Maybe I should start with the good news. Coffee and Celluloid is listed as one of the blogs for TIFF. I’m not sure if that’s any sort of achievement to celebrate - after all, I was bumped down.
But I do have the chance for one my posts to be featured on the TIFF front page. That would be pretty cool. So unlike Full Frame, I WILL blog the day I see the film and not months later.
So for the next week, expect to see TIFF related posts, starting with my movie picks tomorrow.
And just to nitpick, look!
I used to be 3. You can’t even count how far down this is.
As I said in summation, driving Geoffrey around brought me a lot closer to Paul Cohen, an independent distributor1 who is the business side of show business in one man.
I guess I did a good job with Geoffrey because Paul really seemed to like me. Over the next few months (the Geoffrey chauffeuring was back in February), we met and had coffee a few times and finally had a ‘thank you’ dinner.
Paul moved to Tallahassee not to leave the business but to move to a less expensive town, so he’s starting up a new distribution company in conjunction with the school to serve as a learning environment for the business side of filmmaking.
He asked if I wanted to intern and work on distributing and marketing real movies. How about ‘yes.’
So to skip a bit, and because we’re under non-disclosure agreements so I can’t talk about it much, there’s about eight of us interning, working in a separate building virally marketing the Germs biopic What We Do Is Secret.
You can see some of my handy work if you search for the What We Do Is Secret group on Facebook (over 400 members) as well as some write-ups on music blogs.
This is part three of a five part adventure that involves driving Geoffrey Gilmore (the Director of the Sundance Film Festival) around Tallahassee, Diet Cokes, private jets, The Visitor, tea, a 4 am flight, and of course, coffee. Part one and Part two.
Geoffrey, the Dean, Paul and I went to Urbane downtown to meet Steve McQueen (I know, awesome name), Director of Seven Days of Opening Nights, for lunch. Urbane is definitely for the politicians and not poor college kids, but they had the most amazing butternut squash ravioli.
As for the lunch conversation, I didn’t take much of an active roll. Everyone had already seen the mystery movie, so it was fun to try to piece together what it was. Richard Jenkins was mentioned, and how the director turned down financing because he had to have him as the lead. And everyone agreed that he was perfect for the roll.
After lunch we took a tour of the Film School. The entire week leading up to the visit, the school went into clean-up mode with the carpets washed, walls painted, furniture fixed, posters displayed, and emails telling everyone to keep everything neat and organized. Walking into the school with Geoffrey, I’ve never seen it so nice. The Dean gave a tour of the school as I followed along and took a few pictures.
We then went over to Gadsden Studios. Gadsden is still a mysterious place to me. It used to be a studio where The Allman Brothers recorded1. Somehow the Film School bought it, and my first year we used it for crew drills to practice filming. Some thesis films even shot there.
Then we stopped going there. There were rumors it was sold or condemned, but neither seemed to be true. Instead it’s being converted into the offices for Torchlight, another Film School venture. I’m still trying to grasp what exactly Torchlight will do2. Hopefully I’ll figure it out before I graduate, since I’m interning with it in the fall.
But the Dean wanted to show Geoffrey what they were planning, so this was the first time I had been back in more than a year. It looked about the same as I remember, besides some new carpet and cleaned up offices. It’s no surprise I have a thing for offices, and seeing these empty ones gave me a rush of potential.
After taking the entourage to a lunch meeting, I drove Geoffrey back to his hotel to get ready for the Seven Days event that night. After sneaking a peak at a rough cut of my F3 and grabbing three Diet Cokes for Geoffrey, I returned to the hotel.
This time it was just Geoffrey and I in the car, a scenario where I was wondering what would happen. What do we talk about? “So…you like movies?”
We talked a bit about the campus layout. I asked if he’d seen Helvetica. He hadn’t. We arrived at the theater, where I dropped him off.
I met up with some friends, had an overpriced on-campus dinner, then wasted some time again. I didn’t want to go home so they wouldn’t have to wait when ready, so I parked in a nearby lot, put the seat back, and took a nap.
Some time later in the middle of deep sleep, I got the call. They were ready. Since I was right around the corner, I didn’t have much time to mentally awake.
When I picked them up they were talking about going to an after party. Fortunately, the Dean saw I was not fully present and rescued me by offering to drive Geoffrey for the rest of the night. One of Paul’s signature Iced Venti Americanos probably would have done the trick, but I didn’t argue. Another day done.
He’s the Director of the Sundance Film Festival, and I drove him around town and assisted him as he visited Tallahassee.
This was back in February, a few weeks after Sundance and a week after the Berlin Film Festival, which he attended, so he was pretty exhausted. The main reason for his visit was to be a speaker at Tallahassee’s Seven Days of Opening nights. The $25 tickets were sold out weeks before to hear him speak and see a film that just screened at Sundance, though specifics such as a title or director were kept secret.
I almost let this opportunity pass me by. I got an email from the Dean’s assistant, asking if I was interested in being Mr. Gilmore’s assistant when he was in town. I thought this was a mailing list email until a few days later I noticed it started with ‘Joey.’ I had the ‘Oh shit, am I too late?’ moment and quickly responded.
A few days later I met with the Dean and Paul Cohen, an independent producer and distributor who just joined the faculty and longtime friend of Geoffrey, and went over my responsibilities. I was to drive Mr. Gilmore around, be on call if he needed anything, and basically make sure he had a great Film School experience.
This is part one of a five part adventure that involves driving around Tallahassee, Diet Cokes, private jets, The Visitor, tea, a 4 am flight, and of course, coffee.
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