Archive for January, 2009

If lighting cannot be easy, then surly it can be uncomplicated. Bearing this in mind, anybody---from those with elaborate studio lamps, to those with low budgets and utility lights (or anything else lying about the house, right?)---can light a scene. And light a scene they should.

Because lighting is, ultimately, the heart of a lot of cinematography. If you disagree, well, you gotta admit it's pretty darned crucial. Yes, style does come into play; but for your own sake, figure out what you wanna do first (and don't always rely on Magic Bullet). And most importantly, figure out how you're gonna go about doing it. What makes lighting so time consuming, especially for amateurs, is the guesswork involved. Where does the Key Light go? Where the Fill Light? Where this, and where that? As this video shows, there is no right answer. And neither is this video meant to give an answer. It's more of a loose demonstration.

It is meant to show that custom lighting comes in all shapes and sizes; and unless the shot looks absolutely atrocious, then there really is no wrong way to arrange your lights. However, there are principles that help. The lighting in this video is a dark, Low Key setup (versus bright High Key, which is frequently used in Romantic Comedies). We formulated it on the spot, with modest lights. We decided to ignore our fancy-shmancy light stands and soft boxes, and did our best with these little guys:

One medium-sized utility "scoop," one small-sized "scoop," one utility work light, and one rusty desk lamp with a busted hinge. The small scoop provided most of the highlight on Sean's shoulders and hair, while the desk lamp lit a portion of the background. The medium-sized scoop got to be the Big Boy of the bunch and acted as Key Light, which lit up Sean. A cheap silver-sided reflector was used to bounce extra light onto his face. And way off camera the work light was aimed at the white panels of the garage door, bouncing enough diffused light to act as a Fill for most of the scene. Oh, and they're all nearly the same color temperature.

The resulting shot is definitely more dramatic, if not necessarily perfect, over the use of default indoor lighting. Greater emphasis is indeed placed on the subject/actor (Sean). Now, if only we had two more scoops to light the rest of the background. Ah well. Maybe next time.

I’m awake, and it’s … 10 a.m.? I don’t know. Where am I? What day is it? All I know for sure is that Utah has the strangest television offerings I’ve ever encountered. Apparently they have a channel here that plays nothing but Golden Girls and Fresh Prince of Bel Air?

If the Glove Fits

First order of the day: an interview and photo opportunity with the button-cute Maggie Willis, Information Booth Coordinator and overseer of all things lost and found at the Festival. Maggie tells tales of misplaced dental retainers, tweezers, and even a mohawked Pomeranian, but she’s also seen left-hand gloves and right-hand gloves, lost at different times and different venues, ultimately reunited in the bins at the Festival offices. I love that – like a knitware love story.

When we’re done, Maggie lets me try on all the scarves, along with a tower of hats, and Daily Insider photographer Calvin and I head out into the slush for a zany photo shoot, Blossom-style. Just because!

Small Pleasures

All too soon, it’s time for the end-of-Festival awards ceremony. As designated Twitterer for the event, it’s my job to thumb-type non-stop for a full two hours, a feat I am well prepared for thanks to an emergency thumb massage from Insider online producer Joe Beyer. The lights go down, emcee Jane Lynch (Spring Breakdown, 40 Year Old Virgin) takes the podium, and the games begin.

My favorite quotes of the night, in order:

• Charlyne Yi (Paper Heart) confessing, “I feel sick, and sweaty and I smell bad.”
• Push director Lee Daniels describing his star Gabourey Sidibe as “my beautiful chocolate drop.”
• Humpday director/screenwriter Lynn Shelton: “I am so high on Dayquil right now.”

But the very best part of the night? The miniaturized hamburgers! And miniaturized candy apples! And miniaturized ice cream cones! I’ll have three of everything, please.

