That Blinding Sunsphere

The second screening of the second half of the Tour didn't come until almost a month after the private gig at JDCC.  As I mentioned last post, the sparsely staggered nature of the second half's screenings was more of an advantage than a hindrance.  Plus, with February being my first month in a new home, I frankly needed the break.

Regardless, in the "meantime" between the two screenings I was plenty busy with promo work for both the second and third screenings, and trying to get one to two other schools to "sign on" before the Tour comes to its conclusion in April.

The Experiment Rolls On

Since this blog is probably best consumed as a work log for a distribution experiment, I suppose there's  an obligation for me to comment on whether or not the newly revised format of the Tour-- the very-few-screenings-in-very-many weeks approach-- was working any better than the previous method.  Though I'll speak more on that later, I can say that, from a preparation/pre-show standpoint, the process was much more sedate, much less stressful, and I felt much more prepared going in.  I didn't feel that horrible, sinking feeling that I had waited too late to start promos, or that I'd contacted the wrong people, or that I was wasting an opportunity, etc.  Part of that might just be experience-- I KNOW who to contact, now, what to expect, how to get the most out of an opportunity that I'm going to get, given the circumstances of my film and my Tour.  But I do think having more time to focus solely on a few screenings as opposed to less time to focus on many allowed me to address each screening a bit more individualistically, on its terms, which is very important in the grassroots model.  It also kept me feeling in control, put me more at ease, and allowed me to enjoy the process a bit more, and experience the screening with a clean conscience.  I don't think this is solely attributable to the new format, but the new format certainly helped.

Unlike the New Format Aquaman, the New Format Campus Tour is here to stay.

The second screening of the second half was in Knoxville, Tennessee at THE University of Tennessee.  The formal name is the University of Tennessee - Knoxville, but if you confuse UT - Chattanooga with the Orange and White you haven't been in the South long.  Anyway, the UT screening was quite special, for a number of reasons-- but before I get into that, let's learn a little bit about Knoxville and its history.

One of the four largest cities in Tennessee (and, after Pittsburgh, the second largest city in the Appalachian region), Knoxville has been known as both "The Marble City" (for its early-20th century exports of marble) and "The Underwear Capitol of the World" (for a large number of 30's era underwear production mills)-- though more recently it's been known, each August through December, as "Where We Get the Whoopins."  The site of many a Crimson Tide victory, Knoxville was also host site to the 1982 World's Fair-- a fact used quite humourously in the plot of a 1996 episode of the Simpsons.

It's really full of wigs.

Knoxville was home to numerous Native American settlements during the Woodland and Mississippian periods, before being settled by the white man-- after some shaky negotiations with the Cherokee-- following the Revolutionary War.

Prior to the Civil War, Knoxville, along with most of East Tennessee, was actually known for it's anti-slavery and anti-secessionist sentiments-- even hosting a stop on the Underground Railroad-- but financial interests eventually led to a strong pro-secessionist movement.  After the war began, much Union sympathy remained in the city.

Though today primarily known as headquarters of the Tennessee Valley Authority and home of the UT Vols, Knoxville is (or was) also home to several notable writers, artists, and celebrities, including James Agee, Cormac McCarthy, Patricia Neal-- and Johnny Knoxville.  Quentin Tarantino was also born there, but that's about as Southern as he gets.

And, of course, quarterback Peyton Manning played college ball in Knoxville, though apparently not well enough to win him a Heisman, or a National Title.  No wonder he's only won 4 NFL MVPs.

Getting the UT screening was a long time coming.  I initially spoke to my contact in early Fall 2010 (if not late Summer), and after a couple of months of e-mails we were set for the March screening by December.  After that, we were pretty much in cruise control-- I had an excellent contact at UT, who was excited about the opportunity of having a young, essentially just-out-of-school filmmaker on campus for his hungry Cinema Studies students.  He was very empowering and really went above and beyond to facilitate us, and I am still thankful.

So, after shipping out some fliers and tackling the typical promotional duties, I was on my way to Knoxville.

So far so normal right?  Then what was SO special about this particular screening?

