Film: March 2009 Archives

The interactive folks have mostly gone home, the movie awards are over (although screenings continue), and musicians are arriving in droves. On to the next part of SXSW!

I continue to enjoy sleeping late, which has the unfortunate side effect of limiting which panels I can attend. Furthermore, I got goofed up today and went to the wrong place for one.

That panel was "Policy Trainwreck: How Copyright Law Failed the Digital Age." I ended up catching about 3/4 of the discussion, which was mostly about music and ways for musicians to control their works. Interesting stuff, but not directly applicable to anything I'm doing, at least not yet.

After that, I went to the reception for the Film Awards. There, I bumped into Becky James, a delightful young animator whom I met earlier on the shuttle bus between our hotel and the convention center. She introduced me to her friend Matt Boch, a creative designer at Harmonix, makers of Rock Band. We talked at some length about the excitement over The Beatles Rock Band game that will be released on 09/09/09 (Number nine. Number nine. Number nine). While Matt stuck to his NDA and didn't reveal anything new, he was able to tell me that Dani Harrison, George's look-alike son, has been instrumental in making the game happen, and frequently visits the Harmonix offices. Matt says the Beatles game is fantastic. He gets to play it every week. I am so freaking jealous!

After that, I attended the film awards themselves. It was great watching the excitement of the winners. The aforementioned Becky James won a special judges award for the poster she and Lydia Corkin designed for James' film "Snake."

For the full list of winners, see sxsw.com/film.

Following the awards, I got in line to see "Saint Misbehavin': The Wavy Gravy Movie." Clown noses were passed out. I hopped into a seat and introduced myself to the guy sitting next to me, who turned out to be the film's producer, David Becker. SXSW is so cool! And I hadn't noticed, but in the fourth seat from me was none other than Wavy Gravy himself. I'd met him at a party a few days earlier and got a picture with him. But famed photographer Lisa Law set up to take a photo of the whole audience around Wavy, wearing their red noses! Becker had temporarily left his seat, and there was nobody between Wavy and me, so I popped into the chair right next to him for the photo. I can't wait to get a copy of that from Law.

The film itself was exceptional. In fact, they won me over with the very first bit of music, because the song was "Indian Lake" by the Cowsills, which just happens to be the very first record I ever purchased with my own money, back in 1968, when I was 10 or 11 years old. But the whole story of Wavy and his great kindness and charity was a delight from start to finish. Like his friends the Grateful Dead said, what a long, strange trip it's been.

The film ended after midnight, so I strolled over to 6th street, the main bar and music scene in Austin. I had a delicious burger at The Jackalope, and found friendly people who told me pirate jokes. This is a very friendly place to be.

Tomorrow: More movies and finally some music!

Here I am again, staggering in not drunk at 2 o'clock in the morning. With all the late night stuff here at SXSW, I'm finding it hard to get up in the morning. So I don't.

I did get up in time to see "TRIMPIN: the sound of invention." Its a documentary about a musician-inventor of the same name, who creates giant, incredible, sound machines. You really should check out the trailer. The film's centerpiece is a collaboration between Trimpin (he only uses his last name) and The Kronos Quartet. It was an amazing movie, and I got a chance to chat with the sound mixer afterwards. He said it was like being a kid in a candy store.

After that, I attended the Bruce Sterling session. Sterling is best know as a science fiction author. He did a very entertaining talk, even though part of it was about how journalists are fading away. I wish now I had videoed it; he had so many interesting things to day. Well, it should be available as a podcast when SXSW ends.

Then came Nuclear Taco. A very long line to get some free very very hot tacos. The first bite or two, I figured, ha! These tacos can't conquer me. But they did. Tears streaming down my face. And now, hours later, pain further on down. But it was worth it.

I then went to see "For the Love of Movies." This documentary traces the history of American film criticism. It was fascinating information, but I have to say it didn't make for a great film.