The End

After we return from the award ceremonies, we pack up our desks head down to the Filmmaker Lounge for one last hurrah. Tonight the usually sleepy bar is a who’s who of all the filmmakers I’ve seen and admired over the past ten days. As we head up the stairs, Lee Daniels is standing there in line right in front of us, and Insider managing editor Bridgette Bates happily informs him that he’ll be on the cover of tomorrow’s paper. Charlyne Yi is standing in the doorway as we’re coming in, and lay a “hi” and some “congratulations” on her. Inside, Insider editorial director Jessica Buzzard pulls me over to meet Barking Water director Sterlin Harjo (who apparently was moved by the Twitter I sent about the film), who is very nice. Also there: Joshua Leonard from Humpday, Gabourey Sidibe, Best Short winner Destin Daniel Cretton (Destin’s a nice name! Do you think he’d be okay if I named my baby after him, you know, if the baby turns out to have boy parts?), plus a whole squash of other people, dancing and drinking with great enthusiasm. We dance to New Order and Janet Jackson, I sip a coke, and suddenly it’s 2 in the morning. Slowly we organize ourselves to head for home, and outside, the town is clean and newly dusted with a fine new coat of snow.

About a week before the Festival began, I interviewed Sam Rockwell for a piece that lives on these very pages. And now, here in the celebratory, beer-soaked, post-Festival office in which I find myself typing these…very…words, Rockwell’s “I Always Feel Like (Somebody’s Watching Me)” is blasting loud and proud. Ten long, non-stop, event-packed days, bookended by Rockwells. I’m not quite sure what it means, this full circle beginning with lizard-lidded indie Rockwell and ending with 80s R&B sensation Rockwell (so named because he felt he “rocked well”), but I’ll take it.

And now, to Oakland! My boyfriend, Marco, just texted me that in my absence he burnt a pan, broke the olive oil, and is considering shaving off all his hair, so I think it’s high time that I head myself home. My plan once I touch down? Pat my man and animals, reintroduce greenery to my diet, and fold into bed no later than 8 p.m. each night, yay!

Good night, Sundance Film Festival 2009. Let not the bedbugs bite.

MY FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10

Last night, the 25th Sundance Film Festival culminated with a celebration recognizing the films that Festival juries and audiences selected for awards. Festivalgoers packed into the Park City Racquet Club for this special evening highlighting some of the 2009 Festival’s most original voices. Jane Lynch, the ceremony's host, followed in the spirit of this year's storytime theme and opened with a windy mad-lib pieced together by this year's film titles.” In fact, at the risk of sounding Crude let me tell ya, going Toe to Toe with that damn sexy Louise-Michel was The Greatest,” Lynch said at one point during her opening remarks.

16 U.S. films comprised the Dramatic Competition, and the 2009 Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic went to Lee Daniels' Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire. The film tells the heartbreaking and uplifting story of Precious Jones, a young girl in Harlem struggling to overcome tremendous odds to find her own voice. "This is so important to me. Speaking for every minority in Harlem, in Detroit, in the Bronx, who has been abused, can't read, that's obese, that's been turned their back on," he said. "If I can do this shit, ya'll can do this shit." In a very rare occurrence of the jury and audience agreeing on the top honor, in addition to the Grand Jury Prize, Push also picked up the Audience Award: Dramatic.

For the Documentary Competition top honor, the jury selected Ondi Timoner's We Live in Public from the 16 films in the U.S. Documentary category. Timoner's second Grand Jury Prize (she won in 2004 for Dig!) is the story of the Internet's revolutionary impact on human interaction portrayed through the perspective of Josh Harris, the web maverick notorious for his experimental public art projects. "Sundance is home to me,” Timoner said as she accepted her award. “It's such a nurturing environment."

Sundance Institute Executive Director Ken Brecher welcomed the jurors, filmmakers, and Festivalgoers by noting the air of change at this year's Festival. "When we began this Festival George Bush was the president, and we ended it with Obama," he said.

Festival Director Geoffrey Gilmore remarked how this year's unpredictable lineup signaled the innovations still to come in filmmaking. "We opened the Festival with animation and closed with science fiction and in between showcased some of the best films we've ever seen," he said. "People ask us how independent film has evolved over the past 25 years and the answer is, quite simply, it's better."

