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Thursday, April 24, 2008

Graphic Tedium

I have just spent the past 4 hours exporting all of the graphics of the film, one of which you see on your left converted to a jpg so it looks crappy. It was a nightmare, and I hope I never have to do it again but instead can hire someone to do it for me.

ahahahahahaahha.

I'm going mad.

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

Little Rock Film Festival

Just got confirmation that we are in competition at the Little Rock Film Festival, which takes place in May. We've got two really good slots: Saturday May 17th at 4:30 p.m. and Sunday May 18th at 1:00 p.m. You can see our festival page here. I should remind all you NOLA buddies that Little Rock is just a day's drive from New Orleans. How about it? Shall we have ourselves a convoy?

Tuesday, April 15, 2008

The Tokyo Cowboys Premiere

This morning of the premiere, I got up too early and started drinking way too much coffee, which lead to a full-fledged panic attack. Cassie's flatmate Brendan talked me back from the ledge. The film screened at 2:40 p.m. so spent the day pacing and practicing my speech.

This is me doing last minute changes on my speech:



The rental car place had a drop off service, so it was like getting chauffeured to the premiere. The screening was held at the Imaginasian Center in downtown L.A., which is very nice. I hung out in the lobby with the J-crew eating their onigiri and drinking their tea until Kevin and Dave arrived. I was afraid they were going to be the only ones to show up, but pretty soon people started to arrive, and we went into the cinema.

This is Kevin and Dave and Me after the screening:



The cinema was really nice. Good comfy seats with lots of leg room, nice speakers and a nice sized screen. There were about 20 people there, which I thought was pretty good for a Monday afternoon at 2:40 p.m.

I got up and gave my speech, which went really well mostly because I couldn't see a damn thing with the spot light in my eyes. On the way back to my seat, I was approached by another festival programmer, and we swapped cards.

I stayed for the whole film. Thank god we did the sound mix (which wasn't in time for this screening) because the sound is ropey. Something we hadn't noticed on the home speakers or even on the LFS speakers. But you really notice it on a good set of speakers like at the Imaginasian Center.

People laughed right the way through. Some people came up afterwards and said they really enjoyed it and that they really could relate to the characters...that they felt like they were sharing a part of their lives through the film. I was sad that Patrick wasn't there for the first public screening.

Kevin and Dave drove me back to Cassie's place, and I crashed a bit. Too much excitement for one day.

Friday, April 11, 2008

Gayla

Last night I went to the Japan Film Festival Gayla at the Japan American Museum in downtown L.A. Not having Patrick with me, Cassie went as my date. We got all dolled up, and I obsessed about my speech, which, according to Takahashi-san was supposed to go on for 5 minutes.

You never know what to expect at J-events. There was pizza and sushi and oolong-cha. At first we thought there was no beer, but we found that too, and I started drinking right away.

The festivities started with a J-girl duo:


But it was weird. No one was listening. They just kept on eating and chatting. Then the programmer got up, and the same thing. Then I got up to do my speech and realized that I shouldn't have stressed so much about it because no one was listening. No one cared. L.A. is a weird town. The filmmaker does not rule.



After, went for sushi in Little Tokyo. I don't think we picked a good place, though. What we thought were J-people sitting at the sushi bar turned out not to be. Cassie says there's better sushi in Silverlake. Still, it was fun to hang out with Cassie and get dressed up.

Thursday, April 10, 2008

Here in L.A.

After the longest day ever (time expands when you travel from London to L.A.), I have arrived. Met Cassie and her canine companion Gordon at Union Station last night. Will be attending the opening Gala tonight. Takahashi-san has asked that I give a speech, but my brain is mush from the jet lag. Haven't heard from P.J. yet, so if you're reading this from London, can you call him and tell him to call his girlfriend, already. The picture is from Cassie's side garden. She has a back garden as well. It's so warm that I can sit out here in a spaghetti strap dress and nothing else. I love southern California.

Sunday, April 06, 2008

California Dreamin': The Japan Film Festival

Oh my gosh, I am seriously about to pee myself. Thanks to the support of some very fine people at the London Film School, I have just booked the tickets to L.A. to attend the Tokyo Cowboys world premiere at the Japan Film Festival. You can't imagine the amount of financial footwork that was involved, but, whatever...

Do I call this the world premiere? The film isn't technically finished yet. What we're screening at the JFF doesn't have the final sound mix or the grade.

A moment of silence for Patrick who is not going. He has graciously stepped aside to send me to represent the film.

I will be staying with good friend and fellow LFS alumni Cassie Destino whom I met at the film school. Looking forward to meeting her dog. Looking forward to being in the California sunshine, and looking forward to seeing some very old friends that I have not seen in ages.

Friday, April 04, 2008

New York-Tokyo Press


"Tokyo Cowboys" has just been mentioned on the New York-Tokyo website. Awesome!

Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Dubbing Theatre Footage

Here's a little clip I shot in the dubbing theater today on my mobile phone of Alexej doing his stuff.


Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Tokyo Cowboys in the Dubbing Theatre

I thought yesterday was going to be more of the same shit...filling in forms, sending out stuff to festivals, trying to sort out the last clearances hell. Sometimes I feel like Tokyo Cowboys' bitch. But, at 10:30 a.m., I got a call from Alexeij, our illustrious sound mixer. He'd done the first pass on the film, and could we come in at noon to have a listen. Yes, yes, yes.

Sitting in the dubbing theatre, I began to feel like a real filmmaker again. These past few months I started to believe that filmmaking was just an expensive hobby for us. It was really getting me down. But, then, there was the Japan Film Festival, and that got me on the way to believing in us again. But, being in the dubbing theatre, and listening to the film, and giving direction to Alexeij...that brought it home for me.

Do you have to make your entire living as a filmmaker to be one? Patrick is in this camp...you are a filmmaker when you earn a living as a filmmaker. I'm more of the namby-pamby "you are a filmmaker when you feel like you are...when you believe you are."

Comments?

Oh, P.S. Here are my notes for the sound: