what’s on my list? \/\/ a d.i.y. film festival
Growing up amidst the maize fields of the great Midwest, I volunteered at a restored movie theater on weekends: single screen, ‘30s era art deco interior, concession stand inside the theater. The Normal Theater in Normal, Illinois. My old man took me to see Vertigo when I was ten. A few months later I worked my first movie: Gone with the Wind. I worked there for the next thirteen years, until I moved down to Baton Rouge. That theater is one of the things I miss most about my hometown, especially this time of year, when they have their annual showings of Christmas Vacation, A Christmas Story, It’s a Wonderful Life, and of course, White Christmas. The packed-to-the-ceiling crowds never fail to sing “White Christmas” at the end of Bing’s Technicolor explosion. If that doesn’t get you juiced up for mistletoe and eggnog, may a CGI Jim Carrey pull a stocking over your head and kick you down a flight of icy stairs.
Is it romance or is it brainwashing? Has the bride been programmed to kill the President? This is, however, an actual picture of the Normal Theater facade.
But the Normal Theater is much more than cozy holiday traditions. Here’s a sampling of movies I missed in October and November alone: Waltz with Bashir, Moon, Bright Star, The Tingler, The Shining, Young Frankenstein, A Hard Day’s Night, It Might Get Loud, Precious, The Cove, Laura, The Shop Around the Corner.
That’s a hardcore cinephile lineup.
Tickets are six bucks. Popcorn and pop? A dollar each, last I checked. I’d trade all the sweet olive trees in Baton Rouge to have that theater down here.
But I can’t. Because the trees aren’t mine and I don’t have enough voodoo juju to make that kind of a cosmic swap anyway. Cue weeping and gnashing of teeth.
But goddamnit, it’s Christmas. And goddamnit, it’s 2009. So here’s what we’re going to do, goddamnit: if I can’t transport that cinema magic down here, we’re going to make a little of our own.
How, Mr. Tyler Re:?
By making our own goddamn film festival.
Unreachable Cannes. Red carpet. Flashbulbs. Extraneous celebrity.
I don’t mean sitting through a stack of NetFlix DVDs while our eyes get bloodshot and our skin gets greasy. I mean making films and screening them in a party-like atmosphere. Popcorn, beer, friends, flickerfilms projected on the wall.
This past week, via the consumer fantasy portal known as Amazon.com, I purchased the only tools necessary for the first-ever Goddamn Film Festival*.
Flip UltraHD digital camcorder? Check.
Cinemin Swivel mini DLP projector? Check.
For half the price of the miniDV camcorder I bought with my high school graduation funds in 2002, I can give sweaty man-birth to my own film festival. And you, YOU can hold my hand and whisper Lamaze instructions in my ear.
Three hour battery charge, two meter wide projection. I'm sold.
Quick and convenient tool. And small.
Here’s my proposal:
No films over 10 minutes. Keeping it under 5 minutes is even better.
I lend the camera out to filmmakers for 48 hours max.
Filmmakers do their shooting, save their footage and edit it on their own computers.
I collect all completed films.
On the night of the festival, viewers pay a small donation (100% toward booze), we convene, pop the corn, point the projector at a wall, and… go.
All manner of films will be accepted. Narrative, documentary, interview/conversation, monologue, performance, music video, art film, illegal stuntwork.
Yes, the tools are (relatively) primitive. The UltraHD has no image stabilization. A laughable zoom. Mediocre sound recording. But it’s also portable, fast, and easy to use. It’s equipped with its own editing software. Eight gigs (two hours) of internal memory. Everyone’s in the same boat. The ideas, the fun-having, this is the focus. Not the equipment.
My prediction: zero crane shots will be used.
This is anti-Avatar filmmaking. This is interviewing Sonic employees about their holiday novelty desserts. This is spending an afternoon storyboarding a silly short film. This is making visual poetry. This is trying and failing at stop-motion animation. This is putting “Gimme Shelter” in a film without paying a million bucks to the Stones. (Take that, Scorcese.) This is the rebirth of filmmaking.
Want to write a script? Try CeltX. It’s free. Use Microsoft Word. Write on a legal pad.
Want to storyboard your idea? Here’re a few dozen templates.
Put all the films on a DVD. Burn copies for everyone involved. Make it fast, make it fun. Hand out awards. Project the films on the ceiling and make everyone lay on the floor to watch.
This is what I want, Christmas elves. Make it happen. Or I’ll just do it myself.
Photo credits: bridalu.net, hollywoodjuicer, slashgear, hd-report, Vincent Kessler – Reuters – The Guardian,
* Festival title subject to change and open to suggestions.
oh, it is so on!
anyway I can just ask for voodoo juju instead?
I’d like to sign up!
who’s skirt will blow up at the screening?
I think you just elected yourself, Mr Sandler. Better put “skirt” on your Christmas list.
[...] that bastion of cinema delights: the nearby Normal Theater. I’ve written before, briefly, about this theater. I volunteered there from the ages of 10 (shh, don’t tell [...]