Films receiving jury awards were selected from the four categories: U.S. Dramatic and Documentary Competitions and World Dramatic and Documentary Competitions; these films were also eligible for the 2009 Audience Awards. Joseph Gordon-Levitt announced the U.S. Audience Awards presented by Honda. Push won for Dramatic, and the Audience Award: Documentary was presented to Louie Psihoyos' The Cove, which captures the horrors of a secret cove in Japan used to kill dolphins.

The World Cinema Competition categories celebrated a range of films from continents spanning the globe. The World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Dramatic was awarded to Sebastián Silva's The Maid (La Nana) about a bitter servant who wreaks havoc on her mistress when another servant is brought into the household.

The World Cinema Grand Jury Prize: Documentary went to Rough Aunties, directed by Kim Longinotto. Set in Durban, South Africa, Rough Aunties follows the story of a fearless and unwavering group of women who serve to protect abused, neglected, and forgotten children.

The World Cinema Audience Awards were presented by Benjamin Bratt. Lone Scherfig's An Education received the World Cinema Audience Award: Dramatic. An Education, which Nick Hornby wrote the screenplay for, is a coming-of-age story stationed in an early 60's Oxford on the cusp of cultural revolution. The World Cinema Audience Award: Documentary went to Afghan Star by Havana Marking. This film follows the dramatic story of four contestants risking their lives to sing on an Afghan American Idol-like television program.

The 2009 Sundance Film Festival Juries consisted of: U.S. Dramatic Competition: Virginia Madsen, Scott McGehee, Maud Nadler, Mike White, and Boaz Yakin; U.S. Documentary Competition: Patrick Creadon, Carl Deal, Andrea Meditch, Sam Pollard, and Marina Zenovich; World Dramatic Competition: Colin Brown (U.S.), Christine Jeffs (New Zealand), and Vibeke Windeløv (Denmark); World Documentary Competition: Gillian Armstrong (Australia), Thom Powers (U.S.), and Hubert Sauper (France); Shorts Competition: Gerardo Naranjo, Lou Taylor Pucci, and Sharon Swart; The Alfred P. Sloan Prize: Fran Bagenal, Rodney Brooks, Raymond Gesteland, Jeffrey Nachmanoff, and Alex Rivera.

Following is a list of other awards presented last night:

Directing Award: U.S. Documentary - Natalia Almada, El General

Directing Award: U.S. Dramatic - Cary Joji Fukunaga, Sin Nombre

World Cinema Directing Award: Documentary - Havana Marking, Afghan Star

World Cinema Directing Award: Dramatic - Oliver Hirschbiegel, Five Minutes of Heaven

Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award - Nicholas Jasenovec and Charlyne Yi, Paper Heart

World Cinema Screenwriting Award - Guy Hibbert, Five Minutes of Heaven

U.S. Documentary Editing Award - Karen Schmeer, Sergio, directed by Greg Barker

World Cinema Documentary Editing Award - Janus Billeskov Jansen and Thomas Papapetros, Burma VJ, directed by Anders Østergaard

Excellence in Cinematography Award: U.S. Documentary - Bob Richman, The September Issue, directed by R.J. Cutler

Excellence in Cinematography Award: U.S. Dramatic - Adriano Goldman, Sin Nombre, directed by Cary Joji Fukunaga

World Cinema Cinematography Award: Documentary - John Maringouin, Big River Man

World Cinema Cinematography Award: Dramatic - John De Borman, An Education, directed by Lone Scherfig

World Cinema Special Jury Prize for Originality - Benoît Delépine and Gustave de Kervern, Louise-Michel

World Cinema Special Jury Prize: Documentary - Ngawang Choephel, Tibet in Song

World Cinema Special Jury Prize for Acting - Catalina Saavedra, The Maid (La Nana)

