Hey kids! So the oh-so-advertised SDSU student film festival was on Thursday and overall I think it was successful. There were a ton of people there at the start. If I had to guess, I'd say about 200. Yeah, that's the ticket.
They decided to break up the filmies into 3rds and I think that was good idea. It provided more breaks for those brave enough to stay what turned out to be 6 hours. My dirty swear movie was playing toward the end of the 2nd Act. And they misspelled my name in the damned program! Ha-rumph!
ACT I:
The first 3rd was pretty damned good. It got off to a slow start and had some down points but the 2nd half (yes, of the first 3rd) showed a ton of promise.
It started off with my buddy Rick's film, Inheritance. Now, I've seen close to 6 different cuts of this movie and he clearly saved the best for last. The film had the audience by their short and curlies. The score (from Red Dragon composed by Danny Elfman) really took the audience to "the scary place." Kudos to Rick, Bruce, Gerry, and Andrew!
You know, I was just thinking, it's gonna take forever to go through my review of all the movies so I'm relegating this to just movies made by friends of mine. So I continue:
"Next up" was The Car Salesmen, ("The Dream," as they refer to it) by Andrew and A.J, also the stars of the film. The story borrowing humor from films likeAnchorman, hit the crowd with uncontrolled laughter on every joke. I found myself in pain from what they were doing. You guys were awesome. Kudos to Andrew, A.J., Jen, and Dan!
Moving on: I just wanna say that the beginning film kids are knockin' my socks off. That said, I move forward again:
Deacon's Mondays by Lowell Frank and Destin Cretton was by far the best film in the festival. It is exactly what a short film should be and I can't wait to see what these guys do next. I am in awe, guys.
This concluded the first 3rd of the festival. They gave out some awards (congrats to David and Bruce!) and Sean G. gave a poster (and more) to Greg P., my Yoda in the film department. In the middle of the heart-felt presentation, Andrew busted in wearing a policeman's uniform looking for Greg. Several of us, in turn, stood and said, "I am Greg Penetrante" a la Sparticus. The whole crowd was supposed to get it and join in but that didn't really happen. Well, it's the thought that counts...
ACT II:
So after a break, the second 3rd started. I missed the first movie, which was really just a trailer to something (like I said, I didn't see it). Things were going okay till a SUPER-long documentary came on that almost killed the mood altogether.
Then came my buddy Colin's movie, Duke's Day. It was good and I think the audience enjoyed it. This was the 2nd cut of it that I had seen and all the changes really helped. You could totally tell what was going on! All the compositing also looked really good. Kudos to Colin, CBC, Richard, and David!
There was a movie about window washing and I still don't get it.
Richard's cinematography project, Nowhere for Nothing, played after that and that too was good. Gooey-Mob-goodness. Extra Kudo for Richard!
Then they played a music video and I got pretty upset. See, it was filmed at the same place as my movie, and included a confessional shot. Not cool, man. There can be only one...
Finally, it got to my movie (at around 11pm), Good Lord (both the title of the movie and what I said to myself as it came on). My heart started pounding like it wanted out. It got some laughs but not a whole lot and it left me feeling kind of disappointed. I"ll get back to that at the end of this blog.
Another film from my class played after mine, Friends of the Apocalypse. It got a ton of laughs and deservedly so. Great job, guys. Kudos to Nick, Felipe, Sharina, and yes, even Shira (I think)!
ACT III:
The third 3rd (yes, you read that correctly) opened with my buddy Jamaal's movie, Cult Leader 101. It too got a ton-o-laughs. No glitches, guys! Awesome. Kudos to Jamaal, Erik, Rian, and Yeyang!
Then came Gerry's, En Mis Suenos. I'd seen this one before as well but not with full score and sound design. Or subtitles. I think it played very well. The audience seemed to get it and enjoy it, what we all strive for. The score, provided by the Red Pony Clock orchestra, sounded great too. Kudos to Gerry (again), Rick (again), and Stephanie S.!
Next up was our resident GA, and All-Around-Good-Guy, Angel's documentary,In The Trenches. It was a touching and personal story of his family's involvement in the military and their opposition to all frivolous wars, Iraq included. Kudos to Angel!
Crap, I'm going WAY too long. Long story short, there were some more good movies and a music video and then the festival ended at 1:20am.
I went to the after-party and the gang was all there, and loving the booze! People told me that they liked my movie, despite my feelings about the response. I felt kind of like a widow at my wife's funeral being consoled by friends. I don't doubt that their feelings were genuine, I'd just hoped for more at the festival. But that's probably just me playing "saddest guy in the room" again, so just ignore me.
IN CONCLUSION:
It was all lots of fun, TFMers, and inspiring to boot. Great job all around! Show me more, show me more! :-P Pbbbbbbbbbbth!!!
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