Ed Says:
I’m at Slamdance this week. It’s been really fun out here in Utah.
We had a pretty full house on the first showing of Fordson and they were a really receptive audience. Very responsive — and seemed to cue to all the right places, and then some. It was a total kick watching the audience watch the movie. Second showing was on Monday first thing (noon) with a smaller, more subdued (read: hung over) crowd.
I’ve been getting stopped by people and complimented on the film. My friend Sue Lawson said yesterday that she had been given a list of top 5 must-see docs, and we were first on it.
I’m not bragging, I’m kinda stunned. All of the other work here is so amazing. Last night without realizing, I sat next to Vilmos Zsigmond (the DP for The Deer Hunter) to watch a showing of the first feature he shot (Summer Children, 1965). The dude shot frakking “Deliverance“, and all I know is he’s some old guy who DP’d once in 1965. After the screening I turned to him and said, “wow, that was really beautiful. Nice job.” He looked me in the eye and said “thanks”, like no one had ever told him that before. Then he got mobbed by the press, and I realized he was “somebody”.
I think he took the compliment the way he did because when he looked at me he realized I didn’t know he’d worked with DePalma, or Spielberg, or Cimino, or Altman.
My point is that we’re all just sitting in the dark together, hoping someone likes what we’ve made.
I changed my flight home. I’m staying here ’til the end of the week.
(We don’t normally link to clips that we didn’t create, but in this case I’m making an exception. Also, you can buy it here)