Special Jury Prize: U.S. Documentary - Jeff Stilson, Good Hair

Special Jury Prize for Spirit of Independence - Lynn Shelton, Humpday

Special Jury Prize for Acting - Mo'Nique, Push: Based on the Novel by Sapphire

Earlier this week, the awards for the Festival shorts were announced. The 2009 Jury Prize in U.S. Short Filmmaking was awarded to Short Term 12, directed by Destin Daniel Cretton. The jury also presented the International Jury Prize in International Short Filmmaking to Lies, directed by Jonas Odell. Honorable Mentions in Short Filmmaking were presented to The Attack of the Robots from Nebula-5, directed by Chema García Ibarra; Protect You + Me, directed by Brady Corbet; Western Spaghetti, directed by PES; Jerrycan, directed by Julius Avery; Love You More, directed by Sam Taylor-Wood, I Live in the Woods, directed by Max Winston, Omelette, directed by Nadejda Koseva; and Treevenge, directed by Jason Eisener.

As announced on Friday, Adam, directed by Max Mayer, is the recipient of this year’s Alfred P. Sloan Prize. The prize, which carries a $20,000 cash award to the filmmaker provided by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, is presented to an outstanding feature film focusing on science or technology as a theme, or depicting a scientist, engineer, or mathematician as a major character.

On Thursday, Sundance Institute and NHK (Japan Broadcasting Corporation) announced the winners of the 2009 Sundance/NHK International Filmmakers Awards honoring and supporting emerging filmmakers – one each from the United States, Japan, Europe, and Latin America. The winning filmmakers and projects for 2009 are Diego Lerman, Ciencias Morales (Moral Sciences), from Argentina; David Riker, The Girl, from the United States; Qurata Kenji, Speed Girl, from Japan; and Lucile Hadzihalilovic, Evolution, from France.

What makes a person want to reveal private family history to a wide public? What makes us want to watch a movie that accomplishes that act? Natalia Almada (El General) and Dana Perry’s Boy Interrupted) documentaries are unflinching, brooding, unapologetically dark, and personal. Almada, who won the Festival’s Directing Award: U.S. Documentary for El General, is the great-grandaughter of Plutarco Elías Calles, a controversial general during the Mexican Revolution and president of Mexico from 1924-1928. Calles’ daughter (the filmmaker’s grandmother) left behind audio tapes of her thoughts about Calles, tapes Almada uses as a beckoning, hypnotic narrative frame for the range of questions she articulates in the film about her family’s memory of Calles and Mexico’s collective memory of him. Boy Interrupted is Perry’s reconciliation with her 15-year-old bipolar son’s suicide. The film achieves closure not just for Perry, but for her audience as well. The Insider asked Almada and Perry to watch one another’s films and then talk to each other about making personal documentaries.

Insider: You both had a limited amount of archival material you could use in your documentaries. Was that frustrating?

Almada: It’s a different question I think I ask myself: I like having a limitation.

Perry: I agree.

Almada: There’s something very interesting about absence and especially when you’re making a film about someone who’s not there, absence is what the film is about in the end. And how we live with a limited memory or a fractured memory or an absence of images. How do we either create new ones for ourselves or how do we live with the absence of what’s there? It’s not a lack of something; it’s actually a kind of content.

Perry: Absolutely. I totally agree that having restricted material is often more conducive to creativity because you have to solve problems, you have to box your way out of it, as it were. My film is very much about absence, of course, although the images of my son are all over it. You’re piecing together a portrait from a limited palette, really; you don’t necessarily have all the colors. I think in both films we’ve created a memory now by putting in a context and applying a narrative to somewhat random images. Everyone who sees El General will have an image of her great-grandfather now that they didn’t have before and people who did not know my son, [Boy Interrupted] will be their image of him, because this is all there is, and it’s been put in a storytelling form so you can digest it in under 100 minutes.

Insider: Was it always the plan that you would put yourselves in your documentaries?

Perry: I had no intention of being in my film, absolutely not. I was definitely never going to do that and that became a little bit of a problem pretty early on when it was apparent that we had everyone except for the mother in the story and I guess I knew on some level that I was going to have to be interviewed and that was an awkward situation because I’m the filmmaker as well. For me, because the basis of the film is honesty, I really couldn’t leave myself out, because that would have been short-changing the story.

