Cassavetes at the Marchesa: BOOKIE/HUSBANDS

The film [Killing of a Chinese Bookie] is about a conformist, about somebody who would have been a white-collar worker years ago and who does all the right things and who is going to be killed for it.... It's the story of so many people's lives. It's not hard to understand because it happens all the time.

- John Cassavetes

from Cassavetes on Cassavetes by Ray Carny 

Killing Of A Chinese Bookie

I was first introduced to The Killing Of A Chinese Bookie (and to John Cassavetes) by director Spencer Parsons. He assigned me Cassavetes boot camp just before I began editing his feature, I'll Come Running. I binged my way through Bookie, Faces, A Woman Under The Influence, Minnie & Moskovitz (my current fave), and Husbands. Spencer wanted me to absorb the performance styles, cutting rhythms, the way camera follows the actors, and especially how Cassavetes constructed everything around performance and emotion regardless of whether the image was technically perfect.

Since that binge I had not seen Cassavetes since. I've got a Netflix DVD copy of Opening Night waiting for me, and I'd love to get my hands on Love Streams, though I know that's tough one to track down.

Last Monday, I made my first trip to the new Marchesa Theater which is operated by the Austin Film Society. The best way to describe the Marchesa is that its Austin's own version of the New Beverly in Los Angeles. When I briefly lived in LA, I loved going out of my way to go to the New Beverly to see older movies or arthouse fare or grindhouse flicks. The Marchesa is located at what used to be the Lincoln Village, a dumpy 8-theater building I remember occaisonally seeing movies at when I was a kid. It was a weird feeling realizing what the Marchesa used to be when I pulled into the parking lot.

Do Over screens this weekend in the Hill Country

My short film "Do Over" will screen this weekend at the 2013 Hill Country Film Festival in Fredricksburg, TX. We screen in Shorts Block 8 at 10 AM. My producer Andrew Logan and I will be attending.

I've been grappling for weeks as to whether I'd be staying overnight and enjoy the fest for a few days. It's close enough to drive to, but far enough away that you wouldn't want to make the trip back and forth all week long. I've got a few projects I'm working on all once, so I've decided to drive up Saturday and spend the day watching movies and talking to whomever I can in that time. Wish I could stay longer though.

"Do Over" has screened at numerous film festivals throughout 2012 and 2013. It has received awards such as Best Comedy Short at the Iowa Film Festival, Best Regional Short at the Flatland Film Festival, and it wont the PBS NYC Reel 13 Online Competition.

Can't make it to the Hill Country Film Festival? You can purchase it for $1.99 and watch it right now!

SXSW Leftovers PT3: GOOD NIGHT Premiere

I was post-supervisor on The Bounceback and had been working on it right up to its premiere. The second film I was a part of that premiered at the festival was a movie I co-edited called Good Night. I worked on this film on and off over the course of a year and a half. I thought director Sean Gallagher had a pretty unique and savvy approach to making a micro budget indie that tells an emotional story.

I've been looking forward to Good Night's premiere for a long time. I get attahed to each long-form project I work on. As an editor, I feel like I have to. I feel like I have to be on that edge of objectivity and emotionality. As Pacino said in Heat, "Keeps me sharp. Where I gotta be."

During the course of making this film, some of the events it depicts paralleled events in my own life in unfortunate ways. The themes of the film took on even greater meaning to me. I think grew close to this project in ways I hadn't to others since the first film I edited, I'll Come Running. That's not a slight at any other film on my resume. Circumstances just made Good Night uniquely entwine with my life.

SXSW 2013 - Leftovers PT2: BOUNCEBACK Premiere

The premiere for The Bounceback was Saturday March 9th at the historic Paramount theater. Panic struck our team an hour before the show when our director, Bryan Poyser, got word the screening might have to be canceled due to a problem with our HDCAM tape. As Post Supervisor I went on high alert as getting these tapes made and QCed was part of my job.

I was on my way to the Paramount when he called me so I was able to get to the theater pretty quick. There was some confusion but we figured it out pretty fast: There had been a problem with the film screening before us. Our tape was fine. That other film's screening had been canceled (but SXSW added two more screenings to make up for the loss of their premiere). Still, it was a scare before our big unveiling. Good thing they keep the Paramount cold inside cause I was sweating bullets for a few minutes.

Jury Duty

In 2005, I was lucky enough to win the Best Hecho en Tejas (Best Made in Texas) Film Award at the Cine Las Americas Film Festival for my short film "Test Day." The shorts we screened with were strong, powerful narratives. The Hecho en Tejas section that year was comprised of only four short films. Today, it has expanded to include two features and around eleven shorts.

For that matter, Cine itself has grown since 2005. It is screening somewhere in the neighborhood of 160 films, shorts and features, docs and narratives. No film screens twice. There's a lot to experience in under a week's time.

I've been looking forward to getting back to Cine Las Americas ever since "Test Day" screened and was warmly received. This year they asked me to be a jury member for the Hecho en Tejas section. What I've discovered is I am a one-person jury - so if anyone is upset at the end of the weekend they only have me to blame! No pressure...

SXSW 2013 - Leftovers PT1: Missing Swag and Riding Coattails

This year's +SXSW  felt different. Maybe it was the plethora of Texas films that had received acclaim at Sundance ahead of their regional debuts. Maybe it was the fact I had two films I worked on premiering at the fest, and I realize how fortunate I am to be a part of two great projects that beat the odds (and how much luck figures into festival selections along with the quality of the projects). Maybe I felt the size of the festival in a way I hadn't before.

But there was a different energy this year. And in retrospect - now that I've had a month to reflect (and to finally write a post on the festival; wish I wrote more often but I when duty calls, I answer) - maybe the energy didn't come from the festival itself but from the banner year that Texas film is having. Whatever it was, it made for a memorable fest.

Halfway through the festival I landed a free lance gig editing panels for SXSW Interactive. So not only did the fun end prematurely and I saw way less movies than I had initially planned, the time I had to publish posts got eaten up by some uneventful panel cutting. That's the trade-off with such a large festival in your own backyard: There's work to pick up during a solid two week period. (And if you're a free lancer, you know it's hard to turn down work when it's this abundant.)

So what do I have to add to the post-SXSW reviews so many bloggers and critics have already provided for the past month already? Honestly - probably not much. But I got all these photos I took and they need to go somewhere...

This will be the first of a set of free-association, summative posts about the fest as I experienced it. You won't find any movie reviews here. Just impressions and fuzzy memories. And some photos!

Mentoring at SXSW 2013

Last year I was lucky enough to on a +SXSW panel with a director I had just finished editing three projects for (+Kyle Henry) and an editor I have long admired (Sandra Adair). The panel was a workshop where the three of us would give notes on fundraiser reels that filmmakers brought in for us to watch in a room full of strangers. It was an informative, practical and useful workshop that I think people really dug and that we should try to resurrect next year.

This year, I'm a panelist of another sort: A SXSW mentor. Mentor workshops operate like this: Attendees read the bios of the mentors of a given session, then sign up for one-on-one time with the mentor they most want to hear from. You can sign up to meet with one or you can meet with all of them.

I've never done it before, so I'm looking forward to meeting some new folks and seeing what the experience is like. I hope my professional experience in production and (mostly) in post-production will help answer some questions for other working filmmakers.

I'm in the Producers/Production 2 session on Tuesday, March 12th from 330 PM - 5 PM. There are some great folks in that session, several of whom I've worked with. If you're coming to SXSW 2013 consider signing up for any of the offered Mentor Sessions!

Mentors: Production/Production 2