Sunday, October 29, 2006
Film Festival Aftermath
Today was a comedy of errors. Let's recap:
- I was supposed to announce two feature length films for a film festival but they never had time to let me see the movies ahead of time. So, I just spent time on IMDB and Google trying to find some shreds of information to talk about.
- When I showed up at the theater I was told that they switched the movies and I would be announcing something else. I quickly found some pamphlets and wrote down all the information I could find about the new movies.
- When it was time for the first movie to start I found out that they were still waiting for someone to drive the film to the theater. I had to go out and tell the audience that they would have to wait awhile. It wasn't that embarrassing because there were only about 20 people in a theater that could hold hundreds but I didn't have a microphone so I had to yell so they could hear me.
- I went back to the front of the theater to talk to the volunteers and I found out that a "friend of the director" of the first film would be answering questions at the end of the movie. They told me he was driving from Berkeley to Livermore right then and that he was also the person who was bringing the film!
- Someone told me that a volunteer would hand out DVDs to the audience to stall for time but when he showed up he said he didn't have anything to give away.
- Finally, thirty minutes after the movie was supposed to start the friend of the director showed up with the videotape. I announced the movie and the technician started it up. He didn't have time to configure his equipment so for the first five minutes of the movie you could see the menu of the digital projector as he tried to adjust for the wide screen format. There was also a bit of audio feedback that made the audience scream.
- The movie ended after the next movie was supposed to start so I just announced the next film and skipped the Q&A for the "friend of the director". I also had to announce to the audience that someone brought the wrong copy of the second film and throughout the whole film there would be text on the bottom of the screen that said "Demo only - Do not distribute."
- I had been told that the director of the second film would be there at the end for Q&A which meant I had to stick around till the end. When the second movie ended I stood up and was about to address the audience that the director would answer questions but then a volunteer whispered to me that he never showed up so I just went home and let everyone else figure it out.
