VIRGIN BLOGGER COVERS SUNDANCE 25
VIRGIN BLOGGER COVERS SUNDANCE 25 (exposition and writing sample for Keefe )
I am a Virgin. Well, kind of. A virgin blogger, at least. I mean, beyond a few sporadic postings on blogspot, I’ve certainly never been flown, housed or paid to blog. And while I’m not a virgin to the festival (this would be my 5th trip to Park City for the annual event) I find my inner-cornball proclaiming that every Sundance makes you feel like it’s the first time. It conjures the same beautiful butterflies, histrionic anxiety and intoxicating wonderment just as The First Time should.
A confession. When I fist went to Sundance as a Junior Junior (I mean really Junior) Acquisitions person for a now-defunct film company (actually folded in along with 2 other indie film companies to become a new studio-owned indie film company), I was pretty clueless. About my job. The company for which I worked. The festival. The whole thing. I loved movies and got to read scripts and attend screenings. That’s all I knew. Period.
I found out the Friday before a Monday departure that it had been determined that the company needed an additional member on the team to cover the films slated for Sundance 2002. In the preceding weeks while I had my nose in scripts or the coverage library I’d been vaguely aware of colleagues feverishly preparing what they called their “Festival Bible” – but I never thought to ask why. Had I been wikipedia-aware back in the day it would have helped round out my Sundance Education (in case you could use a refresher course click: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundance_Film_Festival)
I had stumbled, a few months earlier, into my gig assisting a Development Executive because my infinitely more savvy and ambitious friend (a former colleague from a Broadway production office where I had been the casting assistant) had looked out for me and plucked me from the oblivion of temping to interview with this assistant-less exec.
Said former colleague is actually the reason that I’m writing about Sundance now, having thrown my name in the hat for a gig to blog for the channel named after the festival. Thankfully I’m a bit more savvy and just slightly more ambitious than I was back in the day. I actually have a successful career as a freelance Casting Director. Which happens to be in a lull. Unless you hoards of imaginary readers start and succeed in a letter writing campaign to save a certain television show. So I am available to go to the festival again. Older. Wiser. But still in awe of what the Sundance offers and the many worlds it brings together.
So what if I didn’t know on my first trip why the head of business affairs would chain smoke and stay up all night crunching numbers because people on my team had liked a given movie. Bidding war, what? And okay I thought that the head of Production was just shooting the shit in asking my response to the midnight movie I’d seen the night before. “Disney bought the remake rights” I’d hear someone say. Huh? All I know is that 6 years later I still remember how exhilarated I was emerging from the midnight screening of “Intacto” (my eighth movie of the day) and how walking back to the condo through the freezing night air I had to call a friend back in The Big Apple to rave about the film.
And, no I didn’t know that for some acquisitions people, some of the more cynical folks in that arm of the business (some would argue efficient, keen, insightful) , it’s common practice to leave screenings early. Just because they found a reason for their company to not buy the movie. “It’s a pass for us,” they’d say and move on.
I believe in seeing the movies. And so does Sundance. It may have been naivety on my first trip to the festival that kept me in the screening room for the duration of most every movie I saw. To the end. Through the Q & A. Loitering in the lobby eavesdropping and occasionally asking strangers, or volunteer ushers or folks selling snacks their response to the movie because I just had to talk to someone about the film I just saw.
So what if it’d “be a pass” for my company. Hell, I was there on someone else’s dime. Someone had paid for my pass to see these movies. It was the least I could do. And, Okay, I’m not a total Pollyanna. I did walk out of a couple of films . One movie I remember not getting (“Fubar”) but it was midnight after all. And sometimes a man needs sleep, food, a hot beverage to cut the cold mountain air. In addition to movies.
Okay, my 2002 virgin trip to Sundance didn’t launch me on a path to a stellar career as a hot shot Acquisitions executive. Someone who says “no” more than “yes” but my love of movies prevails as does my admiration for Sundance’s dedicated celebration of Independent cinema. Independence. Autonomy. Community. The stuff of Dreams.
P.S. For the snarkier side of Paul look for these upcoming Blog Posts:
Cinefiles Contemplate “Mary & Max” Sundance 25’s Opening Night Pick:
Isn’t it redundant to put the voice of clay-like actor Philip Seymour Hoffman in a Claymation film? Perplexed movie-goers ponder.