Almada: I never thought I’d have a narration in the film. That was a hard thing for me to do, inserting myself that way.

Insider: How did you get over that?

Almada: I’m not sure I did. It’s more like trying to get each word out. There were parts of my grandmother’s tapes that were really hard to let go of, to edit out of the film for narration. It’s a hard process to evaluate the difference between what I think she should say and what she might have wanted to say.

Perry: I struggle with this a lot. In all honesty, I feel like my son’s right to privacy went away when he chose to kill himself. But obviously, if I was not willing to show him in his illness, then why make the film? That would just be a memorial, a mere puff piece. And one wrestles with that danger of falling into a puff piece or a biography as opposed to a portrait of the illness and the person. I didn’t want to portray him as only sick because he wasn’t like that all the time. I’m still nervous about showing it to audiences and possibly betraying his privacy, but he was pretty dramatic and I feel in a way that he would have loved this.

Insider: Do you think of the mother we see onscreen in Boy Interrupted or the person narrating El General as being yourselves or a construction of yourselves?

Perry: You can’t reduce a life to 90 minutes or reduce an experience as profound as this. What you see in the film is a grieving mother and that is me, but it’s not all of me. I’m not just that. And part of the process of making the film is providing me the ability to be more than the suicide survivor and the grieving mother, because I feel that’s very much been my whole self for these past three years.

Almada: Watching Dana’s film and my film, it’s easy to say when you’re the narrator or when you’re visibly in the film that that’s who you are in the film, but I would say more that the whole film itself is a reflection of who one is. In my case, my interactions with people on the street, or the way the film moves, or the way it’s structured, is where I am. It’s not just in the words I say in the film.

What makes a person want to reveal private family history to a wide public? What makes us want to watch a movie that accomplishes that act? Natalia Almada (El General) and Dana Perry’s Boy Interrupted) documentaries are unflinching, brooding, unapologetically dark, and personal. Almada, who won the Festival’s Directing Award: U.S. Documentary for El General, is the great-grandaughter of Plutarco Elías Calles, a controversial general during the Mexican Revolution and president of Mexico from 1924-1928. Calles’ daughter (the filmmaker’s grandmother) left behind audio tapes of her thoughts about Calles, tapes Almada uses as a beckoning, hypnotic narrative frame for the range of questions she articulates in the film about her family’s memory of Calles and Mexico’s collective memory of him. Boy Interrupted is Perry’s reconciliation with her 15-year-old bipolar son’s suicide. The film achieves closure not just for Perry, but for her audience as well. The Insider asked Almada and Perry to watch one another’s films and then talk to each other about making personal documentaries.

Insider: You both had a limited amount of archival material you could use in your documentaries. Was that frustrating?

Almada: It’s a different question I think I ask myself: I like having a limitation.

Perry: I agree.

Almada: There’s something very interesting about absence and especially when you’re making a film about someone who’s not there, absence is what the film is about in the end. And how we live with a limited memory or a fractured memory or an absence of images. How do we either create new ones for ourselves or how do we live with the absence of what’s there? It’s not a lack of something; it’s actually a kind of content.

Perry: Absolutely. I totally agree that having restricted material is often more conducive to creativity because you have to solve problems, you have to box your way out of it, as it were. My film is very much about absence, of course, although the images of my son are all over it. You’re piecing together a portrait from a limited palette, really; you don’t necessarily have all the colors. I think in both films we’ve created a memory now by putting in a context and applying a narrative to somewhat random images. Everyone who sees El General will have an image of her great-grandfather now that they didn’t have before and people who did not know my son, [Boy Interrupted] will be their image of him, because this is all there is, and it’s been put in a storytelling form so you can digest it in under 100 minutes.

Insider: Was it always the plan that you would put yourselves in your documentaries?

Perry: I had no intention of being in my film, absolutely not. I was definitely never going to do that and that became a little bit of a problem pretty early on when it was apparent that we had everyone except for the mother in the story and I guess I knew on some level that I was going to have to be interviewed and that was an awkward situation because I’m the filmmaker as well. For me, because the basis of the film is honesty, I really couldn’t leave myself out, because that would have been short-changing the story.

