Topic: Makin' Movies
I awake with a slight headache. Not sure it it's last night's drinks or not, but it puts a rather unpleasant edge on the morning.
Espresso helps kick start me to on painting in the Solar-Man drawing I did yesterday. I'm a little rusty with Photoshop, so it's a litle slow going at first, but it comes back to me and my work speeds up. Before long, Solar-Man is all done and I leave Scott to compose the final comic book cover type image.
A nice hot shower is in order, then it's on to the business of shaving...a much more involved task than it was previously, since for the past year I've worn a full beard and only had to shave my neck. Now I have to shave my head, my upper lip, and around the sculpted beard I'm wearing. It takes 5x as long as 5x as much shaving cream. Is it worth it?
Scott and I go out to Kinkos to get the comic handouts printed.
Solar-Man...dressing left
That done, we hit a pub and get lunch. Next task is getting Scott an outfit for tonight's screening. He doesn't know what look he wants...and shopping is a little slow until a salesman he knowns starts steering him around. He tries on a very cool black jacket with a paisley pattern that you don't see until the light hits it right, but the jacket costs more than he wants to spend on the whole outfit... so I find a short version in my size and I buy it.
Shopping accomplished, a short break is taken to have coffee with my former downstrairs neighbor, recently moved to Portland. That done, Scott and I make a run to get metallic markers for writing on the fliers, then back to his place to suit up.
And Now Our Feature Presentation
We arrive at Cinema 21 an hour before the show, so we decide to get a drink before the line starts. Neither of our two principle actors will be attending, but Kyle has seen my comic image of his alter-ego on Scott's website and on a phone call to Scott thanks me for the "generous package".
Drink done, we meet Ms. Kelly, our location manager on the film (and on-screen DJ), Dean, and Jenny (who played Shiela).
Now, here I get a tad uncomfortable, because Scott wants us to hand out the fliers—which are supposed to point people to his website if they want a DVD copy of the film—which is fine, but he wants us to shill for the film and try to get people to vote for it. This feels disingenuous to me. I realize it's an audience favorite award they're giving tonight, but this feels too premeditated. "Vote for our film" instead of "remember our film when you vote" is a farily fine distinction.
And then it starts.
Okay, right off, the house is fairly empty. It's the last show of a small city fesitval and it's on a Sunday (school) night. Second, the program didn't get enough entries (it's for local filmmakers) to fill out the two programs that had been planned, so they put it all into this one program...and even then there are only six.
The program started by having the filmmakers or their designated proxies say a few words about the films. Right away I can hear that some films have groups of supporters present while others do not, which means the latter have absolutely no chance of winning.
Let's face it, true audience favorites work only when there is a large enough audience for nepotism not to be an issue, otherwise it's like a high school student body election where only the popular girls get into office.
So, the films are a really mixed bag. Some are weird in that art school project sort of way, others are conceptually cute but the production values are non-existent. The projectionist isn't entirely on the ball with this video projection system... there's big lags between films, and at least one a film starts in the middle and then gets jumped back to the start.Our film comes up 4th (I think), and right off there's problems. The sound level is really low through most of the big action scene, which totally undermines it. Then, when it ends, the screen goes BLACK before the credits. Then you hear the sound of the credits over a black screen, and then the picture comes back. Frustrating!
That said, it's fun seeing it on the big screen. Even with the "stacked" audience, the best lines get laughs. Every time I see the film, however, I wish we had gotten in a joke right at the top to make the audience realize they have "permission" to laugh, since the opening scene's more action than comedy. Oh well, next film!
Afterwards, we and some compatriots of Scott's retire back to the pub where we started and have drinks and chat. It's great seeing Jenny and Kelly again. Kelley shows me her new custom made ring...which is subtly in the shape of the Green Lantern's power ring. She's such a loveable geek!
Myself, Kelly, Jenny, and Scott (Dean has left the building)
We end up discussing the various films. Several there are convinced that the only real competitor to ours is a rather gay knockoff of the fight dance in Michael Jackson's BAD video, but my gut instinct is that the film Good Time Charlie is the one we have to worry about. It got a lot of cheers.
We'll find out the results tomorrow.
