The last time I ended up the subject of a comic strip, it was in Yale’s campus newspaper, after I had broken up with a girl who penned one of the regular cartoons, and who used that podium to extract thinly-veiled revenge over several subsequent weeks.

I fare better this time through, popping up mid-way through the latest, Slamdance-focused iteration of CulturePulp, a strip penned by Mike Russell for The Oregonian.

Also, for the record, and even if the tinting of my glasses as drawn in the strip might make it appear otherwise, I have not yet reached the point of Hollywood douche-baggery that is wearing sunglasses indoors.

Though I’d hoped to blog Sundance as it happened, or, at least, to recap it soon thereafter, things went better than expected at the festival, and I’ve been swamped nonstop since. Look for exciting news, on both the Cyan and Long Tail fronts, over the next week or two.

Still, before I try to jump back into blogging per usual, I wanted to throw out a few Sundance thoughts.
—

By most counts, Sundance, Slamdance, and the other concurrent festivals bring some 70,000 people to Park City, Utah. And while that’s not far off from the numbers the Toronto or Tribeca festivals attract, dropping 70,000 bodies into New York or Toronto barely makes a dent. In a city of 7,882 people, however, the infrastructure is completely overwhelmed, everything starts falling apart, and life more or less grinds to a functional halt.
—

There’s a running joke within our company that we all look essentially the same: guys in their mid-twenties with spiky hair, scruffy beards, and indie-preppy clothing. Which, in short, made us blend perfectly with every single other film person invading Park City.
—

If the people all looked the same, so did the films. The secret recipe to get into Sundance or Slamdance this year appears to be a combination of jump cuts, out of focus dreamlike sequences with overlapping snippets of voice over, and an ending that involves panning slowly to the sky. Would-be filmmakers, take note.
—

Sundance was also a great verification of our collective taste. We somehow managed to pinpoint, and send distribution offers to, every lower-profile film that went on to win audience or jury awards. Fortunately, it looks like our song and dance was good enough that we’ll still be able to lock at least several of them down for Long Tail release. Plus, on the Cyan side, one film in competition that we had initially signed on to finance but missed the chance to actually produce was an ongoing festival belle. Sure, there’s no money in near-misses, but it’s always nice to discover we’re not totally off the reservation.
—

Ten days is a long, long time to spend at a film festival. It essentially consists of three great days, followed by three tiring ones, followed by four where everyone is moments away from stabbing themselves in the eyeball with a fork. Liver damage and lack of sleep added up, and we were fairly loopy for the last weekend. A VP at a company we’re collaborating with suggested we have someone follow my colleagues and me around with a camera, with an eye towards a Comedy Central special. Though, in the cold, well-rested light of post-Sundance day, I suspect even we ourselves would have found everything a bit less ‘clever’.
—

Speaking of cold, it snowed and snowed while we were there. My shoes soaked through, but we did get in at least one morning of fresh powder skiing (which included a Cyan / Long Tail VP plowing into a bottom-of-the-run tree), and I even got to take over the wheel for a shuttle driver who had wedged his van into the ice in front of our driveway. I tore up my hand squishing salt under the back wheel, but, at least, after rescuing the airport-bound passengers from missing their flights, one joked that they should give me rather than the driver the tip.
—

Sundance in twelve words: a great reminder that I love movies but hate the movie industry.
—

Along those lines, why are industry parties fun? I’m not sure I remember any longer. Especially during the first weekend, we spent full hours elbowing our way to the door of parties, even when we were on the list. Echo Lake’s party for Dreamland was one happy exception, if just for the chance to stand next to a drunken, salsa dancing Matt Dillon. And special thanks to Belvedere and Grand Marnier, who sponsored a series of small Cyan / Long Tail cocktail parties at our house. The birth of a new Sundance tradition.
—

Another new tradition: the house itself. While we wedged in fourteen people the first weekend, by mid-week, it had cleared out to just the four attending members of the Cyan / Long Tail crew. Large, beautiful, with hot tub and sauna, and just a half block from the Main St. shuttle stop, the house is already ours again for next year. Though we do, unfortunately, have to read the owner’s screenplay as part of the bargain.

Ah, the joys of the movie business.

11:30pm
Though, in standard anal-retentive style, I’ve packed days ago most of what I’ll need in Park City, I spend a last hour wedging a few remaining items into my large duffel, pressing blazers and ski boots and paperwork and socks down hard to zip the bag tightly closed, before falling asleep.

2:36am
My cell phone rings, waking me; it’s Napster founder Sean Parker, who’s heading to a Rolling Stones after-party with Canadian record label CEO Matt Drouin. I consider briefly going out to meet them, partying straight through the night and sleeping on the plane, but common sense prevails. Ten days at Sundance will be more than tiring enough without coming in already a full night’s sleep in debt.

