Your balls sufficiently tickled, here's the wrapup to my great time in Austin. Bottom line, I'm moving there, or at least never missing SXSW ever again.
For years I've watched other people's films at film festivals. I've watched them get reactions from a crowd. I've watched them get up at the end and host a Q&A about how they made the film. And I wished it was me.
Still do. But I'm so much closer. For 5 days I got to walk around one of the greatest cities on Earth and show everyone a HUGE film that everyone knew about and say "I'm a producer." People were so impressed with the film and I like to think that Charley and I's efforts added a couple hundred to the event.
I'm a pretty friendly and outgoing guy. So when you plop me into the middle of a high concentration of people with exactly the same interest that I do, without even trying or thinking about it I'm networking: also known as just talking to people. I found some astoundingly unpretentious real people. Godbless Austin.
First we had a party for our investors, crew, and stars at Six Lounge, which is Lance Armstrong's bar. Very nice place with a rooftop overlooking Austin, which reminded me of all the pictures I see of Cannes every year with everyone on a rooftop.
This was a great event, the crew was so happy to be back together, filmcrews end up families (one of the great things about production) and this was a family reunion.
And then we went over to the theatre, Matt Dentler introduced Terry, the lights went down and there it was. The film I had seen on so many laptops in so many pieces, now all together three stories tall, five stories wide and loud and intimate. It was amazing. The film really plays. There are so many moments that I was unaware of the impact of until I heard 1,200 people react. The most oft-noted are the funny moments. Hutton plays Liebowitz very quirky at times, those "prosecuting attorney playing a game with the witness" moments. And there's one scene where Tim almost acts like he's lost his mind, breaking away from a conversation on the case with a weird diatribe on the trees in Alabama, he just starts talking about them and walks out, leaving the other two attorneys staring at what just happened. The audiences also stares, but it's funny. Just one of those funny things Tim did that I have no idea where it came from.
It was amazing to see it so huge on the screen. It was like watching this film that's, of course, amazingly familiar to me. I mean fuck, overly familiar, and yet I hadn't seen a cut of the film in a while and I have no idea what's going to happen next because I kind of forgot. So it was this weird blend of new and familiar. There are scenes I don't remember in any form. Tim Hutton is pretty addictive to watch. Hearing 1,200 people laugh is really amazing.
Credits: Applause...still going...still going... 1,058 people (4 more than Altman's film, hahaha - FUCK YOU!)
More Credits: Another round of applause
The Strata Logo: More applause
The list of investors: More applause
Crazy.
The people were so happy about the film, obsessively happy, people shouted thanks at Terry during the Q&A which featured Bill Sage, Azura Skye, Bill Smitrovich, B.J. Britt, Lew Temple, and Paul Sanchez, the cinematographer. And moments into the Q&A Tim Hutton called on Terry's cellphone and carried on the Q&A with a mic stuck to the earpiece.
Afterwards I got to see all my investors again, man did they love the film. All the delays, all the time it took to finish the film just did not matter. They loved it.
This is the life for me. I want no other. I want to make independent films for the rest of my life and hand out flyers and bite my nails and wonder if they're going to laugh and get my dick grabbed by a visitor's daughter...oh, did I mention I got my dick grabbed by some patron's daughter? Yeah. Indieville. Population me.
I'm making a feature. No reason to wait. Gotta get back to the festivals.
Oh, one last thing, you want to know what tacky is? One of the actor's agents was so tan, so bald, so encrusted with diamonds and gold that his name ought to be Cliche Pasadena. The most agenty person you could possibly imagine. He stood up during the Q&A and asked a question as a "stranger" who just happened to be at the screening. I forget the question but it was a super pimping one along the lines of "why are you so great?" "Is it difficult to be so great?" Great, Pasadena, I'm sure you really scared up some work for your client from THE CITIZENS OF AUSTIN!!!
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3 comments:
This made my day. Glad to hear you've found your niche. Do your indies for the next couple of years - then CAP. I'm telling you, that's you're story all the way. Because you get what he represents. No powers, no weapons (offensive anyway) - just what American can and should be.
Fred
Way to go, Adam, and thank you very much.
However, by way of no good deed goes unpunished, -- be aware that you have now put in jeopardy the lives of TPTB who are responsible for getting Heavens Fall OUT THERE one way or another, because I would kill to see that movie and so would a whole lot of other people I know. Consider us armed and dangerous.
In the meantime, and in return for your nice report, here is another rave review of Heavens Fall, by the editor of Hard Music Magazine. I'm copying the text along with the link because it's a long scroll down the page.
"Here was another could-be-a-blockbuster world premiere. This movie takes on the dramatic, important and historical story of the "Scottsboro Boys" case from the early 1930s. Nine black men were falsely accused of raping two white women in Alabama. A Supreme Court appeal results in a re-trial, where New York defense attorney Samuel Leibowitz (played by Timothy Hutton) takes on a defense of the boys. The two lawyers that face off (prosecuting attorney played by Bill Sage) treat each other with arms-length courtesy that warms up as the trial goes on. The terror and outrage of the times and issue are explored upclose and personal. Filled with a cast of stars, the movie successfully shakes its audience up without resorting to gratuitous violence, blood, or over-the-top fear. Quite inspiring."
http://www.hmmagazine.com/blogs/doug/archives/2006_03.php
Wow. That's great, once again. I've been unable to find shit for reviews, and you've found two. Terrific. Poor Hard Music Magazine, though, as I've never seen them quoted on the poster of any period dramas. Maybe this will be the one.
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