xtcian

10/4/02 Boy, yesterday's blog was

10/4/02

Boy, yesterday's blog was lame, right? Falling asleep in the middle of a diary entry is something I've never done before, but when your body screams, one must listen, I suppose. Strange, though. I always outlast everybody, and that includes my own writing stubbornness. Perhaps it's being in my 30s I have to accept the fact that some people are coming along that can actually stay up later than me (I haven't met any of them, but I'm reasonably sure they exist somewhere).

So: about what I was gonna say yesterday. The IFP Market wrapped things up last night with an awards ceremony and a performance by the band Luna, whom I've always dug, quite. I felt as though we made a pretty big impression on the festival, and not just because we had a bunch of chicks wearing Pink House t-shirts. I may have accidentally changed the event by approaching the director of the Market and telling her that announcing finalists for the narrative section prize especially before the festival began - was really marginalizing to the films that wouldn't be on the list. I told her I'd already been in 3rd grade once and didn't need to feel like it again (I described it better in the blog on Aug. 17). Weirdly enough, they dropped the whole "finalist" thing and gave the award to one film without mentioning any others. Which, I gotta say, was totally cool, whether or not I had anything to do with it.

To critique the Market, let me be deferential first: we got in, and that's no mean feat. They accepted our movie on the basis of an old trailer that looks like shit; they must have had very good imaginations and a lot of faith. We had a great time being immersed in the lives of other filmmakers, and the IFP did their level best to get big names to all the screenings. The parties rocked, and our movie snippet was dug muchly by the likes of United Artists and Lion's Gate, and there's no other place we could have had that kind of exposure.

If I were to reshape the Market, however, I'd take Tessa's advice and put the administration/panels/booths in the Angelica Theater like they used to be, instead of splitting everything up. If it had rained or God forbid, snowed – getting people from the Puck Building over to the theater would have been like herding elk. Also, I'd get a sound engineer into the digital projection booths to figure out why everyone's movie sounded like it was being broadcast through a torn guitar amp. I saw filmmakers die thousands of deaths while their baby was being crucified onscreen by a torrent of feedback and blown speakers. Thank god we'd learned our lesson and erred on the quiet side.

Perhaps also we should have been a little more eager to press flesh and meet every last executive, but like I have always believed, doing that party circuit never leads anywhere. Seriously, I'd rather cuddle up in bed with a Mac G4 and massage the Pink House edit into a fine sexy froth rather than go out and get $4 ginger ales (actual price at Coda!)

at the last IFP 2002 party: hours later, Kim had laryngitis, Liz blew off work, Tessa woke up with a sore throat, and I fell asleep writing this blog