Dairy of a Madman

Yep, I’m the proud owner of the as-yet-unnamed (after 7 years, at that) Sidewalk Film Festival trophies. And that bitch is HEAVY, I’ll add.

Muckfuppet is a 12 page short about a brief lunch break and confessions of the heart. Totally predictable and transparent. No darkness involved. No twists or turns in the last moments. Nothing supernatural or in the least bit spooky, no insanity. Just a little bit of romance, a little quippy dialogue.

Yeah, I’m surprised, too. But incredibly honored and happy. Edging daily towards pretentious and arrogant.

Thanks to Chance, Mia and Melissa for reading it and offering advice beforehand; Eric and Catherine and Mary Catherine and everyone else responsible for carrying on Sidewalk over the years for the encouragement; Daniel Wallace and John August for judging and offering script notes; and to Neely, especially, without whom there would be no script, no clever and catchy title, and no award.

Working on raising money for the film now (thank god it’s a short; the plan is to shoot on 16mm instead of DV, and the budget shouldn’t run any higher than $1000 — less if we can get Kodak to sponsor us and provide the stock). Melissa Bush and Scott Ross have agreed to join the cast, Stacey Shirley has accepted my invitation to produce, and Chance Shirley (Hide and Creep) is onboard as Director of Photography. I’m hoping to get Adam Wingard of Team Bloodjet! to edit, Michael Praytor to do cinematography, and a few other local folks to fill in the remaining crew spots… There’s no reason why this shouldn’t turn out to be an amazing short.

Outside of the win — I hear I looked composed during my thank-you speech, but I don’t remember any of it except for feeling like I would collapse. Yay nerves and adrenaline! — the weekend was great. There were a few technical glitches (none in my areas of responsibility, thank god), but I heard that everyone was by-and-large very happy with the end result. Some great films — if you have the chance to see Gorman Bechard’s You Are Alone or a feature called Swimmers, make sure that you do. The Exhibit(s) played twice — once a VERY laid back set at Restaurant G (the Sidewalk Music Cafe) which got a lot of surprising compliments, and once at the Saturday night Film For The People party; I was too tired at that point to notice what the crowd reaction was. But it was a great room, free beer, and we blew up a monitor, which means it must have been somewhat okay.

I should have taken the entire week off, honestly. I need about three more days to rest and catch up with my life.

C’est ca.