With the Oscars just a month off, we’re kicking off an official Cyan Pictures Oscar Pool. So, head over, weigh in with your predictions on whose names will be pulled out of those little envelopes, and, if you’re the closest guesser, win a care package of free copies of Long Tail’s next five releases.

[Also, please use your full name at the bottom of the form; we aren’t collecting email addresses, so we won’t be able to announce your win with just a first name.]

The last time I ended up the subject of a comic strip, it was in Yale’s campus newspaper, after I had broken up with a girl who penned one of the regular cartoons, and who used that podium to extract thinly-veiled revenge over several subsequent weeks.

I fare better this time through, popping up mid-way through the latest, Slamdance-focused iteration of CulturePulp, a strip penned by Mike Russell for The Oregonian.

Also, for the record, and even if the tinting of my glasses as drawn in the strip might make it appear otherwise, I have not yet reached the point of Hollywood douche-baggery that is wearing sunglasses indoors.

Though I’d hoped to blog Sundance as it happened, or, at least, to recap it soon thereafter, things went better than expected at the festival, and I’ve been swamped nonstop since. Look for exciting news, on both the Cyan and Long Tail fronts, over the next week or two.

Still, before I try to jump back into blogging per usual, I wanted to throw out a few Sundance thoughts.
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By most counts, Sundance, Slamdance, and the other concurrent festivals bring some 70,000 people to Park City, Utah. And while that’s not far off from the numbers the Toronto or Tribeca festivals attract, dropping 70,000 bodies into New York or Toronto barely makes a dent. In a city of 7,882 people, however, the infrastructure is completely overwhelmed, everything starts falling apart, and life more or less grinds to a functional halt.
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There’s a running joke within our company that we all look essentially the same: guys in their mid-twenties with spiky hair, scruffy beards, and indie-preppy clothing. Which, in short, made us blend perfectly with every single other film person invading Park City.
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If the people all looked the same, so did the films. The secret recipe to get into Sundance or Slamdance this year appears to be a combination of jump cuts, out of focus dreamlike sequences with overlapping snippets of voice over, and an ending that involves panning slowly to the sky. Would-be filmmakers, take note.
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Sundance was also a great verification of our collective taste. We somehow managed to pinpoint, and send distribution offers to, every lower-profile film that went on to win audience or jury awards. Fortunately, it looks like our song and dance was good enough that we’ll still be able to lock at least several of them down for Long Tail release. Plus, on the Cyan side, one film in competition that we had initially signed on to finance but missed the chance to actually produce was an ongoing festival belle. Sure, there’s no money in near-misses, but it’s always nice to discover we’re not totally off the reservation.
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Ten days is a long, long time to spend at a film festival. It essentially consists of three great days, followed by three tiring ones, followed by four where everyone is moments away from stabbing themselves in the eyeball with a fork. Liver damage and lack of sleep added up, and we were fairly loopy for the last weekend. A VP at a company we’re collaborating with suggested we have someone follow my colleagues and me around with a camera, with an eye towards a Comedy Central special. Though, in the cold, well-rested light of post-Sundance day, I suspect even we ourselves would have found everything a bit less ‘clever’.
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Speaking of cold, it snowed and snowed while we were there. My shoes soaked through, but we did get in at least one morning of fresh powder skiing (which included a Cyan / Long Tail VP plowing into a bottom-of-the-run tree), and I even got to take over the wheel for a shuttle driver who had wedged his van into the ice in front of our driveway. I tore up my hand squishing salt under the back wheel, but, at least, after rescuing the airport-bound passengers from missing their flights, one joked that they should give me rather than the driver the tip.
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Sundance in twelve words: a great reminder that I love movies but hate the movie industry.
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Along those lines, why are industry parties fun? I’m not sure I remember any longer. Especially during the first weekend, we spent full hours elbowing our way to the door of parties, even when we were on the list. Echo Lake’s party for Dreamland was one happy exception, if just for the chance to stand next to a drunken, salsa dancing Matt Dillon. And special thanks to Belvedere and Grand Marnier, who sponsored a series of small Cyan / Long Tail cocktail parties at our house. The birth of a new Sundance tradition.
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Another new tradition: the house itself. While we wedged in fourteen people the first weekend, by mid-week, it had cleared out to just the four attending members of the Cyan / Long Tail crew. Large, beautiful, with hot tub and sauna, and just a half block from the Main St. shuttle stop, the house is already ours again for next year. Though we do, unfortunately, have to read the owner’s screenplay as part of the bargain.

Ah, the joys of the movie business.