In attempt to get myself as much good press as humanly possible, I will be writing a little daily piece here telling my story, my failures and triumphs, and all the hell and happiness that is my experience with my film “Monday” in Park City this year. Already an outsider, being at Slamdance rather than Sundance, I figure what better way to really seal my outcast status by walking FilmThreat readers through all the mistakes I’m about to make while hiking up and down Main Street.
PARK CITY – January 28th
This is the end…
As much as I’d like to continue the clever descriptions and quick-witted references as this series winds down, I have to say, I’m completely out of fun things to jot down. I’m so exhausted I can barely see the snow that is falling in front my face that is making it impossible for me to see snow that is falling in front of my face.
We had our second and last screening, first thing yesterday am. 3/4 full, despite the fact that it was much closer to sold out than that. People just didn’t want to get out of their jammies and take off their party passes.
John Bernstein pointed out the previous night that there was a guy on the indoor basketball court still wearing a party pass from the night before that even. What is so darn cool about wearing you party passes? And why is it necessary to wear your Sundance passes all day and night? Pockets are a good place to keep your tix, and passes, and we don’t need to see your name and title every time we look at your tummy (which is often).
I had several meetings after the screening, and managed to make it to lunch with the boys and girls who were still hanging in town. Then took a nap for less than 5 minutes and went out to more meetings. Several people seem more than interested in the film, from a sale stand-point, and we’re very excited about that. Just letting those that didn’t get to see it have a chance to before we make any decisions. This seems to be standard, even though I have no clue what the hell I’m doing in this area. As the night wore on I felt like they were all speaking to me in a completely different language than the ones before them. Joe went along, and he seemed more interested in making friends than listening to my confusion. Again.
We ended up at Ruby Tuesday, outside of town, late that night, just trying to piece together everything that had been going on. Locals made fun of the humungous sundae that Joe insisted on ordering, and eating most of.
We didn’t get to see Joe’s Sundance movie, even though we’d really wanted to. We didn’t get to meet the A and B-list actors I’m going to need in the next film. We didn’t sell our movie WHILE we were still up there. We met several agents, but didn’t necessarily like any of them, except Shawn Redick, who didn’t show up to a screening (even though he’d already seen the film). We didn’t even really feel like anything really crazy and out of the ordinary happened up there…since we never felt like we were any more special than every other group of filmmakers just trying to get attention. We didn’t have any sex up there, among our group, we didn’t even see anyone having sex up there.
We did however have the girls hit on by every guy holding a mixed drink and wearing a sweater. We did get interest and possible sales of the film when we get back. We did make our audiences laugh their a***s off. We did feel content and pleased after our screenings. And we did go to more parties than we’d been to since Wall Street was a dance club where the El Rey is now. We made some new friends, kept some old. We did say hello to Sam Shepard on the street while he was trying to figure out where to buy an alarm clock. We did get the lesser of good gift bags, and fight with each other when we were too tired to work things out, or wait for the better gift bags.
And we missed our daughter terribly through it all.
We passed out around midnight, much earlier than usual, and woke up to find the baby hadn’t gone to school and wasn’t feeling well. So we headed back to LA, to take care of her, field the rest of this mountain of mess, and make sure everyone sees the film before we make any real decisions.
Back to reality. Preschool, and parks, and playdates, and getting to work on the next one.
On the way out of town all I could think about was – per the meetings I’d had, and the people who are interested – I think I’m going to sell my little movie and make another – and sooner than I’d even thought.
I’ll keep you posted. And thanks for going on this little trip with me.