I'll interject here and do the PC thing-- all my screenings are special.  Anytime anyone anywhere has the opportunity to share an experience you've manufactured for them, it's special.  It's very easy to lose sight of that, especially in the post youtube era-- but let's not.  Whether it's five people or five thousand, Los Angeles or Lower Alabama, a screening is a screening.

But I think it's fair to say that my trip to Knoxville was extra special, for numerous reasons, not the least of which being my contact/organizer's undying enthusiasm and appreciation.

One of the more unique aspects of his approach was how he developed the screening into a  major event for the Cinema Studies program-- not a big program, but a hungry one, full of hungry students.  It wasn't just about having a chance to see regional work-- he approached it as a chance for his students to learn how they too could go off immediately from UT and start making their own regional films.  Kinda like a cram session of the DIY model, with me the guest lecturer.  I got to play the "star of the show" for the evening and must admit it healed up some of the bruises my ego had been nursing from various experiences I'd had prior in the Tour.  Regardless of this side-effect, the night was about the students-- completely about the students-- and completely about exposing them to a new type of artistic opportunity in our current era (no matter how non-lucrative). 

This ties back to my experience in February at JDCC-- and ties, again, directly to my recent realizations about exactly what this Tour is about and what its exact purpose actually is.  And, I guess, in the bigger picture, it kinda reminded me of what I'm doing with my career here-- with my life.

Again, my purpose....

I think it's fair to confess that I frequently fear I'm wasting my time in the South.  Frankly, most of the signs point to it.  Filmmaking and storytelling doesn't really pay the bills, and I often feel relatively useless and selfish towards mankind since I have no passion, no drive, no talent for anything else.  Like I'm a cursed man who can't fight it and can't cure it yet still can't succeed in it.

Sometimes I feel like my selfish ambition is keeping me from contributing to my true place in the world-- that stories and the cinema are now the domain of the hipsters, academia, and tech guys all itching to produce types of content I'm just not that crazy about.  That I was born too late or something.

Hopefully this doesn't just sound like fodder for a pity party-- but as important as stories are, one of the last things the world needs is another storyteller, especially if that storyteller doesn't have anything unique or valid or a differing perspective to share.

I often fear that I'm either too afraid or too lazy to move to a different region and take a more traditional path towards a paying filmmaking career.

I guess the underlying fear is that if I have nothing to offer as a storyteller, and if I can't become a great storyteller, then I should just focus on the day job and be an a/v tech or something remotely useful to the world.  And the Tour has, typically, done anything but validate my current predicament as a regionalist trying to reinvent the wheel as far as indie film production and distribution is concerned.

So, it's nice to get validation.  But more on that later.

Knoxville

I arrived in Knoxville with an hour to spare but it took me most of that time to find a parking deck.  Not that I shouldn't be used to the "parking on campus" predicament by now, but generally I do night screenings so I roll into town after 5 pm-- this screening was at 4, so I arrived during the thick of normal school day activity.

Regardless I got into the UT Library about 15-minutes before game time, met my contact, got my press table set up, and we got things started to a nice turnout.  After a nice introduction (I typically get introduced but not with an extensive bio, haha) we got things rolling, and as per custom, about halfway through I took off to wander campus.

I like visiting big state schools, especially schools whose athletic programs are rivals to my alma mater.  I guess there's a kinda "secret agent" fantasy that runs through your head that makes it fun-- even for a grown man.  I've never been brave enough-- or rude enough-- to wear a Bama "13 National Champions" shirt to one of these things, but I kinda smirk about doing it when I wander around and remember what it was like to be in school.

SEC Campuses BEWARE!

 There is one thing I found on campus-- in the UT Library, in fact-- that I have to point out, because it ties so well to the film.  There's an "exhibit" in the library for the Centaur Excavations at Volos.  In other words, its a rare display of the excavated remains of an ACTUAL Centaur.

Really stunning work, and a great hoax to kinda sit on display as a permanent warning to students that you can't always trust your eyes-- a nice philosophical exercise, and a perfect complement to thematics we looked at in Genesis.  You can get more info on the "excavation" here.

Centaur-- More than meets the eye.

I got back in the auditorium for the film to wrap up, and as per custom, did a brief Q&A.

So far, by the book.  But, as I mentioned, my contact had built the screening into a major event, and we immediately went upstairs to a CATERED reception and discussion.  Definitely breaking new ground here.

