Thursday was kind of a fall-through day because I tried to attend two of the special events that were going on and couldn't get into either of them. First I tried to go on the Blue Velvet tour because I had just recently seen Blue Velvet for the first time (truly the best Wilmington film so far) and thought it would be sweet to check out the locations (especially interiors) where David Lynch and crew shot. The tour ended up being full and I couldn't go (only 24 people???), so I hung around downtown for a little bit. Someone reminded me that Kodak's 'Stop by, shoot film' thing that was going on. I had heard last year from a few people who went and they said it was a lot of fun and good experience so I headed there. Of course, that event was full too, but it's okay, because I'm taking 16mm Narrative with Hulse next semester and plan on shooting 16 then. I went into Thalian hoping to catch a film but nothing looked very good and I was flying solo, so I kind of just gave up. So Thursday was kind of a bummer overall.
Later that night I went to a friends 21st birthday dinner and afterwards we headed to Jengo's (even though only half of us were film majors) to grab some free drinks. Fortunately we all got in a hung around long enough to have a beer with Hulse and Pack (what's with the absence of liquor this year? Not easy to complain about free beer though....). I also got to play around a little with the VJ equipment that had been set up, thanks to Jordan Leonard, Dr. Kreul and the majority of my Experimental Production class. I missed the main show but I heard the VJ'ing went great and could tell by playing with the Midi keyboard and seeing all the possibilities of manipulating the various media. Cool stuff.
I had to work Friday and Saturday. I was planning on attending the after party Saturday night but I got out of work around 12:30 and just didn't feel like cruising downtown by myself in the cold. I was a little disappointed that I had missed some good films like "A Day's Work", "Good Dick" and some various shorts, all of which I heard were amazing. I would have really liked to see some of the docs that were playing this year, as I think I chose to see none just because I saw so many last year. Oh well. Hopefully I'll be able to catch up on those later when the DVDs come out. I'd say overall I had a better film fest experience than I did last year. I saw more films, got to meet some pretty cool people and got to know some of my classmates a little better. Now I'd like to broaden my horizons and attend some other festivals, whether here locally or in California, if I ever get out there...
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Cucalorus - Wednesday
I felt pretty unaccomplished after Cucalorus 13 last year, as I only attended one day's worth of films, so I decided that I'd attend as much of Cucalorus 14 as possible. I started on Wednesday, of course, with the Visions 08 kickoff. I have to give a huge thanks to Andre for his efforts to enter "Adam and Eve" which was a project that Dylan, Russ, Jamie and I made for 6x1 multi-plane animation. He basically just emailed us all and asked if we would mind if he put it into Visions for us, which of course we all gladly agreed to. So it was thanks to him that I even got a chance to see the student films from this year. On the topic of Visions, I thought all the films were pretty good, but Zero Deficit and Taintsmouth were easily my favorites. I had been hearing about Taintsmouth since I took Intermediate Doc and finally witnessed Rob's masterpiece. Brilliant.
I stuck around after Visions and tried to get into Chip's film "Two Hours in the Dark" but I was told it was completely sold out already. It's interesting how they made it work this year where, even if you were a FST major with an all-access pass, you still had to get paper tickets way in advance to have a chance to see the more popular features. I was surprised that some professors even had a hard time getting into films (Hulse couldn't get into Chip's film). I explored all my possibilities and talked to Joselyn and Bobby and somehow got hooked up with one of the small tickets they reserve for the last 10 passholders to arrive. So luckily, I got to experience one of the 'Work-in-progress' screenings. I thought it was a really good idea to put Chip Hackler, his editor (Alan?) and Terry Linehan, his producer, up front in Jengo's in order to guide the audience through the viewing. The film looks great, especially the art direction. The actor playing Frank Capra looks a little shaky though. Chip said the film should end up being about 40 minutes long once it's all done, and I'm hoping I'll be around to see it when it premiers. Oh and I can't forget to say that, although the editor seemed like a pretty cool guy, he just needed to stop talking. I just felt that he was stealing the spotlight from 1) the film, and 2) Chip as a director. He made some good commentary but just too much commentary. Oh well, the few scenes we saw looked very good and the screening itself was a new experience that I'm glad I was a part of.
Late Wednesday I returned to Jengo's for the film party and managed to get into the 'sex shorts' as they were called. All of them were pretty ridiculous and hilarious. "The Letter 'C'" was awesome and kept everyone constantly laughing, but my favorite was the extremely weird "Hezurbeltzak, A Common Grave" which was basically very cryptic pencil-looking drawings being animated, showing sex and some very odd things (like a woman swallowing up a dog with her something-or-other...) Very, very strange film but I thought it was amazingly creative. After the sex shorts, I met up with a bunch of friends behind Jengo's and went out back for the best part...FREE BEER.
I stuck around after Visions and tried to get into Chip's film "Two Hours in the Dark" but I was told it was completely sold out already. It's interesting how they made it work this year where, even if you were a FST major with an all-access pass, you still had to get paper tickets way in advance to have a chance to see the more popular features. I was surprised that some professors even had a hard time getting into films (Hulse couldn't get into Chip's film). I explored all my possibilities and talked to Joselyn and Bobby and somehow got hooked up with one of the small tickets they reserve for the last 10 passholders to arrive. So luckily, I got to experience one of the 'Work-in-progress' screenings. I thought it was a really good idea to put Chip Hackler, his editor (Alan?) and Terry Linehan, his producer, up front in Jengo's in order to guide the audience through the viewing. The film looks great, especially the art direction. The actor playing Frank Capra looks a little shaky though. Chip said the film should end up being about 40 minutes long once it's all done, and I'm hoping I'll be around to see it when it premiers. Oh and I can't forget to say that, although the editor seemed like a pretty cool guy, he just needed to stop talking. I just felt that he was stealing the spotlight from 1) the film, and 2) Chip as a director. He made some good commentary but just too much commentary. Oh well, the few scenes we saw looked very good and the screening itself was a new experience that I'm glad I was a part of.
Late Wednesday I returned to Jengo's for the film party and managed to get into the 'sex shorts' as they were called. All of them were pretty ridiculous and hilarious. "The Letter 'C'" was awesome and kept everyone constantly laughing, but my favorite was the extremely weird "Hezurbeltzak, A Common Grave" which was basically very cryptic pencil-looking drawings being animated, showing sex and some very odd things (like a woman swallowing up a dog with her something-or-other...) Very, very strange film but I thought it was amazingly creative. After the sex shorts, I met up with a bunch of friends behind Jengo's and went out back for the best part...FREE BEER.
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