US Premiere - The Adventure

This blog title sounds a great deal grander than it is and I thank the wonders of the mind for that. I was the last house guest up for a breakfast of Swedish pancakes (a less buttery crepe) and juice. By all accounts, they waited for me to wake up before breakfast. Perhaps this was the Lexington & Concord of the upcoming war of hospitality between North and South. If only...ho-hum. I was the only male at the table and I vaguely remember some girl talk before the very kind Jane ferried me to the Michigan Theater for my premiere screening. I arrived a few minutes early and chose to watch the three short films that preceded mine. Admittedly, I was distracted during all of them: a documentary, a narrative opus, an animated film. The final one was mine and I was proud of myself for staying in the theater this go-round. In Rotterdam, I left for my short because of 'noives' on both occasions, so this really was my personal premiere as well. Oh, before the film, the festival volunteer told the audience to stick around for Q&A and mentioned myself and another filmmaker who was present. In a Troy McClure moment, he told the audience that they might remember me from Blood Car.

People laughed in parts and were silent in others. During the Q&A, I received many questions and compliments, all ultimately flattering. Usually the first question is "How did you come up with the idea?" A gentleman asked me about the caliber of bullet in the 'gun' fired by the mime. I said I had no idea though I think the query was in jest. Afterwards, I met a fellow Georgian who does programming for the Savannah Film Festival and I dropped an unsubtle hint that this born and bred Georgia-boy had never been to Savannah.

My Google friends attended as promised which endeared them to me as lifelong friends considering they made that pledge the night before in a bar. The great thing about Ann Arbor is that most of the time, there are only two screenings taking place at one time, which I translated to larger audiences. In Rotterdam, I was constantly aware of how many films I was missing, but here, you can see half of the total program easily if you're feeling cinephilely. My kino-burners were on full blast so I went to a kids-themed shorts program and then two features. My favorite short was a doc called Beginning Filmmaking by Jay Rosenblatt about his daughter Ella, who he buys a small video camera and attempts to force her to make a movie. She just turned four. Any movie about kids hinges on having a cute (looking or acting) kid in the lead and it's as archetypal here as anywhere. Shame little Ella wasn't born sixty years ago and Carol Reed could have cast her alongside the boy from Fallen Idol. Ho-hum. It's a strange film because our father/director Jay is a filmmaker and it's hard to tell where his documentary ends and his 'follow in my footsteps' syndrome begins, if it does at all. What is amazing is watching his daughter interact with this camera on her own and the lessons Jay administrates about cu, medium shot, etc. By the end, she starts talking into the lens and recording her feelings and thoughts, having flipped the LCD around so she could see herself. Errol Morris would be proud.

I am compelled to call attention to a couple interactive pieces on display at this year's AAFF in the lobby of the Michigan Theater. The first was an old fashioned reel-to-reel editing setup with a length of clear, blank leader and dozens of colored magic markers. A sign encouraged you to color on the leader whatever design you wished and on Saturday night, the final film would be projected with a score by a local musician. The second and more popular installation offered more instant gratification. It was an animation station with a camera mounted above a white dry erase board that captured images on a computer by the click of a mouse. Tools here included more markers, magazine cut-outs, army men, etc. Talk about fun. All the animations were stored in the recesses of computer memory for your viewing pleasure. Lots of people used penguins and army men. I animated a short video which you can watch below which begins with a dinosaur drinking from a pond.

The two main attractions that night were this doc by DP Ellen Kuras called The Betrayal (Nerakhoon), which is an incredible story about an immigrant from Laos and his family. Larry Flynt was in attendance for a screening of new doc about his life, which could have employed a more compelling approach to match its subject. The Q&A became a tad redundant so we, as in my Google friends and I, left before he was finished. He is also a bit hard to understand in his condition as well.

The rest of my evening was spent visiting the Google office in town, which I wasn't allowed to take photos in, but that did not stop me from snapping a glimpse of the future when everything is named after Google, e.g. google-bed, google-milk, google-dad. "My google-dad drinks google-milk in his google-bed." Actually, we weren't there long, instead opting for the festival after-party.