7:00am
Up again, shower and dress, then grab a taxi to the Upper East Side, to pick up colleague Scott Bromley and head off to La Guardia. Our flight boards painfully slowly, as a seventeen-person Iranian extended family has pre-boarded, with very little command of English, and even less understanding of air travel. They’re in the wrong seats, they’re piling bags on their laps and in the aisles rather than in the overhead bins. And as we taxi out towards takeoff, they keep standing up and wandering around. Each time one does, the plane grinds to a halt, and the captain comes on the loudspeaker, like an irritated father pulling his minivan to the side of the road and threatening to turn it back around until his kids in the back seat knock it off.

The captain actually does threaten to turn around the plane, as if we keep stopping, we’ll lose our place in line yet again, and have to head back to the gate to refuel. While these English threats mean little, the ‘just you try and mess with me’ expression of the heavy-set, matronly Black flight attendant is apparently international enough to work.

1:05pm
We arrive in Atlanta, twenty-five minutes into a short forty-five minute connection. Muscling our way through the Iranians and out onto the concourse, we discover that we’re in Terminal A, while our flight to Salt Lake City leaves from Terminal E, at precisely the opposite end of the airport. We sprint, monorail impatiently, then sprint again, arriving just in time to find out our flight’s been delayed. At least, now, our baggage is likely to make it, too.

2:00pm
As we board, it becomes immensely clear, just by looking around, that every single person on the plane is bound for Sundance. Scott looks back at me as we walk past row after row of Williamsburgers, and says with a wry smile, “I think this might be the coolest flight in all of America.”

2:15pm
The man I’m seated next to smells strongly of clam chowder. Across the aisle, however, I’m surprised to find several execs from Belladonna, the producers of Transamerica and L.I.E., in whose offices I’ve spent countless afternoons. “Fancy meeting you here,” one of them says.

Further up, I see the father of my college roommate James Ponsoldt, who has a film he wrote and directed, Off the Black premiering at the festival this weekend.

The world of film, it seems, is dangerously small.

2:30pm
We take off without incident, and a flight attendant comes over the loudspeaker to announce our in-flight movie is Just Like Heaven. Sarcastic cries of “sweet!” and “nice!’ go up around the plane. One of the Belladonna producers shakes his head; “I think they picked the wrong flight for that film.”

5:00pm
Retrieving my bag from the carousel, I manage to slice my right ring finger on a suitcase buckle; by the time we hit the cab, my hand is coated in blood.

6:15pm
We pull into the driveway of our condo in Park City, and pause to let the cab driver pray towards Mecca. Then, dropping off our bags, Scott and I head out to meet Rob, Nate, and an array of non-Cyan entourage for drinks and dinner at Cafe Terigo. Stopping at the neighboring liquor store, we stock up before heading back to the condo, to drink the night away, put up a revised version of Cyan’s site, lay out strategy for the next ten days, and post this blog entry.

It’s going to be a long trip.

While most people realize – at least in the odd moments they give it thought – that the reality of filmmaking is far less glamorous than the ideal, they still tend to underestimate wildly the sheer, endless tedium that underlies much of the movie-making process.

This weekend, for example, nearly twelve hours each on Saturday and Sunday, I sat in my living room with Colin Spoelman, logging footage for Underground, the Kentucky-set, lost-in-a-cave thriller he recently wrote and directed.

Logging, essentially, is the process of transferring video from DV tapes to massive harddrive, of notating, scene by scene, what’s on those tapes and which parts of which scenes work, and of otherwise setting things up to pass a film along to its editor.

We ended up in my living room largely because I was equipped with the two key tools for logging: a fast computer running Final Cut HD, and large quantities of Woodford Reserve Bourbon Whiskey.

By now, it may just be the Bourbon talking, but even after twenty-some hours of watching it roll past, the footage Colin got looks really, really good.

[While I’m sure everyone here is more than sick of hearing about I Love Your Work, here’s one last plug, copied from a recently sent email, that details our small celebration for the New York opening this weekend.]

Though the ‘official’ premiere is in LA, we’re celebrating the NYC
release of I Love Your Work, a film I and Cyan Pictures produced, this
very Friday.

For those who don’t know, I Love Your Work was directed by Adam
Goldberg, and stars Giovanni Ribisi, Franka Potente, Christina Ricci,
Joshua Jackson, Marisa Coughlan, Jared Harris, Jason Lee, Vince
Vaughn, Marisa Coughlan, Judy Greer and Elvis Costello.

The reviews from the LA opening are quite strong, with the LA Times
calling it “a highly stylized dissertation on the foibles of fame and
our inability to secure happiness in our present condition” and saying
“I Love Your Work has its rewards for those up to the challenge of
tackling its nonlinear structure and brooding nature.” The LA Weekly
says “the filmmaking is actually quite polished, and Ribisi is
fascinating to watch ó his fluttery weirdness has never seemed more
grounded and resonant, turning Gray’s self-destructive egoism into
near tragedy.”

