TrueFalse Day 1

Well,
Like any good doc maker, I laid out a detailed plan for the day and completely threw it out the window. I said I was going to do a bunch of things but I ended up doing a bunch of other things.

First off. I ATE OUTSIDE TODAY!!!! It was a little chilly but it was well worth it. Also, their parking meters take nickels and dimes here. This is a great town. It's very laid back. Dogs everywhere. A few Bears fans and lots of cool little shops.

We went to the box office area after lunch. All their reserve tickets where sold out except for about five films. Bigger Stronger Faster was playing at 5 but I would've missed the parade and the cookout thing. I bought the tickets because it would give us at least one guaranteed show and we went over to the Instant Soundtrack workshop. We'd decide between parade/food and a doc later.

The workshop rocked. Two completely different kinds of composers sat in front of a room full of about 50 people and they had a huge screen projecting their workspaces behind them. Wicked setup. They prefaced by mentioning that they had never met or seen each other's films and then the first guy did his presentation.

T.Griffin was the first speaker. He put together a great presentation about the work he is doing on a narrative film called New Orleans Mon Amore. Here is a trailer but the score you will hear is nothing like the stuff that her showed us. He talked a lot about the film's pallette and the process of working with a director. He also showed us a scene with the temp score, with the score that he wrote w/o the image and the score that ended up in the film. He was a logic user and you could tell that he was a real professional.

Michael 'Ionic' Furjanic was the exact opposite from T. That's not to say that he wasn't professional but he didn't have his presentation together and he spent a lot of time fumbling around. He was a pro tools guy and Diana was more impressed with Logic when the presentation was over.

Anyway, he showed us a clip from Arusi, a doc about an Iranian man that is marrying a white woman. He showed us the part of the film where the couple's parents meet for the first time. Her father's a republican and his mother brings up U.S. policy in Iran. Let's just say it's a whole lot of fun. He fumbled around with pro tools for a while and finally got a clip that had some of his work on the screen. It blew me away. It was crazy stuff with a whole lot of energy. I can't wait for the film to release.

Ion was a cool guy. I sidled into a conversation that he was having with some people and he was gracious enough to include me so I plugged the doc center and proposed the idea of him coming in to see us. I want to see The Greening of Southie, the film he is here for, but is plays at the same time as Oscar shorts so it's one or the other.

After the workshop, Diana and I decided to see Bigger, Stronger, Faster. It's a Sundance selection about steroids in America and it will be released theatrically on May 15. We had heard rumors that it was a last minute addition but the festival coordinator explained that it was added three days earlier and the filmmaker, Chris Bell, rushed out for Q and A.

Keep an eye out for this doc because it is going to blow up soon. He started it 3 years ago and couldn't have completed it at a better time. With all the allegations surrounding sports, this film is going to put a lot of things in perspective. Chris took a lot of risks in this film. The train of the film is the effect of steroid use in his family and the lies that our role models told us in our childhood. The moments between his family members are very emotional but the information around those moments is fresh, honest and unfiltered.

My favorite scene was between Chris and Rep. Henry Waxman. It is a great lesson in the manipulation of works through editing. As Rep. Waxman answered questions, he constantly turned to his assistant to check his facts and spoke in very distinct soundbytes. The fiasco ends with Waxman proclaiming that the legal drinking age is 18 for a reason. He is quickly corrected by his assistant. The raw presentation of this footage of one of the strongest opposers of steroid use gives a lot of insight into the whole steroid debate.

The QnA was quick but nice. He fielded questions about the issue but eventually talked a little about how his family feels about being included into the film. I got to chat with him for a quick second before he was swarmed by a mob. He was a really nice dude and really loved his film.

That's it for now. We skipped the Lover's Leap show so that we could get an early start tomorrow. I wish I could have gone but I'm already exhausted.

Oscar shorts or Greenie tomorrow. Then a workshop/debate and then something called the Filmmaker Fete. Wish me luck