Yay! Participating in the Hollywood Film Festival was tons of fun. Heartfelt thanks to all who showed up, either in person or in spirit, to lend their support. Huge thanks, also, to my producer and all of the brilliant people involved in making Darkening Sky a reality.

But there were some technical issues. With picture and sound. A two-fer! Turns out that the HDCAM deck used for projection was, for some reason, set with Very Dark gamma, resulting in brightness/contrast levels that crushed anything remotely “dark” into “pure black.” This meant things that took a long time to get right — a shadowy something creeping across the floor of a room at night, for example — were completely invisible. Some of these were Story Points™. Plus something in the deck’s handling of the stereo/5:1 split made the audio ear-splittingly, painfully LOUD early on.

Now… When people complain about technical issues “wrecking” a film, I’m usually the asshole saying (or at least thinking) something like, “Well, the story either works, or it doesn’t.” Egad. Well, I’m happy (mostly) to report that I was (mostly) able to embrace this idea myself and (mostly) relax and move on. The performances ultimately came through and carried the day. The story I intended to tell was told. And by all reports, it made sense and was entertaining. Still, here is how I imagined a post-festival interview might have gone.

The screening and pre/post hangs were great fun, and the Hollywood Awards Gala was also great fun — of a different kind. Me and the Missus got to play dress-up and enjoy an open-bar, nice dinner, award ceremony and after-party (more open bar) at the Beverly Hilton… Along with a surprising array of stars I actually like, including, but not limited to: Helena Bonham Carter, Sean Penn, Sam Rockwell, Jodie Foster, Halle Berry, Aaron Sorkin, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Bruce Willis, Christopher Nolan, Justin Long, Andrew Garfield, Annette Benning, Zach Galifianakis, Morgan Freeman and Robert Duvall. Yikes. Being there at all would have been a thrill; being there as a filmmaker was completely awesome and inspiring.