report from Columbia Gorge Int'l Film Festival

Drove to Washougal Friday night solo, meant that MM had to put kids down herself something I've done for her many times recently so she can attend readings. Living the dream. Got to Washburn Auditorium and checked in. Felt terrible to have not been to any other screenings at the fest but was out of town last wknd to be backup for M while she tended to her ma (hip replacment surgery if you must know) and just generally consumed with daily operations otherwise (day job, 2 kids etc) that made attending untenable. Got a great vibe right out of the gate from the people, the space, the whole deal. I was in my really-nervous-but-trying-too-hard-to-not-appear-so thing which meant as I tried to appear casual shaking someone's hand I also caused 5 laminated filmmaker passes to slide off the table in the process. such it is with me.

Got into Auditorium and got to see the end of a feature and a Q&A and found my seat at the very back, where I most prefer to be. A few minutes to reset the auditorium and then two short films first by NW Filmmakers. First was "In Search of the Miraculous" by Sam Kuhn, which I mostly enjoyed,  and then "Hiding Blame" which was written/produced by Lori Morgan and directed by Scott Ballard who was my co-producer & DP on "the black sea". (Hiding Blame shares some other DNA w/ us: Jordan Eusebio as prod sound/design, Kevin Forrest, Josh Smith et al). There was a Q&A with Lori after the screening - Scott was held up on a shoot somewhere - and then the lights went down and it was time for "the black sea".

Paul bloodied in the bathtub, Charlottle watches

This marks the 3rd time I've seen it with an audience (2nd if you count only the final color-graded version) and - no surprise - it changes with each viewing, conforming to the contours of the venue, the audience, the atmosphere on a given night. At STIFF there were a few laughs here and there and this time nothing. Silence. Since I've seen it around a gazillion times I find parts difficult to sit through (alternate word choice: endure), a common enough thing for filmmakers who after repeated viewings no longer focus on the narrative and can see only their shortcomings lit up on screen. Despite that, after a time I felt myself slowly drawn in, thinking the same thing I thought at the STIFF screeening: holy moly, we cast the hell out of this movie! I also felt the sensation surge through me that despite the easy accessibility of streaming/VOD the true standard (only?) way to watch a film is in a darkened auditorium with strangers, heads tilted reverently up at an image greater than them in size. (I say this as viewer and filmmaker alike.) By the end of the screening I was able to let my focus lay on the film's strengths instead of my filmmaking weakenesses and felt a pulse of pride about it, that lasted through the weekend.

During the Q&A I felt myself get fumbly and self-conscious when my brain tumor arose. I mean, I brought it up but I had to when talking about the intent of the film and the history of how it fell into place. Not mentioning it would be disengenuous. Hard to get a read entirely on how the film was received but this movie is kind of like that. A couple people said very nice things. 

Afterward I got to spend a few minutes talking with a filmmaker Kathleen Davison, who had a short and a feature at the festival this year. I knew her via social media - I reached out to her a couple years ago after seeing an article about how her brain tumor treament was interfering w/ finishing her feature as she got it ready to submit to Sundance - but this was the first time we met in real life. We traded stories about our features and our respective brain experiences. Her feature Primrose Lane is currently been all over the place and when I asked her about that she said touring around in support of her film was amazing but more amazing was that it represented her ability to draw breath and do so. I knew exactly what she meant. 

Kathleen Davison & I (sorry I got you blinking Kathleen)

I drove home from Washougal to Portland which allowed me to listen to adult music for an hour or so - which was like a mini-vacation - and when I got home I drank a couple beers.

On Sunday Kathleen texted me and said "the black sea" had won an award. Scott called me shortly later to say we'd won BEST LOCAL NARRATIVE FEATURE. Pretty gd awesome.

stowe story labs

had outstanding experience last month at Stowe Story Labs retreat. very gratifying to be among similarly-minded writers and filmmakers to exchange screenplays and talk shop as well as to be critiqued (sometimes deeply) by industry professionals in a hard-to-beat locale in May. Had to be apart from the mrs and kids for nearly a week which had its highs and lows obviously. [Waking unencumbered would be an example of the former.] It's difficult to encapsulate how meaningful the whole thing was for me internally and externally (partially b/c it was spread across many days and multiple interactions and partially b/c a lot of it has to do w/ deeply personal self-estimations that span decades) but in short I found it transformative, at once altering my work-flow and putting my pursuits in a different context. Came away feeling energized and reinvigorated