I am a Virgin. Well, kind of. A virgin blogger, at least. I mean, beyond a few sporadic postings on blogspot, I’ve certainly never been flown, housed or paid to blog. And while I’m not a virgin to the festival (this would be my 5th trip to Park City for the annual event) I find my inner-cornball proclaiming that every Sundance makes you feel like it’s the first time. It conjures the same beautiful butterflies, histrionic anxiety and intoxicating wonderment just as The First Time should.
A confession. When I fist went to Sundance as a Junior Junior (I mean really Junior) Acquisitions person for a now-defunct film company (actually folded in along with 2 other indie film companies to become a new studio-owned indie film company), I was pretty clueless. About my job. The company for which I worked. The festival. The whole thing. I loved movies and got to read scripts and attend screenings. That’s all I knew. Period.
I found out the Friday before a Monday departure that it had been determined that the company needed an additional member on the team to cover the films slated for Sundance 2002. In the preceding weeks while I had my nose in scripts or the coverage library I’d been vaguely aware of colleagues feverishly preparing what they called their “Festival Bible” – but I never thought to ask why. Had I been wikipedia-aware back in the day it would have helped round out my Sundance Education (in case you could use a refresher course click: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundance_Film_Festival)
I had stumbled, a few months earlier, into my gig assisting a Development Executive because my infinitely more savvy and ambitious friend (a former colleague from a Broadway production office where I had been the casting assistant) had looked out for me and plucked me from the oblivion of temping to interview with this assistant-less exec.
Said former colleague is actually the reason that I’m writing about Sundance now, having thrown my name in the hat for a gig to blog for the channel named after the festival. Thankfully I’m a bit more savvy and just slightly more ambitious than I was back in the day. I actually have a successful career as a freelance Casting Director. Which happens to be in a lull. Unless you hoards of imaginary readers start and succeed in a letter writing campaign to save a certain television show. So I am available to go to the festival again. Older. Wiser. But still in awe of what the Sundance offers and the many worlds it brings together.
So what if I didn’t know on my first trip why the head of business affairs would chain smoke and stay up all night crunching numbers because people on my team had liked a given movie. Bidding war, what? And okay I thought that the head of Production was just shooting the shit in asking my response to the midnight movie I’d seen the night before. “Disney bought the remake rights” I’d hear someone say. Huh? All I know is that 6 years later I still remember how exhilarated I was emerging from the midnight screening of “Intacto” (my eighth movie of the day) and how walking back to the condo through the freezing night air I had to call a friend back in The Big Apple to rave about the film.
And, no I didn’t know that for some acquisitions people, some of the more cynical folks in that arm of the business (some would argue efficient, keen, insightful) , it’s common practice to leave screenings early. Just because they found a reason for their company to not buy the movie. “It’s a pass for us,” they’d say and move on.
I believe in seeing the movies. And so does Sundance. It may have been naivety on my first trip to the festival that kept me in the screening room for the duration of most every movie I saw. To the end. Through the Q & A. Loitering in the lobby eavesdropping and occasionally asking strangers, or volunteer ushers or folks selling snacks their response to the movie because I just had to talk to someone about the film I just saw.
So what if it’d “be a pass” for my company. Hell, I was there on someone else’s dime. Someone had paid for my pass to see these movies. It was the least I could do. And, Okay, I’m not a total Pollyanna. I did walk out of a couple of films . One movie I remember not getting (“Fubar”) but it was midnight after all. And sometimes a man needs sleep, food, a hot beverage to cut the cold mountain air. In addition to movies.
Okay, my 2002 virgin trip to Sundance didn’t launch me on a path to a stellar career as a hot shot Acquisitions executive. Someone who says “no” more than “yes” but my love of movies prevails as does my admiration for Sundance’s dedicated celebration of Independent cinema. Independence. Autonomy. Community. The stuff of Dreams.
P.S. For the snarkier side of Paul look for these upcoming Blog Posts:
Cinefiles Contemplate “Mary & Max” Sundance 25’s Opening Night Pick:
Isn’t it redundant to put the voice of clay-like actor Philip Seymour Hoffman in a Claymation film? Perplexed movie-goers ponder.
posted by Paul's Blog at 9:16 PM
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