Sundance, expanded edition
Throughout the week, I’ve been trying to convey the Sundance experience with the Twitter feed, but there’s only so much one can communicate in a sentence or two. So I thought I’d fatten out a few entries to give a better sense of how Sundance really went.
- Checking through the itineraries and packing lists. Do I take a printer?
I didn’t, but it would have been a big help. We had to keep relying on itineraries printed out before we left, even though dates and times were continuously changing.
The publicists needed 100 copies of the production notes. We printed and copied them in Los Angeles, not realizing that 100 copies of a 20-page document is a pretty heavy box. It would have been smarter to make the copies in Park City.
- Marveling that the gate agent in Burbank exclaimed, “John August of The Nines?” when she scanned my ticket. She had me sign it.
This was weird. It was so out-of-the-blue that I signed my “check signature” rather than my “poster signature.” Can I confess that I have no idea why anyone would collect signatures? Why not just ask for a lock of my hair? (If I had hair, granted.)
Or, “Pardon me, would you mind if I took a scraping of your skin? I’m hoping to clone you one day.”
- Picking up rental SUV. Increasing carbon debt substantially.
I needed something fairly big for hauling around cast and family. What’s weird is that I never drove it. My up-at-Sundance assistant Tim became my de facto driver, which was terrific. He could drop me off and pick me up as needed, saving the massive hassle of trying to find a parking spot in the super-crowded little town.
- Mooching wireless access.
The condo we were staying in didn’t have internet access of any kind, so the best we could do was piggyback on the nearby Marriott’s wireless network, which was frustratingly inconsistent. Far too often I’d spend five minutes trying to get connected, only to give up and read web pages on my Treo.
I’m certainly not faulting Marriott; it’s not their responsibility to offer their non-guests Internet access. But as I would look at the list of other password-protected networks in range, I promised myself I would leave a second well-firewalled port open on my own networks. And it seems like there’s an opportunity for wireless providers to reach outside of Starbucks and start providing hubs wherever people are likely to gather, like a ski resort.
- Checking in with the Sundance folks. Putting faces with email addresses.
There are zillions of behind-the-scenes people who keep Sundance running, and to the person they were terrific. Assistant/driver Tim works for the institute in Los Angeles, so it was helpful that he was already a familiar face to them.
- Buying snow pants for the baby.
It’s discouraging to pay $40 for a piece of clothing she’ll wear three times in her life. But those pants let her run around outside, which was essential for all of our sanity.
- Figuring out how to make clip DVDs, and silently cursing those who said, “No, everything is still on beta. Seriously.”
While it’s easy to rip a DVD, it’s much more difficult to snip and assemble just the pieces you want and have it look good when burned again. Software like Handbrake specializes in making video fit on an iPod, but I never got the footage to look decent when put back to DVD.
- Listening to Ozomatli warm up, right outside my window. This is gonna be loud.
I really like the band. I would go see them again. But the inescapability of it made those four hours a feat of endurance.
- Wondering if the two-story tent for the UTA party is structurally sound. And if Heather Graham knows she dropped her purse.
The only reason we got into the party — as opposed to the hundreds of others freezing outside — was that my agent escorted us in. We even made it to the upper-level VIP area thanks to Ryan, who used his star power to overwhelm the poor girl responsible for keeping the cool kids separated from the rest of us. (Ryan is a cool kid, yet fights for the side of good.)
After, say, 15 minutes of staring down on the gathering masses who didn’t have charming stars to pull them upstairs, I realized that (a) my drink was dissolving the Saturn-sponsored cup I was holding, and (b) that I was having a lousy time. The bouncers had no idea how we were supposed to exit. It had apparently never occurred to them someone might want to leave. The place was an industry roach motel.1
- Meeting with producers to divvy up the tickets. A lot of little Sophie’s Choices.
Sundance gives you a set number of tickets for your movie, plus the option to buy an additional number. (The exact quantities depend on the venue.) We knew going in that we wouldn’t have enough to accommodate everyone we were expecting, so we urged friends and family to sign up for the online ticket lottery.2
I abdicated all authority for rationing the tickets to my producers, who in the end were able to accommodate just about everyone, including Doug Liman, who showed up moments before the screening. I hadn’t seen him since Go, so it was an odd but appropriate place to catch up.
- Suggesting that if you’re going to tonight’s screening, please ask a question in the Q and A. 15 bonus points if you use the word “paradigm.”
In the end, no one got the 15 bonus points. Several reader/admirers did come up after screenings to confess they couldn’t figure out a way to incorporate the magic word.
- Loving that random pedestrians gawk at Ryan, knowing he’s somebody but not sure who. “He was in The Notebook.”