found this writing spot on walk

my script was oblitered by a well-regarded writer moments prior to this photo

consumed multiple Heady Toppers, A +

view from back porch at Timberholm Inn

birthday in ramble form, in picture form

AM of 43rd Bday, awake, play w/ kids, spend interminable amount tracking down superhero cape from N's daycare (he rec'd fri for good behavior and we can't find it anywhere) and finally find in double stroller we never use in garage. walk up to woodstock farmer's market, stellar day, deep blue sky. run into our neighbors and friends the B's, buy blue-berries and salmon and iced coffee (M) and italian sausage (me). Walk back to elementary school and play for a bit (including under the play structure) and head home for lunch and naps. N wakes up before F and comes out to say hi to me and mom in living room prior to heading downstairs w/ dad to watch a bit of winnie the pooh. soon after we're headed to Jamison square to meet N's buddy J, play in the water. Later at home M makes the salmon for dinner. we pajamatize the kids and grandma and grandpa come over to put them to bed. Margaret and I find our way to the Lutz for a needed drink and needed adult conversation, topics covered: owning creative/artistic flaws in the same way as Parisian women, panic & anxiety and the death this week of RK and the seismic aftereffects, pursuing equity financing for film #2, measures of success, ie real-world v internal, good fortune. Later at Laurelhurst to see Kumiko the Treasure Hunter. beer and popcorn. inevitably I fall asleep for part of it. we drive  home. I say to M, "R. dying this week really messed me up" M says "I know". Suddenly i recall the sunrise I got to see this AM, five more than R got to see; i recall my birthday a decade ago (at lovely hula hands if memory serves) and the uncertainty that held me. home on my wave of good fortune, overwhelmed w/ joy

whirlwind May, ie hall-of-mirrors

My film the black sea had the grand good fortune to be accepted to the Seattle Transmedia & Independent Film Festival (nee Seattle True Independent FF). At once a vindication and a validation for me as a filmmaker (my first festival acceptance ever! which while yes, probably shouldn't be the metric by which artistic pursuits are gauged, felt resoundingly assuaging to my wounded pride/s), the true joy for me was sitting in a darkened theater with friends, cast and crew watching the film unfold.

filmmaker pass, STIFF 2015

we drove up from Portland the day before, checked into our airb-and-b (sp?) in the tangletown hood abutting green lake which we skirted prior to meeting the woman who graciously would babysit the kids the next night so M could accompany me to the screening. After we went to the T's house for dinner. In a sort of mythic bookending to the film's existence (which I am prone to seek out due in small measure to my insistent non-self-effacing) the first time I ever entered the beach house in Arch Cape that inspired the film was with M and the T's (M and ST were colleagues at the time and the house belonged/belongs to their boss). In fact, it is their very likeness in the 'the black sea' postcards that were created during the fundraising stage of the film (see below).  It is fair to say then in a general sense that they helped to inspire the film. We had a quick dinner and then I dropped M and the kids at home and headed off to the festival, quite uncertain what to expect.

ST & AT look out the Arch Cape windows

At the grand illusion cinema I met Jason K, the filmmaker whose feature showed that night (SEAHORSES, see it!) and tried to remain as calm as possible. I still had this nagging sensation that some mistake had been made and would be corrected momentarily by flushed-face staff escorting me out the back door. But no one came for me and I was allowed to sit in the cinema and watch the film.

check out #4

Next AM was an exercise in patience as I awaited my screening at 8 pm. Kids help keep you grounded  though and so busy that you can barely register anything beyond getting to the next muffin, the next playground, the next nap. (A highlight, we managed to go paddle-boating - a sentiment I never thought I'd find myself expressing -  on Green Lake.) The weather was pristine and the day was glorious. And before long it was time to go to the screening. M and I went and had a necessary (for me) beer. I could feel myself tail-spinning, nerves overwhelming my excitment. She ran through some steps for me to remain calm and talked me down. I owe her everything.

the great Erin McGarry (Charlotte) and  Bill Sebastian (Paul) bookend 'the black sea' director (ie me) and fellow filmmaker (in hat) Rick Walters

Before long we were there outside the theater as friends, cast, crew, other filmmakers began to arrive. I felt my body relax into it and was sustained by all the love.

Before long we were inside and 'the black sea' started. A variety of sensations watching this thing with others, in public forum, after much passage of time, primary among them: films take a long time to make and shit, my cast is amazing. Afterward I did a Q &A and went for beers w/ some black sea crew, DP and co-producer Scott Ballard, gaffer Kevin Forrest, fellow pdx filmmaker Ted Davee and the rad Bill Sebastian. (who plays Paul in the film and who flew up from LA to see it (!)).

