Day One at the IFP Market

Well, I am finally at my Uncle Mike’s house after our first long day at the IFP Market. What a day.

First, let me just say that my buddy Richard Gale, who suggested I have t-shirts made up, is THE MAN. Me, Uncle Mike, and David Tully immediately stood out from the crowd of filmmakers in attendance because we were all wearing “THE FALLS” emblazoned on our chests with the full-color poster on our backs. People immediately knew who we were and honestly, more conversations were started with us about the shirts than anything. All day long we saw people checking out our shirts and then looking us up in the Market Guide.

After registering and getting our materials (and handing our posters and tapes to the IFP screening coordinator), we headed down to a restaurant called TIME and strategized a bit. It was great to be back in NY with these two guys, back where we started during casting and then rehearsals. Then it was back to Puck Building where we parked ourselves on the steps and talked to everyone who came by while I addressed post cards to the execs we wanted at our screening. See, that first screening on Monday morning is so critical, and it’s so important to make sure that people get that piece of mail in their box on Monday at 9am when the Market begins. At some point during that time, David (still a smoker) was doing the smoker bonding thing with one of the IFP honchos and got from him that 1,500 features had been submitted to the Market.

1,500 features submitted.

Only 20 were selected.

THE FALLS was one of them.

Pretty damn proud of that, my friends. Can hardly contain it.

After that was Filmmaker Orientation, where we got the scoop on how everything works at the Market. One of the IFP folks said about the screening, “Someone has to have the first screening, and someone has to have the last screening” – in other words, those times may not be optimal, but someone’s got to get the short end. We sort of did, in that our first screening is THE FIRST SCREENING for the Emerging Narrative section.

We then got to ask some questions. I got the first question in – on the subject of screening passes, of which we were supposed to have gotten 5 per screening but as yet had gotten none. I introduced myself, mentioned the title of my film, thanked the IFP staff for all their hard work on the event – all in 10 seconds – then asked where to get the screening passes, because see, we have the first screening on Monday and we want to make sure that we have everything in order.

Well, after orientation we went to the welcome reception at Bar 13, and all anyone could talk about was, “So you guys have the first screening tomorrow?” and “Where can I buy a shirt?” We worked the room, and hard. Everyone walked out of there with a Falls postcard. And we gathered info from lots of other filmmakers as well. We’ll be going to a fair amount of screenings to show solidarity. We also met a few industry people – a couple of distributors, a couple of lawyers – so all in all we made a good start.

We passed on going to the opening night screening – Val Kilmer’s new film Wonderland – and opted instead to go to the San Gennaro Festival which was going on around the block from the IFP Market’s Puck Building. My, Uncle Mike, and David Tully walking through the San Gennaro Festival wearing our Falls shirts – another great story to add to our amazing experiences we have had together with this film. Sausage and peppers… New York pizza… and zeppoles.. oh, my!

Still more, though. At 9:30 was the opening night party, at Metronome. Free drinks and buffet (should have waited to eat, but the feast was worth it). Within 10 minutes of opening the doors, the place was packed. Too packed. It seemed to be mostly industry people, but name tags were not always worn and these were people we hadn’t seen during the day. It was a hard room to work, music was loud and the crowd was too thick. We made a few contacts, but really felt that the novelty of the t-shirts wasn’t carrying us there and we were not doing ourselves a whole lot of good. So we didn’t stay long. But maybe that’s best. A fleeting glimpse of the shirts as we left, then the same image appearing in their mailboxes the next morning might help build some mystique in the minds of some of the industry players. Who knows.

Well, tomorrow comes early. Out by 7 am to be in NYC by 9 for breakfast with the Director’s Guild. Then we kick off the show at 10:30.

If I wasn’t so tired, I doubt I would sleep tonight.