After that, I walked half a mile to the Mashable party, only to find a line several hundred feet long. I waited a while, but gave up and decided to hit another movie.

I was torn between "The Horseman," and "Lesbian Vampire Killers." I chose the former.

"The Horseman" is an Australian film about a man whose daughter has died of a drug overdose after appearing in a pornographic movie. The main character is set on revenge, and he gets it. I found it to be one of the most violent films I've ever seen, but then again, I don't generally go to very very violent films. That said, it was a good story, as long as you can stand up to the beatings.

Off to bed now. Good night, readers.

This will be a much shorter post than day 1. I did fewer things, but still am having a blast. Except for my blasted feet.

I slept until the clock went off at 10, and got out the door by about 10:30, taking the shuttle over to the Convention Center for my first session of the day, "Blog on Company Time and Get Promoted." This was an informal session in a relatively small room; perhaps about 30 people were there. Taught by consultant Daniel Hope, much of this was about how to convince numskulls at your company that they need a blog. Not a problem at the company where I work, which is getting more and more social-networking-savvy every day. Hope had a good suggestion called the "80/20" rule. 80 percent of a corporate blog should be relevant to the company or product(s) being promoted, 20 percent should be other stuff, such as links to interesting things, YouTube videos, photos from company parties, etc. I like that idea. He also listed a bunch of tools that he says can be helpful in blogging. I haven't checked them out in detail, but they were:

• Diigo, which allows you to highlight things and post annotations when linking to other web sites


• Posterous, which allows you to post items by emailing them


• Utterli, formerly called Utterz, another sharing tool


• Tumblr, yet another sharing tool


• Scribefire, a Firefox plug-in that integrates a blogging tool into the same window in which you're viewing the web, so you don't have to keep multiple tabs or windows open. This sounds useful to me.

After that session, I headed over to catch part of Zappos CEO Tony Hsieh's keynote. It sounded interesting, but I couldn't stay long. I had to go to Jeffrey Tambor's acting workshop. It was actually a seminar, in which he conducted a seminar with two actors he brought along, who already knew their lines. The way Tambor was able to guide them through breaking through barriers to get to the heart of the scene was amazing. I've got it all on video, and will post some clips "when I get around to it." Probably after the festival.

Next, I went to the movies, at the amazing Alamo Ritz. With a full menu of food and libations, I think this is a great theatre chain. I had some delicious green chilli macaroni and cheese. The film I viewed was "Beetle Queen Conquers Tokyo," a fascinating documentary about Japan's obsession with insects. If you're at all interested in Japanese culture, try to find a way to see this movie.

After that, I headed to the party for "The 2 Bobs." It was damned noisy and crowded, but I got to spend some additional time with 3 of the cast members, including the lovely Tamara Jolaine, who greeted me warmly when she came in.

I skedaddled over to another movie, this time "The Last Beekeeper." There's an as-yet unexplained disease that is killing off bees in startling numbers. I knew that already. What I didn't know was the emotional toll that is taking on beekeepers. Dammit, the film brought a tear to my eye. See it if you can.

I have to say, AT&T is really falling down on the job with providing adequate data coverage. I could not pull up my schedule to save my life sometimes, which is why I missed the frog design SXSWi opening party. Frog design is one of the best industrial design firms on the planet, and I've read good things about their parties. Many of my twitter friends were shouting about the great fun at the Cog'aoke party. With no internet on my iPhone, it took a while to find out where it was. It was a 6 block walk, and I hemmed and hawed about whether my feet were to tired. But they carried me there and I enjoyed some enthusiastic karaoke performances by exceedingly drunk people. I found my Chicago friends Amy and Mary, and another friend of theirs who's name now escapes me, and we headed back to the hotel. And now I can't wait to go to sleep!

I just left a party where I was talking to a beautiful movie star, so that I could blog for you, my readers. I must be crazy.

It's day one of the South by Southwest Festival, or SXSW, a gathering of interactive, film and music makers and lovers, down here in Austin, Texas. And so far, it is glorious.

