Chicago Days pt. 3

OK, OK, here we go...

Since I had zero net access for most of the fest (and the withdrawl headache to prove it) I reverted back to a pre blog tradition. I made notes. These notes will be included in these posts, however once things got very busy I had to scribble one or two word 'trigger' phrases to remind me to remember the story for later. Such phrases include: Harmonica Joe and Stole My Pepsi the latter being particularly funny since it in fact refers to a Diet Coke and not a Pepsi, however Pepsi was easier to write and is still a good trigger word. Revisions and additions appear in these square bracket doo-dads []

Enough... I give you,
Chicago Days Part, uh, 3


Chicago Days, pt. 3

Saturday 12:30p
The Family Friendly show is now playing. It's pretty good, which is sad because there are only about a dozen folks in there watching it, and only 1 of them is a kid. six of them are filmmakers who came to see their own film, and two of the rest are filmmakers who will watch anything since they have a free pass for all the screening. [editor's note: the 'kid' that attended the screening was Paul, a good friend of Nels'. Paul later confessed that he did not care for any of the films, although his Dad, Ben said that Paul had seemed quite entertained the entire time.]

Let me tell you about the last 36 hours or so...
We got here at about 2:30p yesterday [Friday] and Nels and I began setting up the projector. Nels never really learned everything about the projector so we have to endure a period of adjustment. To his credit he is very particular about getting the picture quality as high as possible, finessing the controls to do just that. I would assume that other festivals are as conscientious, but from talking to some of our filmmakers that ain't the case.[Note: More than one filmmaker made a point of expressing to me that their film looked great at our show. I have to attribute that to Nels' efforts]


Our first show is at 5:00p and by 4:30p we were wondering if we should postpone. We were almost ready but turnout was low. Several of our filmmakers had checked in and picked up their passes. One guy begins complaining about his film's timeslot right away (while scooping up any free stuff that was in the lobby. I didn't like his film much already, but his personality I liked even less.[ We began referring to this person as WMD, he will appear in later postings] We started the show at 5:15, Scott was his usual smarmy (and yet incompetent) emcee self.[After some consideration I should revise this statement, though smarmy and incompetant, Scott was much better with the audience than last year, so the word 'usual' would be inappropriate.]
We had a meet-and-greet scheduled for 6:30pm at the Red Lion (a bar about 3 doors down) so at 6:15p with the first show still running, I went down to the Red Lion to make sure we were expected. We were not expected. Luckily they were able to accommodate us. Gradually filmmakers began to mull about and after some brief introductions, Scott replaced me at the Red Lion I had to get back to the theater to help Nels get our 7:30p show [Growing Up Sucks] ready.

To Be Continued...