HD For Indies

Quick and raw, here we go, here's pics from last few days, and here's the rest:

Picking up from where I left off - the Reduser.net party was in the same condo as the Red party - Jarred of dvxuser.com started a new site specifically for Red, and he also used it as an opportunity to promote a new service called Rocket Indie, a self distribution solution for independent content. They handle DVD replication and packaging and order fulfillment and credit card processing. FAQ page here, I'll find out more and report back.I hadn't realized that Jarred had been a DP and Nick (other guy involved with Rocket Indie) had been director of the film Shadow Company, a good doc I saw earlier this year at SXSW about private mercenaries working in Iraq. (Really good, go see it.)

Hung out, talked to a bunch of folks, met some new prospective clients, and after a while was ready to hit another party - I'd heard that HD House was having a party, and that sounded like a good place to hit up potential new clients (detect a theme here?).

Partying in Sundance has it's price - I was standing in the kitchen, and the attractive woman walks up, stands right in front of me, and says "Are you Mike Curtis from HD for Indies?" "Yes?" I say...."I want to f*ck you...." she says, with a profoundly effective sultry look in her eye. (Hang on, this isn't going to turn into a "Dear Penthouse, I never thought this would happen to me...." letter.)

I know this isn't right or real, but I don't know what's going on. Suddenly, somebody starts busting out laughing...and it is Thor Wixom, with whom I'd been jokingly lamenting the limits of my geek cred with the night before, saying it was fun and all but would never yield rock star status. So of course, he convinced his wife's best friend to punk me in this fashion.

What do I do? Stand there and turn beet red.

Punked. Well punked, and touche Thor - all in good fun.

And what is her name?

Bambi.

I couldn't make this up.

Jendra Jarnagin was at the Reduser.net party as well, and we decided to go check out the HD House party down in town. We got down there, but it was already over. Jendra then whipped out her Blackberry (BTW - the Blackberry Pearl is THE "lookee what I got" item at Sundance) and sent a text msg out to 4 or 5 people simultaneously to find out what was the best thing to do next. She's amazing - she's lined up over 30 parties to attend at Sundance, because she spent a huge amount of time getting ready - to the point of she even called it pre-production. As a result, she knows exactly what to do at any given moment, with multiple fallbacks.

In direct opposition to how I've approached Sundance - I'm sponging off my friends for "what's going on tonight?" - which is a valid approach, one should use all one's resources - but there are big gaps when I'm trying to figure out where I should best be. Next time - plan, plan, plan. And apply for press credentials, for which the deadline was back in December, before I'd even locked in plans to attend.

In any case, Jendra got several responses back in minutes, and we were off, meeting up with a friend of hers to try to get into a party. We got there, waited, checked out status (does signing up online count as the "Will Call" list/line to stand in?). We stood around for about 15 minutes and got another text message, and decided to go to a party we'd have better odds of getting into.

At Party # 2, the Premiere party, we ran into a journalist Jendra or her friend knew. He wasn't getting in, and as legit press he expected better response from them - so he bailed and handed his pass over to us - but it was One Only. I figured there's no way I'd get in, as the third in a group of three with no legit cred to get in. I figured I'd wait until it was definite, then bail back to the condo. Fifteen or 20 minutes later of waiting outdoors in the brutal Park City cold (see? Isn't Sundance FUN!!!...????), we got to the front of the line...and waited for another 10-15 minutes. I see Matt Dentler of SXSW South By Southwest Film Festival get whisked in, he's here and busy as hell. I wave hi and he says "See you inside!" ...If only. When at last the PR guy turns and bluntly asks who we are, the girls' answer isn't good enough. Frustrated, we all turn to leave. On a lark, I say to the guy "I'm friends with Matt from South By." (insider's name for South by Southwest) "Keep going..." he says, implying Not Good Enough Yet. Quickly, I'm thinking: "I've panelled there for about 12 years." "Keep going..." "I run HD for Indies website, I get about (insert egregiously inflated traffic number here - did I say per day? I meant per month), and one of my clients' movies is premiering tomorrow." "OK, you can come in."