My own, brutally honest, appraisal is that the first two thirds are
excellent, while the last is less so, though at least, in the words of
E!, “always interesting, even when it stumbles.”

You can watch the trailer on Apple’s site.

The grand plan for Friday is to converge on the 7:00pm screening at
Village Cinemas East (181 2nd Ave at 12th). You can buy tickets in
advance, as it may well sell out.

Then, post-screening (about 9:00, for those who can’t make the film
itself) we’ll relocate a few blocks east to Keybar, 423 E. 13th between 1st and A, for celebratory drinks.

I’d love to see you there.

With ILYW premiering today in LA, the LA Times and LA Weekly both weigh in with strong reviews:

The Times calls it “a highly stylized dissertation on the foibles of fame and our inability to secure happiness in our present condition” and says “I Love Your Work has its rewards for those up to the challenge of tackling its nonlinear structure and brooding nature,” while the Weekly says “the filmmaking is actually quite polished, and Ribisi is fascinating to watch ó his fluttery weirdness has never seemed more grounded and resonant, turning Grayís self-destructive egoism into near tragedy.”

Fingers crossed.

Though I’m sure you’re sick to death of hearing about it already, a few more points on I Love Your Work:

ï While it’s already been playing in theaters for a few weeks, the trailer for ILYW is now online.

ï If you live in Los Angeles, or somewhere nearby, the film opens there this Friday. Attendance that first weekend is crucial to the future life of the film, so please, please, go check it out. And bring friends. Or enemies. Or homeless people you find loitering outside. Whatever.

ï If you live in New York, the film opens here on December 2nd. It got pushed back both to secure better screens and to run more squarely in the middle of the ‘winter push’. It’s a great vote of confidence from THINK, and we’re hoping to prove the choice right by showing up, en masse, that weekend ourselves. The night of 12/2, we’ll also be holding some sort of release party, mostly so, like Gilbert and Sullivan, we can be drunk enough to enjoy the opening night ourselves.

ï If you live anywhere else, add ILYW to your Netflix queue. It won’t cost you anything, but it will help demonstrate interest in the film. Plus, no matter where you live, you’ll get to actually watch the movie.

That’s that.

Also, spookiest of Halloween wishes. This evening, like in years past, I’ll be playing 1940’s jazz with an all-lesbian (or, rather, all but me) big band at a benefit concert for The Theater for a New City. Life in New York is never dull.

Yesterday, shortly after blogging about ILYW’s imminent release, I downloaded the podcast of KCRW’s The Business, a great and highly popular weekly radio show about the film industry.

Without looking at the title, I fired up the episode, and went about my work.

Five minutes later, I froze. There was I Love Your Work‘s director, Adam Goldberg, talking about the film, about the protracted two-year mess of actually getting it released.

And while, at first, I was mainly concerned about the potential for public embarrassment at the ears of all of Hollywood, though Adam talked extended smack about the other two companies involved, we received only passing, positive mention.

As the segment ended, however, the surreality of it all started to sink in. I walked through the rest of the afternoon, reeling at the strangeness of NPR dropping a personally-tailored episode of This is Your Life onto my hard drive.

Though it’s taken two years (and slogging through a slew of sordid misadventures), I Love Your Work is finally hitting theaters: Los Angeles on November 4th, New York on November 11th.

As the film’s success in those two cities will determine how much further things expand, I will love forever any readers who take time out of their busy schedules to go check it out. More details on specific theaters, etc., as they emerge.

While we were shooting I Love Your Work in Los Angeles, the other producer, David, brought a film investor to set: Boro, a Yugoslavian garmento.

Boro was tall and polished, with slicked back hair, a natty suede blazer, and a thick Eastern European Bond-villain accent.

David was clearly greatly impressed by Boro – in equal parts intimidated and thrilled by the volatile, slightly dangerous air he exuded. He introduced me to Boro shortly after they both arrived, mid-way through the shoot day. And, after explaining, with extensive illustrative facial implication, the ‘complicated’ nature of Boro’s business ventures, David prompted him to tell me about Silky, one of Boro’s ‘associates’.

“We call Silky,” Boro explained, “when people don’t pay their bills as fast as they should, and we need to… convince them otherwise.”

David smiled, nodding.

“And when he shake your hand,” Boro continued, grasping my right hand in his, “he break your thumb. Like this!” He jerked his hand suddenly, releasing mine to spare my thumb, staring into my eyes as he did so.

“What do you think of that!” said David, clearly enthralled by the idea of petty violence as a business tool.

“I think,” I measuredly replied, eyes still locked on Boro’s, “that if someone had my thumb broken, I’d have to have that person killed.”

I smiled placidly.

Thoughtfully, Boro nodded.

“Yes,” he said a few moments later. He smiled broadly, handed me his card. “Yes, exactly right.”