2nd IFP Market Screening

Okay, so today was it! Our second screening went amazingly well. We walked down into the lower level of the Angelika Film Center and found a sea of people outside our theatre, waiting to get in. The IFP screening team let me in first to check the projection this time out, and they got everything looking good before we let anyone in. It looked to us like the theatre ended up about half full, somewhere around 100 to 120 people. Which is a HUGE audience based on what we’ve been seeing all week. Several of the IFP volunteers told us afterward that it was by far the largest screening audience they’d seen all week. So the shirts worked! We were the “brand name” of the Market and everyone who promised to come and see our show did.

My pitch before the screening went well, as I had written it out on the New Jersey commuter train on Tuesday and had been rolling it over in my mind since. I ran through it with the team to iron out some kinks, and then blasted through it without a hitch at the screening. We decided to open with a joke, so I did. “First I need to clarify something about the t-shirts. Several people have been concerned that we were wearing the same shirt day after day and not changing. But we in fact have been changing. For instance, I changed with Steve today, Steve changed with Mike, Mike with David, and David with me.” That loosened everyone up. Then I described the story, went into some detail about how our post work and the look of the film sets it apart from other DV films, and then explained where we were and what we were looking for out of the Market (distribution and festival invites).

After we rolled the highlight reel, I made quick introductions of my core team and of the actors who had come down to show support – Diedre Kilgore (Jennifer Barnes), Jill Moray (Evelyn), and Ken Dapper (Detective Crane). We left the theatre and we were mobbed with people outside, mostly other filmmakers raving about the look of the film and asking me specific questions about technology and technique. While I was fielding those, David ended up getting some industry feedback, and several people handed him business cards and requested screeners sent to them. All good news.

David Tully for his part has really been busting his butt this week and has gone above and beyond the call as an actor. I can’t think of any other actor who would be working an event like this as energetically as he has, and his effort showed today when that theatre was so filled with people. But everyone on the team has been plugging the film really hard this week, so kudos to both Steve Briscoe and Uncle Mike, too.

We had a great lunch at DaNico restaurant in Little Italy (Rudy Giuliani’s favorite place), where Ken Dapper is apparently a regular. What a great way to reward ourselves after all our hard work! After that, it was back to the Market for some conferences and then (for me) to the Fine Line Features reception at a bar called Mannahatta (at Bowery & Bleecker, across from CBGB). Then I was off to dinner with my high school pal Tom (who I mentioned earlier) while my crew went to a party hosted by our pal Antone Pagan (an actor on Law & Order and The Sopranos who is now producing), where he screened a documentary he’s working on.

Whew. No wonder it’s 1:45 am. Gotta get some sleep. Too excited though!