SCORE!

I try to get Jendra and her friend in, but I apparently have exactly 1.0 persons worth of party access pull. I have officially talked my way in somewhere I wasn't invited, I feel proud of myself for learning how to Do Sundance, even if just a little.

: )

Once in, the place was PACKED - they were at capacity, and it showed.

I ran into:

-Mathew St. Patrick, otherwise known as "the black guy on Six Feet Under" - chatted w/him for a bit, he's here supporting a friend's project

ran into Jacob Walker of indieflavor.com, is "MySpace meets Monster.com for indie production" - sounds interesting, I want to follow up with him

he intro'd me to Matt Ostasiewski of AFI Dallas, they are starting a new film festival there, will be right after SXSW starting March 22nd

Schmoozed around there for a bit, ran into a tipsy Alyssa from earlier from Reduser.net and stood there with her hands under my arms to warm her up for a bit. Ah, alcohol and big parties- craziness.


we hunted around for a bit and finally found a place that would deliver pizza at 1:30 in the morning.

"I need to look into standby tickets to try to see John August's The Nines at 8:30am show Monday morning - my one chance to see it probably.

I may be doing an interview at 5pm at HD House, I'll have to see how that goes."

Those last two lines were written in the wee, wee hours after a long long night.

Sunday - up at 8am after NOT drinking (see? I CAN learn, albeit slowly)

Tim & Matt wanted to go ski to, so we headed over to The Canyons.

Day Of Joy ensued - after not skiing for 3 years, it was fantastic and I had a blast - I'm going to stay longer and get some more skiing in.

Got back by 4, was over at HD House again at 4:45 to interview Hal Hartley for them (3rd engagement with HD House, we're definitely getting along).

Here's what I remember about his talk on his new movie, Fay Grim, which is a sequel to Henry Fool. That first movie was shot in 35mm, but he shot in HD for this one.

Here's what I can remember off the top of my head:

-shot HD
-shot w/ Sony F900
-Sarah Cawley? Cawvey? was DP
-spent a day with a DIT getting basics looks into camera in pre-production, and just used those looks through production
-budget was what - 2-3 million?
-Zeiss lenses, he usually shoots 50mm on 35mm film, and DP told him what equivalents would be on Zeiss Digiprimes
-Hal is comfortable shooting digital and projecting digitally too
-it was an HDNet deal - working with them, gotta shoot HD, they'll do day and date release - in theaters and on HDNet same time, then on DVD the following Tuesday or whatever
-in general, if distribs can't make money on movies, then movies won't be bought (or financed)
-Hal pleased w/good digital projection - Christie 2K projector was good
-shot on HDCAM
-downconverted to DVCAM for offline edit on his own G5 and Final Cut Pro
-took EDL and tapes to SwissFX, who wanted the relationship and business (he'd worked with them on previous DV based movies), did the color work there
-made a 24p master, made a 1080i60 HDCAM for festivals
-also did a filmout, but it had greater contrast, producers didn't feel comfortable making that decision, so showing the 1080i, Hal's comfortable with that
-shot double system sound, I asked why, he said it was an aesthetic choice

asked Hal what he'd like to shoot on next, and he was happy to stick with F900, out of a sense of "it was sufficient" and it was something he knew, trusted, and felt comfortable with

lesson learned - familiarity and comfort with cast, crew, and equipment goes a long, long way

hung out and talked to the Davids from Cineform, finally met Newman I'd missed the other day, talked about workflows with RAW, the realtime 4K cineform playback they did recently, can't record realtime from Dalsa, but can convert after acquisition to Cineform and work with that compressed footage all the way through

-agreed to do one more thing with HD House at 1pm tomorrow, post for indies panel

-went back to condo

-went to Fuji party

-ran into Susan and Brian again (Four Eyed Monsters folks), Jendra again, Lowell Kay from DR Group

...and now it is time to head on out for another evening - I'm a day behind, but I'll catch up as can.

-mike

Labels: Sundance