This was on Main Street, which is the nexus of all that is unholy at Sundance. On Sunday afternoon, we had to walk up and down Main Street, visiting all the photographers for magazines and agencies. While the photo shoots themselves were painless, the process felt a little Devil Wears Parka, all bustle and schwag, with coffee and liquor always at hand.
At one of the storefronts, Ryan and I did a short interview for MTV news. The minute it was over, Ryan predicted that all they would use was speculation about whether or not he was going to be The Flash, a movie that doesn’t exist and to which he’s not attached. Sadly, he was right. Non-existent comic book movies trump everything, apparently. I need to remember that.
- Getting sick of people asking, “So are you nervous?” Answer: Increasingly.
This is one of those un-answerable “When did you stop beating your wife?” questions. If you say yes, then the response will be, “Oh, you shouldn’t be nervous. It’s going to go great!” If you say no, then prepare to hear, “God, I would be. Eccles Theater is huge!”
Here’s my advice to readers whose friends or loved ones have movies premiering at a festival: tell them how good they look, even if it’s a lie. One false compliment will do more to ease nerves than hours of verbal reassurance.
- Watching lights dim.
The premiere itself went great. All my fears of the tape breaking were for naught. Geoff Gilmore introduced the movie, and set just the right expectation: this is a challenging, potentially frustrating film. (Subtext: This isn’t LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE.) I thanked but didn’t name the people in the credits, and gave a special shout-out to the husbands/wives/partners/roommates of filmmakers who make it possible to do our thing.
The Nines isn’t a comedy, but the first section in particular has a fair number of jokes. Jokes that a director completely forgets are jokes until he sees them with an audience. So that was heartening. There are also a few jolts in the movie, and with more than 1,000 people in the audience, the gasps were substantial. Also cool.
Having screened the movie with an audience before, I knew to anticipate a certain uneasy quiet afterwards while viewers pondered what they just saw and whether or not they dug it. I was worried the crickets would persist through the Q & A, but to my relief the questions came quickly. One hearing-impaired viewer asked about Elle Fanning’s character using sign language. I found myself remembering the real reason I made that choice for the character: so she wouldn’t have as much dialogue.3
One guy asked how I felt about Jesus. This was a recurring motif in the three Q & A’s I did. The movie takes a metaphysical turn at one point, and viewers inevitably try to look at it through their own personal philosophical-religious lens. By all means, that’s sort of the point. But trying to peg the movie to any one set of beliefs is only going to be frustrating.
And as for Jesus, I never met him, but I have to say I prefer his early work.
- Floating outside my body, listening to myself answer questions.
Monday was all about press interviews. Usually, they’re a grind, and you find yourself repeating the same 10 sentences over and over. But partly because of the nature of the movie, reporters asked more interesting-slash-challenging questions than they usually do.4 Whereas I usually become a question-answering robot, this time I felt fully present — and yet, floaty. I heard myself being more eloquent than I expected, given four hours of sleep. Or maybe the lack of sleep was making my blathering sound coherent only to me.
- Keeping silent on issues that would make Whitney Pastorek happy.
Whitney Pastorek is the EW.com writer who was incredibly effusive in her teary-eyed love for the movie. There were a couple of self-identified superfans up on the mountain, and while everyone likes to be told their movie is genius, there’s a dark side. Praise is like sugar. It gives you this hit of energy, but twenty minutes later you’re hungry for more.
Between Google Alerts and the publicity office, we were soon getting a steady stream of the split opinions we anticipated. There were raves and excoriations, and like a fool, I read them all. Did I go into the festival knowing that some people would really dislike the movie? Yup. Did that offer any consolation? Nope.
The particular issue that would make Whitney Pastorek happy would be an announcement that we have a distributor, and I can’t say anything specific on that subject as of blogtime. But Whitney, from me to you, stay strong.
- Gabbing with Leonard Maltin. Yup, I know him.
Film critic Leonard Maltin is best known for his work on Entertainment Tonight, but he also hosts the weekly 466 screenings of new films at the USC School of Cinematic Arts.5 It’s basically a Q&A with an alumni filmmaker. I’ve brought three movies to his class, and he’s always been a pleasure, even when he clearly didn’t like a film.
I ran into him in front of the Egyptian theatre, where I was trying to meet up with a CNN.com reporter whom I’d missed earlier. Leonard and I exchanged hellos and happy festival wishes. (He hadn’t seen The Nines.) I said goodbye, only to find him on the same tiny plane back to Burbank. Awk-ward.
And that was my Sundance. I still don’t feel I’m really home. I keep reaching for my festival badge, which has hung around my neck for all my waking hours. But I was ready to come back. After a week of puffy parka-ville, I can walk outside in just a t-shirt. That’s huge.
