Spokane comedian Josiah Carlson is relatively new to the local comedy scene, inspired to try stand-up just over a year ago after getting a promotional email from Spokane Comedy Club about a class for aspiring jokers.
"Maybe I'll give it a shot," he thought, but unlike so many, he actually followed through. He now realizes stand-up is something that was missing in his life, and he wishes he had started sooner.
In getting to know other aspiring comic minds in the local scene, Carlson says, it seemed like every stand-up he met had ideas for skits or short-form films. Seeing creativity overflowing in the community, he came up with the idea of pushing his fellow local funny folks to actually create or finish their film projects.
"I was thinking it'd be really cool to have this tent-pole event, once a year, that gave everybody incentive to actually finish their video ideas," Carlson says.
Thus, the Spokane Comedy Film Festival was born. Its first edition happens this month at the Garland Theater, and Carlson hopes to make it an annual event.
Giving the local comic creatives a deadline seems to have worked — there are well over 25 entries in the inaugural festival. Some of them are brand-new productions, while others are older projects that may or may not have been seen by audiences already. There weren't any specific requirements for applicants to the festival other than keeping the films to seven minutes or less.
Carlson is thrilled to get the first festival launched in the 500-seat historic spot in North Spokane.
"The Garland has always been magical to me," he says.
Guests will enjoy a night full of laughs, but will also be a part of the action. Each attendee will receive a playbill listing all the entries. At the end of the night, everyone can vote for the "best in show" winner, who will receive a $100 prize.
Filmmaker, actor and animator Ron Ford has two films in this year's festival, and is probably one of the event's most-experienced participants. He's been pursuing a film career for decades, it's a lifelong passion that led him to Los Angeles for almost two decades. Through his experience on film sets, his passion for filmmaking was solidified.
"In 1994, I wrote a film called The Fear," Ford says. "It was a big hit on home video, and that's how I got my beginning."
At the Spokane Comedy Film Festival, Ford will showcase both The Ravin and Pirouette. He considers The Ravin one of his best short films, and he's landed it in several festivals. He dedicates the film to his late friend Mitch Tiner, who created the puppets and sets for the Edgar Allen Poe-inspired tale over the course of six years. Ford's other film in the fest, Pirouette, was first featured in the 2016 50-Hour Slam film competition. That year's theme required shooting in a specific location and a style of dance, and with Pirouette, Ford turned those constraints into a story of a rough-and-tough man assigned to community service after a run-in with the law. The experience gives him a new outlook on life.
While Ford comes to the festival as an established filmmaking background, others, like Ryan McComb, are shifting gears from the stand-up stage to delve into filmmaking.
McComb started doing stand-up eight years ago after attending an open-mic night with his father, a longtime comedian himself. In his film Wishes, a character named Daniel has made two terrible wishes of a genie, and he hopes his third wish will turn it all around.
The film was made in 2017 but didn't receive much traction after being posted online.
"I am looking forward to getting it in front of a larger audience," McComb says. ♦
Spokane Comedy Film Festival • Tue, Feb. 22 at 7 pm • $10 • Garland Theater • 924 W. Garland Ave. • spokanecomedyfilmfestival.com • 509-327-2509