Sundance

cross posted to New England Mamas & Snapshot Chronicles

You’ll have to go to film sites like Movie City News and Cinematical for reviews of the films, and Entertainment Weekly or E!Online for the star sightings and gossip. I was only in Park City for a few days, and mostly involved in work for my client’s party. Saw only one film, CSNY Déjà Vu, and only a handful of celebrities. But I did learn a few things that I thought you’d appreciate.

1. Do not park in front of 7-11, buy a few things and then go have lunch. Even though it’s not marked a Tow Zone, you are very likely to get towed. The person driving our car (not me) was understandably upset, but it could happen to anyone. And probably did. Apparently towing is big business in Park City during Sundance due to the extreme lack of parking.

2. Sundance Film Festival merchandise goes on sale the last full day of the Festival. I could have saved $10 on the ball caps I bought the day before.

3. Films start on time. Events at Harry O’s generally do not. From my experience, you can add an hour to the stated time that doors will open. So, for example if you are planning to eat at the ChefDance dinner, which "starts" at 8pm, and get hungry around 5pm, you can safely have a good-sized snack because you won’t see the first course until 9ish and the entree at 10, 10:15 pm. 

4. UGGS are lovely but if you are limited on suitcase space, pack your waterproof boots instead. Luckily, I knew that one going in and had mine.

5. The walk from the Eccles Theatre to downtown is about 2.5 miles on a lovely walking trail. If it is warm enough (30 degrees was fine), it’s worth it for the lovely views of the mountains. You’ll also see a local landmark, a tree chock full of shoes, that’s been there for at least 20 years according to a resident I met on the path.

6. In addition to being extraordinarily talented, the folks in the Kenny Wayne Shepherd Band are absolutely delightful and down-to-earth. If you like the blues, I highly recommend Shepherd’s recent documentary and album, 10 Days Out: Blues From The Backroads. It was nominated for two Grammys and when you watch/listen, you’ll know why.

7. CSNY Déjà Vu is a superb film. If you like the band, even just a little bit, and do not like our current president, you’ll probably enjoy the movie. If you think Bush has done a great job in Iraq, on the other hand, you probably won’t, even if you normally like the band. I loved the film. Draw your own conclusions.

Oh, and the thing I left? My voice. I came home with a cold that nearly qualifies as laryngitis.

Tags: Sundance, Kenny Wayne Shepherd, CSNY Deja Vu

(long post)

I was lucky enough to have a long chat last week with writer/artist/saloniere/marketer Evelyn Rodriguez about her visit to the 2007 Sundance Film Festival.

Evelyn used to live in Salt Lake City, and attended the Festival many times as a spectator. She now resides in San Jose, California, and described this visit — her first since 2003 — as the first time she attended the Festival as an artist.

Among her many projects, she is working with Click.TV, an online video company that develops tools for video annotation, commentary and social interaction that make it easier to search and engage with segments of interest. "For instance, in a day-long congressional hearing, you can jump straight to the part that’s on the bill that you’re tracking. And then join in on an online interaction discussion at that timestamp about the issue."

She went to Sundance to find out what was up in the world of film, and most particularly video. She hoped to meet other people who were exploring the alternative medium of digital video. Even a low budget film costs at least $1 million, she said, but video is a different, more accessible world, with fewer barriers to entry. "I met people that teach a No Budget Film School, people working on social microfinancing to finance films, and people helping to film-makers self-distribute their films. I walked out of the X-Dance film, "Chasing the Lotus" ready to buy a DVD. There’s got to be a way to capture that impulse."

She was somewhat surprised that when she told friends and acquaintances that she was going to Sundance, many replied they "don’t go to Sundance anymore" because it is too commercial. While she agrees that the Festival has changed — for example, she doesn’t remember quite so many corporate lounges, which now effectively take over the Main Street storefronts during the Festival, she felt that Sundance still had something for everyone, from the avant garde to the nearly mainstream. And the fact that so many companies want to be associated with the Festival adds value; she cited two examples that enhanced her Festival experience: the Krups Café co-sponsored with Salt Lake Roasting Company at New Frontiers on Main which showcased video art installations, multimedia performances, panels, and a digital microcinema, and the Adobe/HP equipment demonstrations/workshops.

This year, Sundance has really embraced social media — Second Life, YouTube and iTunes among other things. We talked at length about whether more people are or will now be aware of independent film as a result of blogs and other social media. Or I wondered, is it more a case of the "long tail" chasing itself?

Evelyn suggested, and I think she’s on the right track, that perhaps in our age group (we are both in our early 40s), the same people are likely to be engaged with social media and interested in independent film, but in younger groups, say mid-20s, social media like YouTube et al are reaching a much broader, diverse audience. The fact that a film is classified independent may not even matter for the younger folks, who will just recognize that they saw something cool that they liked on a friend’s MySpace page or in a YouTube clip.

Arin Crumley of "Four Eyed Monsters" grassroots indie fame was videoblogging Sundance this year on behalf of the Festival. While behind camera taping the Social Networking panel, he added how he’d engaged with Flickr, YouTube, MySpace, blogging and everything at his disposal to promote the video. Said Evelyn: "They even had visitors to their website vote for cities to show the film assuming if they had critical mass they could arrange a screening. One of the six ‘cities’ was Second Life. I myself watched "Strange Culture" at the New Frontiers microcinema while the film was simultaneously premiering in Second Life." She said the Q&A with the director and with subject Steve Kurtz of Critical Art Ensemble alternated between the live audience and the SL theater avatars.

Evelyn and I also discussed how social media is starting to change HOW we will see films. The only way for an artist to get his or her work seen won’t be the local movie theater, whether it is the local 10 screen Cineplex or an art house. Only 120 films last year got theatrical release across the nation. Distribution business models are on the cusp of change. Online alternatives, the growth of digital video and the possibility of interaction with the story are blurring the lines between artist and audience. Stories won’t necessarily have a beginning, middle and end, or even a script. For example, David Lynch’s INLAND EMPIRE was shot 100% in digital video, and the script was written scene-by-scene as the taping unfolded. And Lynch is distributing it himself.

You also don’t need a film school degree or expensive equipment for decent digital video. Evelyn believes that we will see more and more "regular folks" using video to tell interesting, impactful stories. While making a documentary film has been a lifelong goal, it didn’t seem feasible to her until now. Soon, she’ll embark on a digital video project that will start shooting in post-Katrina New Orleans in late February. She’s also exploring the idea of communities, colonies, ensembles, collectives, and Salons of artistic creation — bringing dancers, theater directors, writers, filmmakers, videographers, sculptors, social media visionaries and all sorts of people together in real as well as virtual space, to see how they stretch one another and push the edges of what’s possible in social art and social video. "Online video feels like the earliest days of cinema to me. When people were so enthralled by its novelty, as one audience member said at the Web 2.0 panel, that even a clip of someone sneezing was engaging. So these are pretty exciting times to be exploring this medium."

And in the end, isn’t that what Sundance is really all about? Inspiring us to share our creative vision with the world through the medium of film and moving pictures.

To read more from Evelyn, check out her blog, Crossroads Dispatches.

3-30-08 Comments closed due to spam attacks

Tags: Sundance, Backstage at Sundance, Evelyn Rodriguez, long tail