I made it to bed late and drunkenly, fumbling quietly in the air-b-and-b (sp?) to not wake anyone up, riding huge waves of satisfaction. 10 years prior I had had 2 brain surgeries and faced an uncertain future, convinced I would be dead within months. Now I had succeeded in not only making a feature film but in showing it. So much work and life - a decade's worth - in an eye-blink. And the older you get you become increasingly aware the eye-blinks are finite.

children at dawn

5 days later I am back in Arch Cape, staying with my family at the very house we used to board/feed the crew while we shot 'the black sea'. It's 2 spots away from the house in the film (ie the one in the postcard, ie the one that inspired the movie, the one where we shot the movie). From the right spot on the deck or the beach we can see into this house, we can see that it's inhabited by a celebratory cluster of people on vacation. Shared meals, beach walks, fires in the fireplace. What milestones occur for some that go unnoted for others? Which rolling wave is the one with meaning and which is the one that is only memory? What film/s will I have summoned a decade from now? These thoughts churned in my head for awhile one morning as the grey sun rose, finding no solution or resting place. And then my son woke and we moved to a muffin, a playground, a nap.

rejection

Another day, another rejection. This iteration from a film festival rejecting my feature film the black sea. So empty and meaningless on the one hand and so impossibly hard to take on the other. Backstory: I've been directing in earnest for about 5 years. Made several shorts and a feature and received exclusively rejection from festivals. This followed 7 years in Los Angeles during and after film school, peddling spec screenplays that never found takers so there is a history here, a pattern of NO. My natural internal response is to build a narrative made of equations, if this then thats, something to the order of my screenplay rejected = my screenplay sucks; my short film rejected = my short film must be terrible; my feature film rejected = my feature film was ill-advised and I should have hung it up years ago and now I'll just be left w/ the crushing financial debt of making the film as an endless reminder of my talentlessness. The longer I continue, the more calcified this narrative becomes, the more definitive, a self-serving poisonous loop reinforcing its own existence. The problem with these equations are the factors they omit - the particulars of the spec screenplay marketplace, the variables and machinery of film festivals, the artistic aim/intent of my projects fitting into some digestible, commercial construct - and the reduction of these complex omissions into a yes/no couplet that ties directly to my infantile need for approbation (which should not factor in to artmaking but which invariably is a drive for some, okay, for me.)

Let me re-iterate some basic points I've made before, primarily for my benefit:

1) I did not make 'the black sea' to find commercial success, I made it because I had to tell/expell the film. (note: I am not rejecting commercial success here b/c I'd love some)
2) Acceptance in a film festival is not the same as making a good film.
3) Rejection is a vital component of any artistic enterprise
4) Remember this lojong in perpetual, eternal white flashing loops:
Don't Expect Applause.
5) On to the next one.
6) when in doubt see 4 and 5
7) Film history is rife with films that were scorned/ignored at release but that time has been kind to. Is the value diminished? Better yet should the value be tethered to audience response/interaction at all?
8) the artist is fed her/his own equation across a lifetime, both in and out of artistic pursuit: hard work = reward. if this then that. if you pour yourself into your work, if you slave and scrimp and sacrifice and sweat then it will all be worth it. If you just write one more spec then that will be the one. If you make short films then that will lead to great things. If you just make a feature then you will be in a different place. If you work hard then it will pay off. I submit that this is still true (perhaps evidence of my mania) but the definition of 'pay off' has morphed and mutated over the years, into something like #9
9) the work is the reward is the work is the reward is the work is the reward is the work is the reward is the work is the reward is the work is the reward is the work is the reward is the reward is the reward is the work
10) Don't Expect Applause.

63 eye-blinks

I have been surprisingly flattened by the news of Robin Williams' death. The particulars yes are horrible and dark but the mere fact of him not existing any longer is what caught me off guard. I did not revere him per se or track or follow him or hold him in some high celebrity esteem. But what I've learned in 24 hours or so after I discovered he died is that he occupied a bigger place than I knew. I ache with his passing and I cannot figure out why or better put, I cannot articulate why. There is something in here about a collective mourning, something about my (our) own mortality reflected back to me, something about my memory of seeing DPS at Perimeter Mall in Summer 89 - 25 yrs - with Carmen and Amy and Will (who was visiting from Charlotte) and me absolutely losing it in the "O Captain My Captain' scene, something about cinema when it functions as intended on a deeper, molecular plane where things - ideas, emotions, people - are fixed and inviolable like air, planets, stars, and lastly something about how all this - good, bad and in-between, has a shelf-life. Sixty-three eyeblinks. Not so different or far from my forty-two eyblinks. Not so far from the twenty-five eyeblinks ago where I am sitting in the dark in Atlanta with my friends, watching Robin W on screen. I don't know what it means or how to source this sadness. All I can say definitively is that I am unspeakably sad and that I and we are the poorer for his absence.

exciting news via Portland Film Fest

Portland writer/directors @brian_padian & @AABlatt both are finalists in the screenplay contest. Live reading 8/29 2:30PM @prophotosupply

— Portland Film Fest (@portlandfilm) August 7, 2014

honored to be panelist at @portlandfilm panel 8/27 on Screenwriting & Indpt filmmaking. 730pm. http://t.co/gUQX5hqLaC

— Brian Padian (@brian_padian) August 7, 2014