Park City, Utah. Way too early this morning. Zoom In topdog Megan Cunningham, Senior Editor Annie Frisbie and I head over to Park City TV, where Megan and I are to give a live interview. Annie, being smart, is going to sit this one out. On the way over, our cab passes the slowest car accident I've ever seen. One car just slides over in slow motion on the ice and gives the other car a little love tap. But there is still major destruction. Is this an omen?
At the TV station we meet the hosts, Ryan and Kennedy. Kennedy brings out our wireless microphones. It's that kind of place. Kennedy does the weather too. After a cup of coffee, Megan and I are on the air. As the always high-octane Cunningham tells Ryan all the cool stuff we're going to zoom while we're here, I look on listlessly, musing about the warm bed I abandoned to appear on live TV at 8:20 am. Somehow I find the breakneck speed of Megan's commentary very soothing. Just before I completely drift off to sleep, Ryan decides this would be a good time to ask me a question about something or other. Annie tells me later that I answered him right away and I was really great. But the caption on screen said that I was Chris Hamilton (the woman who set up the interview), so if I sucked, no one will know it was me. Back home in NY, my girlfriend watches Park City TV online the whole damned day and we never came on. Censorship?
Ready for more excitement, we venture over to the Marriott, where the festival press office is located. We stand in line for our press badges. Then they tell us to go stand in another line. We get lost and ask a volunteer where the other line is. She doesn't know, but she finds someone who does. This is an experience that keeps happening all day. Everyone is very helpful, but no one really know how to help. If you're always going to be lost, it's beneficial if the clueless people are really nice. The line for the accreditations isn't long but there is something wrong with the printer, and so the line doesn't move. After I take my usual scary picture for the badge, the woman is nice enough to let me take it again. It's midday when we finally get out of there, but I got a heckuva picture. And everyone was really nice.
Just as we step out, Eugene Hernandez of IndieWire is in the lobby and asks me to do an interview. All about what it's like to just get into Sundance and stuff like that. My second interview of the day! After I finish, I ask Eugene if I could interview him for Zoom In and he says yes. So here it is, folks, my very first video blog.
After I finish, IndieWire's Anthony Kaufman comes over. He's wondering if we noticed how weird it was that Eugene interviewed me and then I turned around and interviewed me. I ask Anthony if he'll do an interview with me too, but that's way too much log-rolling for him and he says no.
I spend most of the afternoon visiting the various publicists' offices. Some of the flacks are just chilling but some are about as tense as human beings can be. They are in that publicist zone, where their fierce desire to schedule endless interviews is squeezing their heads into jelly. I know the feeling well. I think back on all my fond memories of being a publicist at Sundance and decide I like being a video blogger much more.
I leave the Marriott to check out the room at New Frontier on Main where I will give my publicity workshop tomorrow. No one knows where it is. There's no sign or anything. I find a nice woman from Adobe and she knows exactly where it is. It's a nice space but it's so dark in there I won't be able to see the audience. Of course, as there is no sign maybe there will be no audience, so that'll be okay. Megan has promised to come, if she isn't in a screening. I am still very excited about doing this tomorrow and grateful to Adobe for asking me.
Tonight I went to see my first movie, a screening of Brett Morgen's CHICAGO 10 (More about this later--I'll be interviewing Brett). On the way in to the Yarrow Hotel, there was this woman standing on the sidewalk. She looked like she wanted to get going, but just couldn't. "I'm scared to death of ice," she tells me. She's in the right place.
I agree with your views on Censorship, sometimes it is taken overboard, be it for political reasons or supposed morality ones.