Guerilla Filmmaking, or Filmmaking Gorilla?

I'm sitting in Newark Airport right now typing this up (for later upload) because I've basically got nothing better to do since my departing flight got delayed. Again. It's a fitting coda to the final pre-movie premiere convention trip, which has been among the best and worst of them all for various reasons. Rather than go through all the positive and then all the negative stuff in segregated list fashion, I'll run it all down for you in sequential order to preserve the rollercoaster like effect these things tend to have on me.

So, I get everything prepared, pack up, get my usual greasy spoon breakfast at Frank's Grill, and then head to the airport on Thursday morning. My flight was scheduled for a 9:15 AM departure. I get to the airport and my spider-sense starts tingling. There are massive gluts of obviously flustered people. Jason Stewart leaves me a voicemail saying that his flight from the OC has been outright canceled, and he can't fly out until Friday afternoon. Kristi calls me and tells me HER flight out is delayed. Then I notice the news, and apparently the entire East Coast is being attacked by Galactus or something. Crazy weather is screwing up the flight schedule and basically stranded people en route to the Right Coast for about 24 hours. What does this mean for me? Nothing at first, as it seems that my flight is still running on time. I paid full price for my ticket, so those bumped standby passengers can eat a bag of dicks, I think to myself. No way are they going to give my seat away. Then I see a crane sidle up to the rudder of the plane we were supposed to be boarding. The maintenance man aboard that crane started to do some pretty major mechanical stuff to the inner working of this plane's ass. Then the departure time starts what will be a steady rhythmic slide...later....later...still later....updates every 15 minutes....still later...more mechanical difficulties...the maintenance man pulls out a roll of duct tape (not kidding)...later....it's about 11:00 at this point...then they try to find another plane for us, because the previous one is unfixable (even with duct tape)...more time passes....they finally get a plane, board us, and we're in the air about 12:30 PM or so. Then we end up circling for an hour and a half in a holding pattern because the weather is too bad to land in Newark. Then we get diverted to Philly, because Newark is not accepting flights. We sit on the runway in Philly for about 2 hours, then take off and head to Newark, finally. I landed and got my rental car at about 10:30 PM. I was supposed to arrive in Newark at about 2 PM. Then I saw the huge gaggle of people that got screwed much worse than me, and it didn't really seem like that big of a deal in the long run. I slept or listened to the iPod during most of it anyway. I think Wilco's Summerteeth is my new favorite in-flight soundtrack.

So, I arrive at the hotel, and I'm all by my lonesome for the rest of Thursday evening and part of Friday. I take part in a Indie Horror Filmmakers panel on Friday morning/early afternoon, and it went very well - the Closet Space trailer got an awesome response, and sowed the seeds for people approaching me about it all weekend. Marcus Koch was also up there with me promoting 100 Tears. That trailer went over like gangbusters as well. I also got to see a bunch of other trailers from some really talented guys like Alan Rowe Kelly, Bart Mastronardi, Joshua Nelson, and Stolis Hadjicharalambous. I can't wait to see each and every one of these flicks, and it was an honor to sit on the panel alongside these guys. Here are some photos from that.

From left to right: Alan, Joshua, Bart, Stolis, Marcus and myself. This is beyond awesome to me, since I've been coming to these Fango conventions since I was a kid.

Me saying something stoically brilliant. Or probably just cursing a lot.

They sent us to the back to do autographs. Autographs?!?

Marcus and I signing away. People actually were into it. Weird.

So yeah, the panel was awesome. Lots and lots and LOTS of people approached me over the weekend and complimented me on the movie, the trailer, and the stuff I said during the panel (even the cursing). Several of them were like "bro, I can tell you are going to do great things in horror just by seeing that trailer." I even had other filmmakers at the con mention the fact that there was huge buzz about Closet Space going around in the horror community. Of course, that's one of the most awesome things a burgeoning horror filmmaker can hear, so I thank them all and hopefully I won't let you down.

Friday night I got to hang with the extended 100 Tears/Barricade/Alan Rowe Kelly family and some Fangoria folks which was really nice. We all had a lot of fun eating steak and talking shit. I wish we could do that every weekend.
Saturday was more of the same - Melanie and Jason Stewart showed up, as well as Jason "The Unquiet Void" Wallach (whom we had never met up until then). He fit right in to the dysfunctional family, and we had a blast, busy though it was. Jason Stewart also sat in on a Fearmakers panel with Joe Davison, Debbie Rochon, and Manoush, which was pretty cool. Of course, he managed to plug Closet Space as well.

I also had a chance to talk a lot with David Stagnari and Chris Garetano from Horror Business, which was really really cool. David was someone who I really responded to upon seeing Horror Business, and Chris is equally cool to talk with. I look forward to whatever both of these guys have up their sleeves.

The most surreal moment had to be when Harry "ki ki ma ma" Manfredini came up to me and complimented me on Closet Space, and my panel appearances at Fango and Texas Frightmare Weekend. I mean, this guy FUCKING SCORED FRIDAY THE 13TH for Christ's sakes. I'm still kind of wigged out by that one.

Dinner again with the gang on Saturday night, then back to the hotel for the drunken debauchery/starfucking/empty conversation with your too-drunk friends that takes place every Saturday night at every one of these shows. This is where I check out, pretty much, 'cause it ain't my thing. I even tend to avoid the VIP parties because they seem like kind of a joke to me for all those reasons I just mentioned. Plus, I'm usually tired from actually, you know...WORKING during the day at these shows. It's draining. Even when we did go into the VIP party, I ended up talking to David Stagnari for most of the evening...which is what I was doing in the lobby BEFORE I went into the party. Melanie and I actually ended up hanging out with Michael Gingold for a while and just bullshitting, which was great. Jason and I did the same on Friday night with Mike, and I look forward to more horror bullshit sessions in the future with him. He's a really cool guy, and not just because he's the managing editor of Fangoria.

So, Sunday comes, I make the drive through the Lincoln and Midtown tunnels to take Melanie to LaGuardia, come back to the con for a bit to see the exclusive footage for The Third Mother (not that impressed, sorry, although Coralina Cataldi-Tassoni is an awesome person), and then say my goodbyes and pack up and leave. And here I am now, burned out but satisfied. I'm glad this is the last show for a while, because part of this whole convention thing really wears me down. And it ain't cheap, either.

Now I just have to start pre-production for Jonah's video shoot, which we start on the 18th or so. No rest for the wicked.