- The Nines’s afterparty was in the same space the following night, with about one-fourth the people, which made it much better. That and the fact that I had just premiered a movie, and many people were telling me I rocked. ↩
- A fool’s errand, as it turned out. I don’t know a single person who got a premiere ticket that way. ↩
- In my defense, I didn’t know we’d get Elle Fanning, who is not only dramatically capable, but can imitate David Caruso. ↩
- Typical press junket question: “When you heard Johnny Depp was playing Willy Wonka, how exciting was that?” Your answer is clearly supposed to begin, “When I heard Johnny Depp was going to be playing Willy Wonka, I was incredibly excited because…” Because it meant that eight months later I’d get to sit in a cramped hotel room with you, Tom, feigning interest in this charade of journalism. ↩
- Still getting used to the new name George picked. I like it, though. ↩
Articles
January 25th, 2007 at 9:29 pm
John-
That Elle Fanning/David Caruso thing’s gonna be on the DVD Bonus Features, right?
ps- Congrats on the successful premiere… and may you find a distributor that likes to spend money on marketing!
pps- Heather Graham called. She wants her chapstick back. And her makeup mirror. And oh yeah, her purse-dog too (he answers to “Rolly”). She also wants to know why you would choose to steal those three things but not the purse itself… especially since the purse cost more than your movie.
January 25th, 2007 at 9:42 pm
JUST a t-shirt!!!?? Where do you live, a nudist colony? Either way, looking forward to The Nines coming to a theater near me. Please, though, if it only gets a limited release, or even just starts off in a very limited release, don’t let them make the only Canadian showing be in Toronto. We want it here in Vancouver too.
January 25th, 2007 at 9:45 pm
I surprised at you John, I thought you’d know you can use your Treo as a wireless connection for your laptop. Check out how to do it here http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/palmtreohks/chapter/hack31.pdf you’ll never be wireless-less again.
Congratulations BTW
January 25th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
Enjoy walking around outside in a T-shirt. Most of us can’t do that for another couple of months.
Congrats on Sundance. I’m sure it was nerveracking at times, but of all the movies I’ve heard about, your’s is the one I want to see the most. I’m not just saying that because I read this blog, either.
January 25th, 2007 at 10:49 pm
John -
I know this comment section somehow becomes a “kudos” list after awhile, but I really have to say, sincerely, that you’ve really impressed me with your dedication to the site. Sundance is a major event, and you still took the time to setup a method to relay some of the stories of the affair (if only to provide mental coathangers to bring back anecdotes from the trip).
That’s really pretty awesome.
January 26th, 2007 at 1:18 am
Sounds like you had a good time John. Congrats on the distributor, that’s great news. Now the rest of us can look forward to seeing The Nines!
Like Earl, I really appreciate that you take the time to tell us about your various adventures.
January 26th, 2007 at 1:24 am
Thanks for this inside look and your abject honesty. Congratulations on the distribution deal and I am already looking forward to driving the 100 miles to see this film (I live in a small town).
Post Script,
I truly enjoy the website
January 26th, 2007 at 2:32 am
Welcome back, John! Wonderful to hear you’ve got a distributor. I know you can’t say anything as of now, but, give me a clue… does the boss rhyme with Garvey Yienstein?
Probably not, but oh well.
I think I’ve been getting even less sleep than you.
January 26th, 2007 at 5:46 am
Just to be clear: I didn’t say we had a distributor, just that
HeatherWhitney Pastorek shouldn’t lose sleep over the issue. I know that’s splitting hairs, but I don’t want to misrepresent a fluid situation.January 26th, 2007 at 6:28 am
Despite having nothing to do with screenwriting this post inspired me to unlazify myself and do some writing (rewriting actually). Thanks!
January 26th, 2007 at 7:30 am
After reading the post again I see that I misread the sentence about a distributor, I guess I was reading what i wanted to hear, haha.
Good luck with the distributor John. I’m really looking forward to seeing The Nines.
January 26th, 2007 at 8:11 am
Farley (#2):
Trust me, we wouldn’t leave Vancouver high and dry. Ryan’s from there, after all. And it’s spoiling nothing to say there’s Canadian content in the story.
January 26th, 2007 at 11:18 am
At the very least I hope it lands in iTunes so I can see it. It sounds like an interesting movie.
January 26th, 2007 at 11:27 am
Thanks for posting your Sundance experience. It gives those of us not in the business some insight into what actually goes into the process of making and marketing a film beyond typing your vision into a screenplay. Plus, it allowed me to live vicariously through you as I was reconciling suspense accounts (I am an accountant - now you know why I want to be a screenwriter). Even your post on microwaving your burrito was more interesting by comparison. And good luck on your pending distribution deal - based on your limited posting of the script it sounds intriguing and I’m sure that the deal will fall into place. In case there are any doubts, did I forget to mention that you look great?
