I skipped day 4, because I had had enough wit the fest, and took a break.

Day 5
Monday morning was the awards ceremony. Now, for thos who dont know, my wife and I are pretty close. She is my muse, my biggest supporter, and she took the day of from ork to attend.

I arrive, and a girl who looks like she hasnt slept in 6 days says, "Well, there are only one seat for each film maker." I said, "Fine, Ill sit elswhere with my wife." The girl got all pissed, and said "You have to. We are doing a spotlight for the winners, and need to know where your seated. Im sure she can sit right behind you." I looked at my wife, and asked if she cared. If she didnt agree to it, I was gonna raise hell, but not if she didnt care. My wife said, "Bu they said you have to sit there." "Not if I dont get the award." I said. What d I care? I already went to the Gala, and reaped the rewards. This was to make them feel good, not me. She said it was ok, so I didnt raise hell.

Thwe awards show wasnt bad. We had Al Sipianza from "The Sapranos" "24" and "CSI" as our host, so that was cool. I quickly noticed that they werent doing this spotlight thing as they had stated. When my award came up, The same girl came to get me, so I had to say something.

Girl-
"Okay Michael, Follow me."
Me-
"Hang on. Explain to me with the F*** I had to sit in this seat by myself, when i could have sat in the same spot one row back, with my wife? There is no spotlight. What, you couldnt find me ONE ROW BACK?

The girl looked like she was about to cry, so i cut her some slack.

Me-
"Whatever. What a joke."

They played a scene from "Intersection" and it got a great response. In addition, the presenter for my category was a film composer who has worked on REAL films. Never pass up an opportunity to network...

Me-
"Before I thank some people, I wanted to just say that its cool a composer is the presenter for us. For those of you who want to be film makers, find yourself a good cmposer. A good composer will make a bad film good, and a good film great."

He liked that. Afterwards, he gave me his card, and said to contact him if I needed scoring done. So, I dropped it on him. I was like, "I have no money, thats short cost less than $100." He said, "Dont worry about money, just contact me if you need scoring done."

Right after my award, there was an intermission. I had quiet a few people come up, and say how much they liked the short
including a Distributor, who said he distributed the first H.D. feature on HBO. He said he wasnt going to be here for the showing, but he really liked the clip, and wanted to see my stuff. I told him I send him a copy of the HD trailer. I also had the Florida state film commissioner aproach me, and tell me how much she liked the clip. She introduced me to the state production commissioner who asked, "Is this the guy who made Intersection?", and I got their cards. They said if i tried to get a location, and anyone even hesitated to say yes, call them, and to please stay in Florida. Hmmmmm.....

Skip ahead to later that night, the premiere of the H.D. trailer. (I plugged it in my acceptance speech, as well.) I hadnt gotten to see the last 4 or 5 versions of it, so it was like a totally new trailer to me. WOW! Thast all i can say. Projected in H.D., on the big screen, in THX surround sound. It was beautiful. The quicktime version dosent look quite as pretty (of course) but we are working on finding a way to put it online, so all can view. That, and I finally got the ok to post some screen grabs. My buddy is e-mailing them to me in the next few days, and Ill post em when there up. I cant wait to hear your guys reaction. The night ended with the D.P. being a dick and the ditrector informing him that he wont be on the feature. Not pretty. The next morning, we couldnt find the master HD5 tape of the trailer, and it seems it was left in the deck by the theater projectionists. The deck was picked up, and flown out that very morning, so..... hopefully we can get that back. God, wierd stuff.

Day 6
The student showcase. I had put out the word to everyone i could think of, and the turn out was great. We had an almost full theater. I wont comment on some of the shorts. Lets just say, "Risque" would best describe some of the subject matter. There was almost two hours of shorts before mine played, and I was half expecting people to leave. They didnt, and "Intersection" met with a great response. People really liked it, which was very cool. My short ended, and then we had a surprrise for the patrons. We played the H.D. trailer that features my script. It was supposed to happen after the Q&A, but once again, the projectionists blew it. It was like, everyone was waiting for the house lights, and BOOM something else starts. Whispers, and questions rang out, but within 10 seconds people were glued to the screen. The trailer ended, the place erupted! People were going nuts. They had me do my Q&A first, so i could explain what everyone had just seen. The only down side, was everyone had H.D. questions, but I knew the answeres, so that was cool. The Q&A would have probablly gone on all night, but they had to cut it short. We still had Universities winners to see (very good films BTW)

Afterwards, I had tons of folks come up to tell me how much they liked "Intersection" (Including the University winners, two of which shot on 35mm) Al Sipianza was also there. He camer up to say how much he liked "Intersection", and he had watched the trailer. He has requested a copy of the script. He said he would read it on the flight home (Toronto) and that provided he liked it as much as the trailer, he wanted to work on the film. He also asked who the nurse was in my film. I said, "MY wife, why?" He quickly changed the subject. (Hes a horndog. Dudes been nailing everything that stands still, while he was here. My wife is hot. Nuff said. Later, I told him, "Hey, stay the F*** away from my wife Al." He laughed.)I already talked to the director, and said, "What about Al for the amnesia character in my film?" He was like, "Hell yeah!" So, I could be tieing, and beating up Al Sipianza, of course, if he tries anything with my wife, Ill do that anyway..... moving on.

(BTW Al says with his three hit show apperances this past year, he has raked in almost 5 mill. I said, "Good, then you can afford to do our film for nothing." ;D)

Thats it thus far. Last night there was a lame party, nothing special. Tonight is the closeing night film, and the first annual proffessional film awards. My last chance for networking. Hopefully it will be fun. Im just glad its gonna be over. I am worn out from all the Tounge bitting ive had to do. More on that later.
R. M.

And you shall know us by the trail of dead.

The best of luck to you tizzy, I hope some of these connections start to pull in, in the coming future so we can see some of your movies on the big-screen , Oh and will the trailed or movie be up soon so we can see this much-hyped intersection trailer

Don't mean to jinx ya but do you realize how much this is sounding like Robert Rodriguez's journal? That no shame "make connections with everyone" attitude and enthusiasm of his is totally mirrored in Tizzy's post... with just about the same amount of wide public appeal at the festival.

Maybe *I* should start working on connections with you.

uhhh.... Hey Tizzy, I like your hat.

--Alan

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http://www.alandenton.com
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I will never take offense at being compared to Robert, as long as my work shows through, and I mirror ALL his success. You have to be willing to shake, hands and introduce yourself like your somebody. Thats the name of the game, "Its not what you know, its who you know." I wish this wasnt true, but so often it is. A lot of talentless people have made it in this bizz, just by knowing someone (Case in point, John Peters. Was Barbara Striesands hair dresser, and she made him a producer. Now he is single handedly destroying the Batman, and Superman franchises.)
I had people who were like "Who the F*** are you, whom later wanted to speak with me after seeing my clip at the awards. Maybe they would have approached me anyways, or maybe not. By speaking to them, they new I was a personable kind of guy.
I can tell you I have a stack of business cards that are more than likley worthless, but i will contact each and every one. I will send stuff to the ones who asked me to. What the hell, its the cost of postage. Even my broke ass can swing that. Really the one thing Im excited about is the possibility of Brett Ratner watching my short. Thast cool all by itself. Im not planning on "Making it" from this festival. I am still continuing n with the same plans I had before the win, but if it happened, I wouldnt complain.

Oh, and Alan. Thank you, Im very proud of my "Evil Dead" baseball cap
R. Michael

And you shall know us by the trail of dead.