Sundance 2007 - Day 1

It's late, and I've been traveling all day, but I wanted to write something before I go to bed. I'm here at the Sundance Film Festival. This year, unlike anytime I've been here before, I'm connected to a film in the festival. I have a small part in the film Phantom Love by Nina Menkes. When Nina wrote me that the film was selected to premiere in the fest, I knew I had to be here. If it weren't for that, I wouldn't have come this year.

It's cold here! Yeah really, it's winter. The high today in Park City was 20 degrees. I haven't experienced a cold winter in a year, and you know what? It's the same as I remember it. You have to wear a lot of clothes and it's cold and hard to move and its cold. But I'm not here to talk about the weather.

We flew into Salt Lake City today, rented a car and drove up to Coalville, UT, about 20 miles east of Park City. It was the only place I could get a room a month before the festival that didn't cost $300 a night. After checking in at the Best Western in Coalville, we went down and sat in the spa for a while. That helped releive some of the stress of travel.

Then we drove into Park City for dinner and to look around. Tonight is the opening night of the festival, so it isn't that crowded yet. Already the bars and restaurants are busy, but not like it will be tomorrow, and the rest of this opening weekend. The festival runs for ten days, but most people come either the first weekend or the second. The opening weekend is busier and more star sightings are likely.

Kris has never been to Park City or the festival, so this is all new to her. This is my fourth festival, so I know the lay of the land a bit.

One thing that didn't work for me about this years festival was the system they created for buying individual screening tickets. You see, if you are anybody, you have a pass. A pass says you are somebody. Sombody with either an expence account, a studio job, or are successful enough or important enough to shell out hundreds (or maybe a thousand) for an all access full festival pass.

The rest of us must beg, borrow or steal tickets to get into the best films. Or get lucky in the ticket lottery to buy single tickets. This year they had a lottery system and here's how it worked. You had to pay 5 bucks to be entered into a lottery, and create a user account. Then a computer would randomly assign all those who entered a time to purchase individual tickets to screenings via a secure website. The time slots were from Monday to Friday of the week before the festival. Kris and I entered. Her time was Thursday afternoon, mine was friday morning, the last day tickets were on sale. Now, they don't really know how many pass holders are going to attend a given movie, so they must have a system for estimating how many will, and based on the number of seats at a particular venue, (there are 8 in Park City) how many individual tickets they can sell.

So you log onto a website at your assigned time, access your account, and start selecting tickets. If you called in on the phone at your assigned time, there would be a ten dollar service fee, on top of the one dollar service fee on each tickets bought on-line or on the phone.

When Kris' time came, we started logging in to use the service, but the system was so over loaded that it didn't work. So we tried the phone, and that was busy for over a half hour. Then our call was answered and we were put on hold for a long time. When we finally got an operator, every movie we wanted, and every back-up second choice we wanted was already sold out. The only movie we were able to get tickets for was a screening on Saturday night at a theatre about 6 miles outside of Park City (who wants to leave Park City just to see a movie!) of Phantom Love, the film I am in. That's it. Everything else was sold out. And with the service fee, the lottery fee and the telephone fee, it cost us 52 dollars for two tickets to see the movie I am in. Great!

Now if you can't afford 26 dollars for a movie ticket maybe you should stay home and rent a movie and make some micro-wave popcorn. This is Sundance baby. You might be sitting next to "someone" at a screening. You might see a big star on the street or the table next to you at lunch. Once I ran into Hope Davis at the Albertsons doing some shopping. You never know. So, no, I'm not complaining about spending 52 dollars for two movie tickets, I'm bragging about it! $28 for an entree? $13 dollars for a glass of wine? Bring it on.

Tomorrow we will get in line for last minute tickets to the Premiere of Phantom Love. I hope we can get in. I want to see the first screening, to go up on stage after the movie with the director and the rest of the cast. That is what I want out of this.

I got paid 100 bucks for my participation in this movie. I'm spending thousands to attend the festival. Is it worth it? You bet it is. It's priceless.

More tomorrow! Look for us on E - entertainment! Signing out from Coalville, UT -

Noel