I began the day at 1:08 pm, when I woke up. Good thing: I obtained my badge the day before. I've been on a variety of sleep schedules lately, and had slept almost 12 hours. I downed an energy drink, showered, and headed over to the Austin Convention Center, for my first conference: "Getting the Most out of SXSW Film." It was a primer for uninitiated attendees like myself. Very informative, but sparsely attended.

After that, I made my way to the place where they handed out goodie bags. These bags contain guides to the festival, party invitations, and loads of free magazines. As I have the Platinum badge (interactive, film, AND music), I got three canvas tote bags filled with stuff. Most of it will be garbage, but there was no time to sort. I ended up running around with those 3 bags, which weighed something like 20 pounds, most of the rest of the day.

Next was a conference on the Ecosystem of News. Steven Johnson of outside.in presented, and then led a discussion. The room was jam-packed. The session talked about the changes in the news industry, and unlike Chicago's recent Journalism Town Hall, was pretty hopeful for the future. He tried to stem the panic about newspapers shutting down and presented a model in which news is gathered by pro journalists, non-profit journalists, bloggers of both the amateur and professional variety, and public data. On top of that is a layer of commentary provided by pundits, bloggers, and scholars. Above that he listed curators consisting of social media, professional editors, aggregators and group filters, with distribution through traditional media, aggregators and viral word-of-mouth. But he did admit that, yes, many newspapers will close, and yes, many good journalists will lose their jobs.

I took the microphone at one point and talked about my friend Sally Duros, who until a year ago edited the Home section of the Chicago Sun-Times. She's now a Huffington Post blogger, which is great, except HuffPo doesn't pay. See her articles on how journalists can be paid.

The man behind the Chicago Tribune's ColonelTribune Twitter identity spotted me when I was up at the mic. He and I have communicated before via Twitter, it was good to meet up with him in person.

After that, I grabbed a sandwich and then headed off to a conference called "Social Engineering: How to Scam Yourself into Anything or From Anybody. Hosted by Brian Brushwood of the internet tv program "Scam School," this presentation was mostly entertainment, but did have some common sense tips. Best part of this was the recommendation of a book, How to Read a Person Like a Book. Could improve my poker playing.

Next up, I went to a movie called "The 2 Bobs," a hilarious film about game developers. The title characters discover that their latest software masterpiece has been stolen by unscrupulous Christians. I won't spoil the film by telling you what happened, but it is a complete delight. The film needs a distributor. If you are a distributor, buy this film now!! More about the cast below.

I tried to catch another film about beekeepers, but got lost and ate dinner, while dinner was looking back at me.

Last order of business: The film party. I don't do well at parties where I don't know at least a few people; and outside of a lovely person named Kana I met on the shuttle bus, I knew no one here. But I forced myself to interact, and had a great time! I met the one and only Wavy Gravy of Woodstock fame, and as you can see from the appropriately blurry photo, got a photo with the man. I also introduced myself to Jeffrey Tambor, who's leading an acting workshop that I plan to attend. Then I met one of the Bobs. Devin Ratray, best known for the Home Alone pictures, turned out to be a hell of a nice guy. We chatted for about ten minutes. He told me about a sci-fi film he'll be making soon with Bruce Willis. Sounds very good. I wandered around the party awhile, and spotted Cody Kasch, also in The 2 Bobs, who you may know from Desparate Housewives as Zach. And seated with him, the delightful and beautiful Tamara Jolaine, who is one of the love interests in the film. We had a very nice talk about the making of the film, Tamara's budding music career, and our backgrounds. Turns out we both love Wikipedia, and Tamara may want me to write her Wikipedia entry. She also mentioned Devin's other upcoming film, in which he stalks Condoleeza Rice.

Sooner or later, in my case sooner, I began to think I was running out of things to say, and excused myself. From talking with a beautiful movie star who seemed interested in conversing with me. I will never learn.