Almada: I never thought I’d have a narration in the film. That was a hard thing for me to do, inserting myself that way.

Insider: How did you get over that?

Almada: I’m not sure I did. It’s more like trying to get each word out. There were parts of my grandmother’s tapes that were really hard to let go of, to edit out of the film for narration. It’s a hard process to evaluate the difference between what I think she should say and what she might have wanted to say.

Perry: I struggle with this a lot. In all honesty, I feel like my son’s right to privacy went away when he chose to kill himself. But obviously, if I was not willing to show him in his illness, then why make the film? That would just be a memorial, a mere puff piece. And one wrestles with that danger of falling into a puff piece or a biography as opposed to a portrait of the illness and the person. I didn’t want to portray him as only sick because he wasn’t like that all the time. I’m still nervous about showing it to audiences and possibly betraying his privacy, but he was pretty dramatic and I feel in a way that he would have loved this.

Insider: Do you think of the mother we see onscreen in Boy Interrupted or the person narrating El General as being yourselves or a construction of yourselves?

Perry: You can’t reduce a life to 90 minutes or reduce an experience as profound as this. What you see in the film is a grieving mother and that is me, but it’s not all of me. I’m not just that. And part of the process of making the film is providing me the ability to be more than the suicide survivor and the grieving mother, because I feel that’s very much been my whole self for these past three years.

Almada: Watching Dana’s film and my film, it’s easy to say when you’re the narrator or when you’re visibly in the film that that’s who you are in the film, but I would say more that the whole film itself is a reflection of who one is. In my case, my interactions with people on the street, or the way the film moves, or the way it’s structured, is where I am. It’s not just in the words I say in the film.

The alarm blares at 6 a.m. and I blurrily turn on the television to help me ease into consciousness. Instantly I’m sucked into an infomercial for the Magic Bullet, an ingenious blender thing that somehow makes smoothies and also alfredo sauce? It’s being offered at the insane over-price of $99.99, and yet somehow I’m besieged by the urge to order one for myself. Or maybe two! I am officially sleep-deprived beyond all reason.

September Issues

After typing, typing, typing for two hours, I scoot out the door to catch this morning’s screening of The September Issue – people have been going insane for this film, and the ticket was not an easy one to get, so I don’t want to be late. The theatre is about a third of a mile away, an easy 15-minute walk, so I’ve got plenty of time to spare.

Unfortunately, it’s been raining all night, which means the slush-factor is at an all-time high. I’m about half way into my stroll when I realize that I may be in trouble – things are so incredibly slippery this morning that every step is a new brush with disaster. I finally figure out that if I keep my feet connected with the ground, go very, very slowly, and adopt a supremely idiotic-looking ice-skating motion, I’m able to minimize my chances of death. I inch along like that for the rest of the journey, which winds up taking about three times longer than planned. By the time I get to the theatre, I’m one of the last in the long line of ticket holders, arriving just in time to hear the announcement that they’ve oversold the screening and will only have room for the first 25 people in line. And since I’m over a hundred souls back, it looks like I won’t be making it into today’s screening. Frownie!

Fame and Glory

Daily Insider production manager Carl comes to fetch dejected, hangdog me at the theatre and drops staff photographer Calvin and me off on Main Street for today’s man-on-the-street interviews. By now, the rain has turned to snow, and there are very few wo/men on the street to actually stop and interview. Those that we do find are in a hurry, racing past us like we’re asking them for money or a kidney. Inclement weather, it turns out, shrinks people’s hearts. You heard it here first!

As we’re interviewing some super-nice film students from UC Berkeley, the microphone and camera attract a swarm of day-glo tweens. “Are you famous?” they all screech at once, ducking and weaving like a flock of wild parrots, “Are you FAMOUS? ARE you famous? Are YOU famous?” The youngest one, who’s maybe eight years old, maybe, singles out one of the pretty college ladies and suavely says, “You MUST be famous, because you’re hot!”

