size=6 PTSIZE="24" BACK="#ffffff" FAMILY="FIXED"><B>MASSAGE!<BR><BR>  <DIV align=left></FONT><FONT lang=0 style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" face="Times New Roman CE" color=#000000 size=4
 PTSIZE="14" BACK="#ffffff" FAMILY="SERIF"></B>Whether you need a serious therapeutic deep tissue massage or just want to enjoy the bliss of total relaxation.<BR><BR>  <DIV align=center></FONT><FONT lang=0 style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" face="Times New Roman CE" color=#000000 size=5 PTSIZE="18" BACK="#ffffff" FAMILY="SERIF"><I>Give a Massage Therapy Gift Certificate.<BR>  <DIV align=left></FONT><FONT lang=0 style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" face="Times New Roman CE" color=#000000 size=4 PTSIZE="14" BACK="#ffffff" FAMILY="SERIF"></I><BR></FONT><FONT lang=0 style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" face="Times New Roman Baltic" color=#000000 size=4 PTSIZE="14" BACK="#ffffff" FAMILY="SERIF"><B>Your Christmas shopping can be as easy as a phone call or a click of the reply button to this email!<BR><BR>I offer a 20% discount to all Neohiopal subscribers.<BR><BR>Happy Holidays to all!<BR><BR></FONT><FONT lang=0 style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" face="Times New Roman Baltic" color=#000000 size=5
 PTSIZE="18" BACK="#ffffff" FAMILY="SERIF"><I>Patrick J. Carroll</FONT><FONT lang=0 style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" face="Times New Roman Baltic" color=#000000 size=4 PTSIZE="14" BACK="#ffffff" FAMILY="SERIF"></I>, </FONT><FONT lang=0 style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" face="Times New Roman Baltic" color=#000000 size=5 PTSIZE="18" BACK="#ffffff" FAMILY="SERIF">L.M.T.</FONT><FONT lang=0 style="BACKGROUND-COLOR: #ffffff" face="Times New Roman Baltic" color=#000000 size=4 PTSIZE="14" BACK="#ffffff" FAMILY="SERIF"><BR>216-544-6001<BR><U><BR></B></U></DIV>  <DIV></DIV>  <DIV></DIV>  <DIV></DIV>  <DIV></DIV>  <DIV></DIV></FONT>______________________________________<BR>Disney's "BEAUTY AND THE BEAST" at Beck Center 12/2-12/31. 216-521-2540. http://www.fredsternfeld.com/beautyandthebeast.htm<BR>_______________________________________<BR>There is also a sister site to this list called the "NEoPAL Bulletin Board." Occasionally when "hot-button" discussions go on more than a day or two, the
 bulletin board is used. The Neopal bulletin board also has some other terrific features, like a searchable database for you to put your personal information, a place to post pictures and a chat room with a nightly 11pm gathering to discuss hot topics: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/neopal/ <BR>______________________________________<BR>Disclaimer: The facts and/or opinions expressed in each message are solely those of the person in the "from" or "reply-to" header. The fact that these messages are posted should in no way be taken as an endorsement by the administrator of this list. Subscribers should perform due diligence for all goods, services and activities promoted on NEohioPAL.<BR>_______________________________________<BR><BR>NEohioPAL mailing
 list<BR>NEohioPAL at lists.fredsternfeld.com<BR>http://lists.fredsternfeld.com/mailman/listinfo/neohiopal<BR>http://www.fredsternfeld.com<BR><BR><BR></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></DIV></BLOCKQUOTE>  <DIV><BR></DIV></FONT></FONT><p>
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