Over the Moon

Monday night was Flicker’s “Attack of the 50-Foot Reels” at Hollywood’s Egyptian theater, cause enough for the Land Elsewhere creative team to reassemble – Voltron style – for the first-ever screening of SHOOT FOR THE MOON. Since nary a frame of our 8mm in-camera space opera had been screened for anyone, including Jeff, Christina and myself, my mood was understandably a little tense as I escaped work under the cover of night (thank you, daylight savings) and, using the harvest moon as my only guide, trekked to the venue.

After meeting up with Jeff and Christina, pressing the flesh (which is Canadian for “shaking hands”, you pervert) with some of the other filmmakers and making an Olympics-worthy sprint to the parking lot to help an unnamed friend pay for parking – allowing me to learn the valuable life lesson that running down Hollywood Boulevard with a $10 bill in hand immediately makes you the Pied Piper of the city’s homeless – I settled into my seat and braced myself for a potentially magical, potentially disastrous screening.

After kindly demonstrating that any mistakes in the films would be magnified roughly eleven thousand times, fest organizer and stand up guy Norwood Cheek then allowed each filmmaker a short introduction before their film. I can’t say I paid too much attention to what the other folks had to say, choosing instead to obsess over whether or not I’d be able to remember my best friends’ names when it came to be my turn at the microphone, but I seem to remember a lot of gracious, nervous filmmakers.

While the movies screened were incredibly diverse, the majority skewed a little more experimental than your typical narrative fare. There was a cool time lapse flick about a man and his chair – I’m probably dealing it a bum hand with that description but that’s really all it was – a short about a guy in a kitten costume having sex with pumpkins and then, smack dab in the middle of the program, SHOOT FOR THE MOON. Although the interrogation room-style setup for filmmaker intros – consisting of an audience member pointing a flashlight at a mike stand – didn’t exactly calm my nerves, I managed to say my peace and get back to my seat just in time for the image to come to life.

?All things considered…we did a pretty damn good job. We had smooth motion through our in-camera cuts, a beautiful image thanks to Jeff’s work behind the lens and a story that both tracked and got a genuine reaction from the audience. Curt’s performance was great, nailing every beat in a single take from beginning to end. Bear’s music lined up eerily well with the picture, somehow achieving perfect sync in the majority of scenes even though the score was, technically, written for another film. Relief washed over me as I realized we’d managed to make a movie – one that, just as soon as it had started, was over…along with weeks of worry, stress and anticipation.

After the screening, Norwood called the filmmakers up to the front and presented each one of us with a reel containing our finished movie – the tiny white box you see in the photo of me and Curt – and another roll of 8mm film. Avi suggested I hold onto it for next year’s fest, and I just might…so long as I know some of you out there are in it with me. Speaking of which, special thanks to Curt, Terri, Christina, Jeff, Phil, Quin, Marcy, Nicole, Kristina, Avi and Justin for coming to the screening and showing their support! For those who were stuck at work, I’ll hopefully be getting a copy on the site before year’s end.

Stay tuned…and click here for more pics from the screening!