Once they figure out that there are no actual celebrities in our midst, they flap off, and in the distance, we can hear their famous caw as they descend on another maybe-famous victim. The kids are in need of a good paddling, or at least a long, hard time out, but there’s also something beautiful about their bald-faced blatancy. It’s like the purest, most honest form of what’s been lurking around Park City all week.

Celebrities are easy to spot at Sundance because they’re always surrounded by a halo of faces and cameras, all facing inward like sunflowers tracking the sun. Time after time, after we finish interviewing our latest civilian on the street, a passerby will sidle up and whisper, “Who was that? Was he famous?” Unlike, say, me and my close, personal relationship with Mo’Nique, these people aren’t attached to a specific star, based on a love of the person’s work; they’re just looking for someone who’s somebody. At least these punk kids are loud and proud about their hunger for famous people.

Back at the office, we’re all getting profoundly punchy, this being the penultimate day of the Festival. At one point I yell, “A dingo ate my bagel!” and everybody groans. It’s clear I’m in desperate need of a nap, or a break…something.

The Butterfly Effect

Just in the nick of time, my Salt Lake City friends Heather (of Dooce fame) and her husband Jon arrive, pulling up at the Insider offices in their opalescent chariot. Also-impregnated Heather and I bump bumps by way of hello and, after pausing to admire the bustle and fatigue of my fellow staff, they Calgon me away to Deer Valley, where they wine and fine-dine me at the ridiculicious Mariposa. I proceed to spackle my mouth with the likes of:

• Tarty fried green tomatoes.
• Cute little pancetta-wrapped quail leg, the perfect prop for “If King Henry the Eighth Were a Giant” improvisations.
• Tender “free range veal” (huh?) with lemon-wine-caper sauce, mashed potatoes, and kale (I think this is about when I have to unbutton my pants).
• Life-changing chocolate cake with amaretto crème anglaise, which takes just 10 minutes to bake to order, but when it arrives, makes you feel like you’ve been waiting your whole life for it.

Back at my condo, I lower myself down into bed. I lie there quietly, supine and stupefied, waiting for my food baby and actual baby to finish warring for elbowroom in my overstuffed midsection. I turn on The Incredibles and slowly drift off to sleep – because sometimes, after nine days of indie films, a person just need an animated blockbuster to cleans the palate and ease the digestion.

Tomorrow’s to-dos: Hit the Festival Awards Ceremony, visit the Lost and Found, and get packing!

MY FESTIVAL EXPERIENCE
Day 1 | Day 2 | Day 3 | Day 4 | Day 5 | Day 6 | Day 7 | Day 8 | Day 9 | Day 10

John Cooper, the Festival’s Director of Programming, once said, “Sundance doesn’t change the path a filmmaker is on; it just makes the path go faster.” It is never the venue or a distribution system that is what makes a film good or a filmmaker talented; those traits have to be inherent. Film festivals— and the film industry—in general are vehicles to help films reach audiences. Or maybe the Festival is a little more.

“Actually in my case, [the Festival] did have a huge influence on me,” Cory McAbee says. The filmmaker first played the Festival in 1995 with his short The Billy Nayer Chronicles and then went to the Screenwriters Lab with The American Astronaut, which later played the 2001 Festival. But he is referring to 2007, when he was part of the Global Short Film Project, a joint initiative of the GSM Association and the Sundance Institute, making his short Reno to be played on mobile phones. He didn’t even have a cell phone at the time; McAbee never felt the need to talk to people while walking.

“I didn’t feel a connection, I’m a pencil and paper guy,” McAbee says. “[But] I really enjoyed the whole process of tiny screens and the idea of distribution on phones. I found it much more interesting than I thought I would. There was definitely a language to the medium that was fun to explore.”

At this year’s Festival, McAbee is premiering Stingray Sam, which was designed for mobile phones. “What we are showing I wouldn’t call webisodes,” he explains. “I see them more like a miniseries, like the old cliffhanger serial tradition.” Stingray Sam consists of six total 11-minute pieces, each complete films by themselves, which also function as a feature when watched in succession. Audiences will be able to watch Stingray Sam at New Frontier on Main (333 Main St.); check the film guide for screening times and dates.

