Strictly Personal

Sounds like a great festival. Todd Tinkham has been raving about it. Dear Stranger will screen on Sunday at 4:05pm, October 12th in Oakridge, Tennessee.

The festival site – Schedule – Previews – Intro to festival

Banana Bus has never looked or sounded better than it did today at the Hi Mom! Film Festival. JayCynthia’s voice was so warm, it was fantastic!

Afterwards I hung out with several wonderful friends: Todd, Mary, Steve, Kelly B, Jessica and, of course, my wife Kelly. Such a wonderful night. I think festivals in your local area are always so much more better because you can do this.

Continuing from my post on ticklebooth:

One of the greatest speeches. The best presidential speech I have ever witnessed. With such high expectations, with so much pressure, in a friggin’ stadium, with the biggest audience watching – he simply nailed it. It was so emotional even though there was nothing fluffy about what he said.

As I walked my dog afterwards, I realized that his focus must have been on intention. Behind every word, he did not emphasize the poetics of it but the why of it. I never understood how people were inspired by speeches. My cynical outlook saw speeches as verbal punches. And though there were many punches that landed on McCain. I was truly inspired. I was set to motion. Powerful stuff. My adrenaline is rushing.

I can’t stop thinking about it. Couple of belated thoughts. When one learns anything incredibly difficult, they are taught to be in the moment. Writing, acting, sports, relationships. The fight is to be immersed in the moment. Obama is the master of his moment.

Before he went on, MSNBC commentators said it might take him about 30 minutes to just simply read the speech, without pauses and emphasis. This was a problem. The plan was that at 10pm, a quick introduction from Senator Durbin would be made followed by a short video about Obama who would then walk out to deliver his speech that was supposed to begin at 10:15 eastern time. Television networks would cut to the local news around 11pm. That left Obama 45 minutes to make his case. He couldn’t just read the speech, he had to speak it out loud. If he simply read it, it would sound like Al Gore’s speech from earlier that night. He also had to have the proper entrance and exit worthy of a 70,000 stadium audience. Two minutes for entrance, 8 minutes for the exit. The Obama people were hoping for some quick soundbites (favorable of course) from their anchors before they switched off to the local channels. This could somewhat overlap with the exit. So in a sense, Obama had about 35 minutes tops.

Now if you didn’t know all of this, you wouldn’t have thought about it twice because Obama nailed it, along with the proper entrance and exit, the proper pauses and crowd interruptions. Everything worked. Here is how:

A couple minutes before 10pm, Senator Durbin started his intro. Obama’s intro video finished around 10:13. I was nervous. Around 10:14, Obama finally manages to get the crowd to quite down and starts his speech. Only a minute headstart, Obama must have felt the pressure because after brief thank you’s, the next 2-3 minutes of his speech seemed to be on the express train. I don’t remember anything he said in the period. But if you look at the text, it is classic Obama material. But because it had been said before, he flew past it. I remember wondering “this feels like a blur”.

It was only when he reached McCain, did he finally slow down. He was back to his normal pause and reflect kind of style. It kept slowing down but never to a point where it was eating up time. His pauses were just enough, his pace was steady but full of intent. Thinking back, this is what made it magical, that with all of these external time pressures, Obama relied upon his internal rhythm to keep pace. There was never a disconnect with what he was saying and feeling or acting. It was beautiful.

Now I didn’t get a look at the clock to see when he finished because I was pumping fists and jumping in elation. It was like a watching a incredible game with your team winning. But it felt like, he finished around 10:50pm. I could be very easily wrong here but there was plenty of time for the Michelle & daughers, Biden’s and all the rest to come out, wave, watch the fireworks and leave. All before 11pm. The anchors were buzzing about the speech before it cut to local networks. Incredible!

My little podcast will be part of a Matinee/Evening Block of films that will be shown at the ArtsCenter in Carrboro, North Carolina. Showtime: September 6th at 6pm. Tickets are 4$. Great venue, great festival!

This is one of the premier festivals in the area. And they have a photo of my mom in the program, how cool is that? Woohoo!

Banana Bus won the Best NC short film at the recently concluded All American Film Festival. This might sound silly but the award means a lot. Not sure if the next award will but I feel so encouraged about my work, energized to finish incomplete projects. I also feel much more positive about festivals in general, partially because of the award, largely because I had a great time at the festival.

Undoubtedly, it was a great festival for filmmakers as we got plenty of time to mingle with each other and the audience. But I also think the reason that I enjoyed this festival experience more than previous ones is because I actually spent time there. It felt like an event versus just a blip on my calendar.

P.S. The trailer for Hello. Sorry. Whatever. is available on Squigglebooth.

There will be an hour of my films screened at this year’s All American Film Festival. My program will be part of a local filmmakers block that starts at 3pm on Saturday, March 8th at the Marvell Center, Durham. Dear Stranger, Indian Giver and (crowd favorite) Banana Bus will be among the films I will be screening. Of course, I will be there to answer questions and chit chat afterwards.

The All American Film Festival is a four day event that features some of the best local and national films including Slamdance Grand Jury Winner Abel Raises Cain. There will also be tons of local music. I expect to be jumping from one location to another to keep up with it all, should be a lot of fun. Hope to see you there.

Update: Banana Bus wins Best North Carolina Film Award at the All American Film Festival. Woohoo! It was a fantastic festival, the audience were so smart and friendly, the films were incredible and the filmmakers who attended were a pleasure to meet. Can’t get better than that!

• We have moved to Durham and we feel silly for being so paranoid (knock on wood). We have eaten out so much, the restaurants around us are wonderful.
• We also got cable, I want to see the shows that the company I work produce. Cable kills boredom, not good for my creativity. Just like my earlier addiction to the internet, I look forward to the burnout.
• Talking about work, I am crazy busy. I feel nuts for spending time writing this.
• I want this person to be the next president of the United States.
• I await Tennis weather. We do have a gym nearby which I think I might put to use.
• The All American Film Festival is presenting an hour of my work, more details when they arrive.
• Don’t feel like a filmmaker anymore because I AM NOT MAKING ANYTHING.
• I hate Verizon, when we moved, they were the only ones that provided DSL in our area. So we get it, install their new software and for no fucking reason, their software deletes my bookmarks. Common problem that they refuse to address. So bye bye you lousy bastards.
• This is probably the best news: I have friends now that feel like family.

K-I-S-S-I-N-G.

Article about my love for the Mac and my start in filmmaking.

I have been so tired of working as a freelancer for so long. It seems that I have spent too much time and energy in finding work. My work had no resemblance of structure and I was generally stressed out. However, my patience has been rewarded. On Wednesday, Oct 17th, I start on a full-time position with a company that couldn’t have better fitted my ideal work environment. Small to medium sized company that produces a lot of content. Very edgy content. It is going to be an education. Woohoo!

My wonderful Macintosh G5 finally became a villain when the main hard drive died on me. The SMART system provided no warning whatsoever. And I was hours away from making backups. I swear. So currently, Data Rescue, a disk recovery program, has been working for more than a week on my computer. It has a couple of more days left, it seems. Fingers crossed. I made a lot of writing notes, I hope that isn’t lost.

CovergeSouth is showing a bunch of my films. Ava Gardner Film Festival had a SquiggleBooth retrospective and screened Dear Stranger.