January 26th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
My girlfriend’s just gotten me to sit down and watch some CSI Miami’s - which historically I’ve seen no reason to watch. Amazed by David Caruso, though, the way he starts almost all of his lines looking away from the person he’s speaking to and then turns directly to them to punctuate his sentences.
Issey and I do Caruso around the house now.
I think he’s my new favorite actress.
January 26th, 2007 at 3:18 pm
while your blog always has its place in my rss reader, lately it has been all the more interesting because of your sundance/nines talk. did you know i haven’t had this much fun reading about the biz since rodriquez’s book Rebel Without a Crew? being able to put the lay person through the experiences you’ve had is what makes this kind of stuff so fun to read.
January 26th, 2007 at 5:11 pm
“The Nines” got 80% on Rotten Tomatoes so far. Way to go, John!
January 26th, 2007 at 8:20 pm
Wow, John, that sounds like a helluva week. Congrats. I was in Utah the week before and already the tension was starting to build up! Maybe when The Nines gets picked up I can meet you at the Lamborghini dealer for an interview for my podcast…
Gary
January 27th, 2007 at 1:09 am
MPEG Streamclip is a terrific video converter that should be able to solve your clip DVD issues. You can use it to select parts of a DVD and convert them to just about any QuickTime compatible format. That way you can burn another DVD with little to no quality loss. It is available for free at http://www.squared5.com, and it’s for Mac (and windows). I hope this helps.
January 27th, 2007 at 10:30 am
Sounds like a good time. Congratulations on the successful film. I can’t wait to see it.
January 27th, 2007 at 10:32 pm
The Twitter post I recall best was the “renting a crib” one. I thought “gee, John’s been casual about organising his accommodation”. Then I remembered the bub and realised you literally did mean a crib.
Side note: I work at a big Australian newspaper and kept an eye on the pic wire to see if you’d turn up in any of the Sundance photos. No show. Closest I got was Ryan Reynolds partying with Matt Leinart and the sisters Fanning on the slopes together (which did mention Elle was starring in The Nines).
January 27th, 2007 at 11:32 pm
Dominic, which Australian newspaper is that? It’s great that Elle got a mention.
January 28th, 2007 at 12:59 pm
Caught Ryan Reynolds on Jimmy Kimmel’s show Friday talking ’bout THE NINES! The promotion is on!
January 28th, 2007 at 8:14 pm
Sarah: The Sydney Morning Herald. Elle didn’t actually make the paper. Just noticed her on the pic wire among the couple of hundred photos that moved out of Sundance.
January 28th, 2007 at 8:25 pm
From the buzz I’ve been reading about your movie, I would be really disappointed if I didn’t get the chance to see it. This is just as a fan of movies.
January 28th, 2007 at 8:46 pm
Warmest congratulations on the reviews The Nines is getting. Can’t wait to see it.
January 29th, 2007 at 4:37 am
Although not attached to ´Flash´, Ryan is staring in a movie opposite Tom Waits and directed by icelander Dagur Kári…..I have seen all of Dagurs films and I am very, very excited about this project.
January 29th, 2007 at 5:00 am
Dominic - thanks for clearing that up! Still nice to see her being recognized by someone in the Australian media (as a fan from Melbourne, I can tell you it happens rarely).
John, it’s great the premiere went so well - thanks for keeping us updated this week! Fingers firmly crossed this film will find distribution soon.
January 29th, 2007 at 11:39 pm
Hi John,
I was actually at Sundance, and while I wasn’t able to go to the premiere or one of the official screenings of “The Nines” I did manage to sneak into one of the Press Screenings at the Yarrow using someone else’s credentials (don’t tell the movie police, I’m only an assistant so I had to be resourceful).
I really enjoyed it, I’ve thought that Ryan Reynolds was a great actor for a while now, so it was great to see him in a part where he could exhibit a wider range of his acting talent.
I noticed you had a little homage to “Misery” in “The Prisoner” section when Gary is trying out the bed at the house. That, coupled with the slightly spooky and mysterious nature of the film reminded me of Stephen King’s work in some ways. To what extent has his work been an influence on you as a writer?
I can’t wait for the movie to be released theatrically, both because I want all of my friends to see it, and also because once it comes out, and is a sucess, I can feel really cool and say, “oh yeah, I saw that before any of you guys.”
Keep up the good work.
January 31st, 2007 at 10:29 pm
I had a softball coach once, called me Heather for years. Sometimes I corrected him, mostly not. Never did trust adults after that.
February 1st, 2007 at 12:04 pm
“Heather” (#30):
Sorry about that. I don’t know why I keep re-christening you.