While McAbee didn’t use a phone while walking and talking until recently, he does feel a natural connection to making films for one. He understands that although films are made for larger screens, the successful ones end up on smaller screens. He designed and wrote Stingray Sam for a small screen, but formatted it for viewing on all screens.

Plus, the public is now used to smaller screens, taking photos with phones and watching videos on mobile devices. “There are things you don’t consider being a strength or a shortcoming on that format, ” McAbee says. “It’s also different to watch things with headphones on. You are getting better than 5.1 surround sound! Pure stereo pumped directly into your ears. It’s all-encompassing that way.”

Technology shouldn’t cloud the quality of what you watch, McAbee believes. “It’s much more about a personal experience than the actual device,” he says. “The things that technology provides are very new but very much of our time. For that reason, it’s in a way an organic choice.”

In Barking Water, the latest film from Sundance Institute Lab alum Sterlin Harjo, Irene (Casey Camp-Horinek) takes Frankie (Richard Ray Whitman) on one last road trip, driving him from the hospital across Oklahoma to see his daughter and grandchild. Along the way, they meet and spend time with friends, family, and random strangers, each encounter shedding a bit more light on the couple’s on-again, off-again relationship and the complicated nature of love and regret. After a recent screening of the film, the director and actors gathered to answer questions from the audience, offering insights into how and why the film was made.

Q: How much did this film cost to make?

Sterlin Harjo: It cost less than Batman. And more than El Mariachi.

Q: I was truly knocked out by the two lead performances. I thought their depth and range were just amazing. What kind of training did they have?

Harjo: The school of hard knocks. No, actually I’ve worked with them before. Casey, she usually gets “spiritual” roles, and Richard is in the background on a horse. So no one ever gets to see their talent, so I wanted to write these two roles for them, because I knew how cool they were. What I really love about them is they treat acting like, “Oh yeah, I do that sometimes,” but Casey is also an environmentalist and activist, Richard is an activist – he was at Wounded Knee – and he’s an artist. They’re both these hardcore Oklahoma American Indian Movement members.

Casey Camp-Horinek: I don’t know about that “old” part – we’ve got relative youth talking over here [points at Harjo]. I started acting a bit in the 80s, in a spiritual piece called Black Oak Speaks….At that time, they’d brought in Hawaiians and Mexicans and Italians, and David Carradine was doing red face…and then they’d put the Indians in the background with a teepee and a bush. Our message was being conveyed by non-Indians, with non-Indians writing it. So it’s interesting now – as an activist, as an AIM member, as a person who was trying to bring out story to the world, like “We’re still alive! We’re in this century!” – to have a young man like Sterlin come along who has the ability to write from our experience, and understand how to direct from our experience. But I’ve been talking a long time, so I’ll let Rich add his “Uh huh.”

Richard Ray Whitman: [Nodding] I’ll just take all the animal husbandry questions. No really, I’m thankful to Sterlin for taking a chance on us, for always having us in mind.

Q: What gave you the idea for the story?

Sterlin Harjo: I’ve always wanted to do a story with an older couple, because it’s never really done right. It’s always kind of fake. And back home, my whole culture – and I’m sure other cultures too, but I can only speak for mine – doesn’t want to die in hospitals, they want to die at home.

Q: I thought the film was just a lovely…all the messages that were conveyed in complete silence, with no talking. I was wondering if you could comment on that?

Camp-Horinek: Actually we did a lot of dialogue. We filmed for 17 days, and Sterlin redid a lot of stuff, and took a lot of our dialogue out. And Mr. Editor David, who didn’t know us well – [in stage whisper] you should see some of the stuff he cut – but as actors, we did what we were told. We had the script; we also improvised some parts. When we got to see it for the first time [at the Festival premiere], I was kind of surprised to see how spare it was, and how powerful the message was without the words. So, we just have a wondrous director, and a great editor. And we know how to act.