Palm Springs — Recap

Posted on August 29, 2007

The Palm Springs International Festival of Short Films has come and gone. My wife and I traveled to the middle of the desert for five days of films, parties, and presentations. Upon arriving, the first thing that we and everyone else notices is the heat. It was north of 100 degrees every day and hit more than 110 on some of those. It was an intense burning feeling that I haven’t been exposed to in a very long while. Personally, I have no idea how people live in this climate. Everyone told me it is something you get used to, and while I’m sure it is true, I just can’t imagine such a life.

Till Death Do Us Part played three times during the festival. Friday evening, Tuesday morning, and Wednesday afternoon (Wednesday was added to the “Best of the Fest” package). It was great to see it on the big screen despite a few technical problems.

Probably the most enjoyable aspect were people coming up to me and expressing how it hit them emotionally, or how they could relate to the story, or how much they enjoyed it. Yeah, sure, there were a few people that were paying lip service. After all, this is a film festival and there is a lot of that. However, a large percentage seemed to truly mean it. That meant a lot. After a couple of years of working on it, I’m finally getting feedback and it was all very positive.

Palm Springs Fest — The Good

Warm reception from the festival volunteers, not just about my film, but just in general. Everyone was so nice. I’m not sure how everyone keeps such a good attitude in a climate that should be breeding something much less friendly. Again, the best part was when people came up to me without provocation to say something nice. I also enjoyed the Q&A that took place after each of the screenings. The audience asked their questions and I gave my best answers. It was definitely fun.

I’d also like to say that I saw some very good films and met some very wonderful filmmakers. It is nice to see so much energy and passion. I definately learned a lot from these others. This is practically my first “REAL” festival experience. So, I didn’t know what to expect. Palm Springs was a great host and the Festival people had their act together. The presentations were also greatly informative. My favorite was a panel about distributing your films on internet, iTunes, Cell Phones, etc. Second had to be the Bill Plympton talk. Unfortunately, I had to leave early for a meeting. I wish I could of stayed for the whole thing, I had some questions for him.

Palm Springs Fest — The Bad

Did I say it was hot? I burnt my hand on the car’s exterior metal more than a few times. You can try to prepare yourself for it, but everytime I would walk outside, it felt like the air in my lungs was sucked out of me - leaving me gasping. Not living in Los Angeles for several years, I had forgotten how arrogant some industry people get. Some of the young filmmakers were already heading in that direction. Such a shame. I have to say that the majority were completely down to earth. However, a few were a little hard to deal with.

Unfortunately, the first showing of Till Death Do Us Part had some problems. The audio was pretty messed up. I talked with a festival guy that spoke with the projectionist and the DigiBeta may have had the audio recorded incorrectly. When I get it back, I will have to check it out on a separate machine at a post-production studio somewhere. I cannot express how frustrated I was when this happened. Hopefully this will get cleared up without much trouble. To make matters worse, the short was projected without the brightness turned up enough. In short that is darkly lit to begin with, this made it look kind of bad. Although all of this was quite disappointing, the projectionist was able to get it to playback much better the second and third time. He fiddled with the audio controls to eliminate some of the problems and the brightness was turned up. I was much happier after that.

Palm Springs Fest — The Ugly

I keep talking about the heat. But, my wife and I actually started adjusting by day three. And really, there wasn’t much “ugly” going on at this festival. Friendly city, friendly volunteers, friendly movie goers, and friendly filmmakers. I was going to harp more about a few choice filmmakers that have gone too Hollywood considering they aren’t officially in Hollywood yet (imo :), but I’m going to keep my mouth shut. I ran into a few actors that were really full of themselves. I just don’t think they should adopt the attitude until they at least deserve it (and even if they “deserve” it, it doesn’t make it alright). This was a pleasant experience overall and that’s how I’m going to remember it. ( The majority of people were super kind and very pleasant to be around.  Only a few attitudes here and there.)

Thanks Palm Springs! And especially thanks to the nice people that went out of their way to come up to me and tell me why they liked TDDUP when they really didn’t have to. I appreciate it!


Filed Under TDDUP-Festivals

Comments

2 Responses to “Palm Springs — Recap”

  1. Keith Lango on August 29th, 2007 10:33 pm

    Awesome! Congrats on a good world premiere. Was the third screening added because folks felt TDDUP was worthy of inclusion in a kind of ‘best of show’ compilation screening? If so that’s great.
    I’ve never been to a ‘real’ film festival myself, either. Just a few animation ones and none of those really big (except SIGGRAPH, but that always felt like it didn’t count). It’s interesting to hear about the industry types copping their attitudes. Do you think that’s because PS is so close to LA or because that’s what people who are drawn to the film biz think they should act like? I never understood that part of the biz myself - the attitude thing.

    -k

  2. Rick on August 29th, 2007 11:01 pm

    Hi Keith. I don’t want to make the people sound worse than they were. The vast majority were kind people that were down to earth. A few filmmakers and actors had an attitude. It could be the proximity to LA or people drawn to the film business, but probably a little of both.

    According to the handout, the films included on the last day were hand picked by a combination of the festival programmers, the jury, and audience choices. There was an audience favorite award for all categories (each person was given a score card). I didn’t get the win for that nor do I have any clue on where I stood. I actually don’t even know how they tabulated it since some films were shown once, some twice, some in small dinky theaters and some in large full theaters. I was somewhat disappointed that not many people seemed to be voting other than the filmmakers. I saw a lot of scorecards on the floor and people just tossing them in the trash on the way out. :(

    BTW, the winner for best animation went to Madame Tutli Putli, a stop motion film that was visually appealing. The camera work was outstanding. I didn’t care for the story much, nor did I really understand what was going on or what happened at the end. But, I guess the jury must of liked it. :)

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