I was pretty nervous, going in.  Frankly, I hate touring.  I'm not a salesman, I'm not naturally great at reacting to new and uncomfortable situations, and I hate when I can't just kinda sink into the background.  The only reason we did this damn Tour to begin with was because I had to do something with the film and the Tour was the only remotely ambitious approach I could come up with where I still had some level of control.

Anyway, after a few awkward minutes, some brave students finally asked some questions, and things seemed to move pretty smooth from there on out.  It was more an extension of the Q&A, really, rather than a discussion, as I gave way-too-long, way-too-complicated answers to simple questions and, despite meaning to, asked very few of my own.  But, folks seemed to be engaged enough, and most of the kids did seem legitimately interested in my experience.  I think the fact that I was pretty much their age was a big factor, and I tried to give as many details as possible.

One thing I always hated when I used to ask for advice would be the people who explain how that got a film made but brushed over the big hurdles that keep the rest of us from really making films-- for instance, they'd give you all the details of how a shoot went, but not tell you how they raised the money or where they got the equipment, or hell, where they got the cast and crew.  Granted, speaking from experience it is kinda a sensitive thing to mention where you got your financing, but I try not to glaze over that too much-- and I do my best to be as micro-detailed regarding the other major hurdles when talking with students as possible.

Now, a little bit about UT's Cinema Studies dept.  UT's dept is similar to what we had at UA-- probably more inline with what UA had about six years before I got there.  A lot of interest, no equipment, professors in different schools kinda mixing and matching programs.  So, a lot of good work being done, but not really a definitive discipline or major yet.  Kids interested in pursuing it have to make amalgamated majors, double majors, double minors, etc.

So, I think basically, it's a program with a lot of potential, and a lot of sincerity.  At the risk of sounding pretentious, give me that over a formal film school any day.  Because then it becomes all about empowering, all about exploration, all about self-reliance.  They can't offer you job placement (trust me), but they do anything but spoil you-- maybe that's the best lesson you can teach aspiring artists-- that it's a hard road to hoe, it's expensive, it's not lucrative, and no one gives a damn until your work is good enough to deserve it.  Might help out our over-saturation problem.

Anyway, after the discussion concluded, I went out to eat with my contact and five highly interested film students, kinda friends of my contact.  This was probably the most rewarding event of the night-- hell, possibly the most rewarding event of the entire Tour-- in that I finally got all the "validation" and "purpose" I've been squabbling humorlessly about.  It was talking with these young storytellers that, again, opened my mind to the true purpose of the Tour-- that I'm there to show students how work that is about your home, about your region, that uses regional aesthetics, history and mythology with a unique, fresh perspective is an inherent advantage to the stories you tell.  That place can be as important to a filmmaker as it is to a writer.  That you can tell stories as a young man without being a wunderkind like Welles or Spielberg-- cause, trust me, most of us aren't.

I'm not a Genius.  I just play one on the Radio.

One student, from Chattanooga, kinda summed it all up for me.  He said he's proud of where he's from and would like to "write about what he knows", but he never viewed it as a real possibility before that night.  That he a) didn't realize it was an option to produce regionally specific work and b) that he now just recognized the importance of it.  Though I tried not to be too disillusioned about things-- there's really not a strong "regional" market yet, especially not in the South, that doesn't cater to niche exploitation markets, like "faith-based" stuff or Tyler Perry films-- but I wanted to encourage the impulse.  My desire to live a lifestyle debt-free and where I can buy DVD's at will aside, I do think that creating cinematic markets that focus on specific regions (though with universal appeal) is a relatively viable concept, and that it might become increasingly so the smaller technology makes the world.  I also think there's a larger need for regional identity to be more accurately depicted, examined and preserved by filmmakers, the smaller the world gets-- similar to how writers do and have done for years.  The cinema-- or at least the moving image-- is currently our greatest, most influential medium of mass expression, in my opinion.  We need to continue expanding who uses the medium, how the medium is used, and turn it into a truly universally accesible art form where the country it's made in isn't the only thing that's important-- but also WHERE in that country it was made.

In other words, there are more dimensions to our lives in greater need of exploration than the third.  And their glasses don't make you look stupid.

Man, where IS my sense of humor???