In don’t think it’s a secret that I’ve been having the time of my life at the AFI Dallas Film Festival. I don’t know, folks just seem to GET IT here. Had a long conversation with festival publicist John Wildman today and… it’s refreshing. He knows what he is doing, as does Gina Lang and everyone else involved, and it’s to be respected. I’m having fun because there’s nothing to be cranky about (which, considering my last festival, is saying something).
Still, as tonight comes to a close, I realized that there is so much more that I’ve meant to talk about that I haven’t yet. Like the fact that the bartenders at the Filmmakers’ Lounge named a drink called “The F*****g Douchebag” after me (I accept the name with pride). Also, that I had a great lunch at the House of Blues and saw Patrick Creadon talk about documentaries, distribution and the perfect storm that created his hit film “Wordplay.” The quote I’ll most take away from the talk was when he said, as I tweet’ed in the Twitter, “The minute your project is placed on the backburner,; you’ll work on it later… it’s dead.” This resonated with me particularly because I have quite a few friends who seem to be waiting for the perfect sequence of events in order to film their insanely amazing sounding projects and… until you do it, it’s not going to be done.
Patrick Creadon dropping knowledge.
I also really like the idea of having a panel / talk in a setting where one can eat. No matter how boring a panel could be, imagine how easy it would be to take in if you’re getting a full meal out of it. I loved hearing Patrick speak, but I also loved my shrimp po’boy.
Mmmmm mmmmm good…
I saw the documentary “Frag” today, and it was really well done. It tackled the subject of professional video gamers and the seemingly underground world of sponsors and gaming that exists. As things seem to be moving more and more in the direction of video gaming becoming like any other professional sport, I can totally see this film as being valueable as that first primer. The players it focuses on… these are the Dream Team of Video Games. Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel, Rafik “Lost-Cauze” Bryant, Daniel “Sephi” Serna… in five years (or less), folks will know all about these professional gamers, and “Frag” will be the primer for anyone curious as to how we all got to this point.
“Frag’s” Rafik “Lost-Cauze” Bryant, producer Judd Saul, director Mike Pasley, AFI staffer (sorry, I forgot your name), Daniel “Sephi” Serna and Johnathan “Fatal1ty” Wendel
The rest of my evening was a tame one. I hung out in the Filmmaker Lounge and played Guitar Hero (and drank “F*****g Douchebags”) while chatting with friends new and old. Kim from Cinematical was at the festival, and I got to hang with Kim and her daughter for a short time, and that was cool. Also got to talk with Kelly Williams from the Austin Film Festival, Daniel Serna (after watching him destroy somebody on the Dragonforce song) and a number of other cool individuals (including the aforementioned John Wildman and AFI awesome-ites Shaz Bennett and James Faust). All in all, had a blast, again, and I still have three days of the festival left.
I’m going to be hosting the Q&A for the film “Heckler” Friday night, with director Michael Addis and star Jamie Kennedy. Looking forward to that, as I’ve already had one fun Q&A experience with them at November’s AFI in Los Angeles (while it was heated, I don’t think our conversation was disrespectful to each other). Plus, I still have my panel on Saturday, which I’m looking forward to.
It is said that MC Frontalot looks like Crispin Glover, so I was scared and intimidated…
