4 posts tagged “san francisco”

Ok, ok, the San Francisco frozen film festival was a month ago but I haven't had time to do anything with the footage we shot until now.

So here's a video recap of all the awesome fun that was had at the screening and afterparty. There's a little of the post-screening Q&A plus samples of the performances by Drown Radio, Nomad and MC Lars.  I kept putting off making this since I dreaded the thought of uplaoding a decent looking video to youtube only to see its quality turned to gray mud like clips I've uploaded in the past.  I've tried a billion different tricks to get my videos to look better on that site but I've never been able to get decent results.  When you take a 800MB video and smash it down to 80MB so you can make youtube's 100MB limit, you're going to lose a lot of quality. 

Or so it was back in the stone ages!  Youtube has now lifted its 100MB cutoff and videos can now be over a GB big.  The "standard version" of this video looks pretty crappy but if you click through and watch it directly on youtbe, you can select the "Watch in High Quality" version.  The difference in the quality has blown my mind.  It's amazingly sharp.  Youtube, once again you have managed to rock my world, throughly.

DON'T WATCH THIS VIDEO HERE UNLESS YOU LIKE LOOKING AT CRAPPY, BLURRY, GRAY-LOOKING VIDEO FOOTAGE.  CLICK THIS LINK AND WATCH THE HIGH-QUALITY VERSION:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=woW66yChyGs

There's another video I've been meaning to put together and now I'm actually psyched to do it.  Hopefully I'll have it posted in all its High Quality glory in the next two weeks.

As the (geeky) kids say, The San Francisco Frozen Film Fest was full of win.

Translation.  It was neato.  I didn't get an exact number of how many people came to the screening but the audience was huge and I heard that at the very least, we had the biggest turnout of the day.  The audience was probably the best, most appreciative one we've had too.  To be blunt, there were a whole lot of nerds in the crowd and they really seemed to love the movie. 

All of the artists that were in attendance; Doctor Popular, Nomad and MC Lars plus GeekentertainmentTV reporter Iriana Slutsky, did an awesome job of getting the word out about the event.  They blogged and e-mailed and twittered and myspace-bulletined their asses off.  Even Monzy, who was out of town that weekend, told a million of his Bay Area friends to attended.  I think he was able to rope in more than a few CS students since every time he was on screen dropping a rhyme about "linear probing" or MC Plus +'s mom using "hoare semantics" the place went apeshit.

So the screening went great.  I was a little worried because I had waited too long to send the Frozen Film Fest people our screening copy of the film and there was a chance they would have to show the copy I submitted.  That copy is ok but we've made a lot of improvements since that cut.  No worries though, the fest went out of their way to make sure our new cut was used.  The had to send the whole night's program back to the editor since they put all the films onto one master tape!  The guys who put on the Frozen Film fest were just fantastic dudes.  The whole fest is a not-for-profit endeavor and all those guys want to do is get art seen by people.  Truly, they are the ones filled of win.

The Q&A was fun but super fast since the next movie had to start soon after us.  In my head, I had envisioned an exodus of nerdcore fans pouring out of the theater and then heading en mass to the after-party that was happeing right down the block.  And for once, something I envisioned actually sort of happened.  The club we were having the party in, The Double Dutch, went from being 100% empty to nearly full in like 15 minutes. 

I was a little freaked when I first entered the club since the bartender who was supposed to help us set up the sound booth was immediately set-upon by scores of people who really needed a drink after having their understanding of the universe shaken by all the deep, mind boggling issues we explore in the movie.   So I was on my own with the set-up.  True, I'm an AV professional by trade but I'm not a very good one.  But eventually I got everything set and Nomad kicked off the show.  I had never seen him perform before and that guy can tear shit up.

Next up was Doc Pop who performed with his new buddy, All About George.  They make an excellent duo.  No show with Doc Pop would be complete without some brain-bending yo-you action so of course, the crowd got to witness a bit of that magic too.

Doc was followed by a really great local rapper named CK and then MC Lars burned the place to the ground with a kick-ass closing set.  The club was so tiny but Lars managed to go all out and put on his whole stage show.  He had live back up musicians plus his trademark video slideshow.  He even tuned a bench into a makeshift stage.  Let me tell you folks something, MC Lars is the man, man. He is the man.

Lots of other great stuff happened but long story short, a good time was had by all.  Oh...plus we won our first festival award!  Nerdcore For Life was named "Best Music Documentary" of the 2008 San Francisco Frozen Film Fest!  How do you like them apples!?  Big thanks to the fest organizers that treated us so well, the artists that did such a great job at the party and everyone else who came out and helped make it such a cool weekend.

A billion more photos can be found HERE on our Flickr page.

Tickets to the July 12th screening in San Francisco are on sale now.  Buy some already and meet me there.  Oh...I'm going to be there by the way.  This is going to be a fun fest and I couldn't miss it. 

Allegedly, Mark Twain once said:  "The coldest winter I ever spent was a summer in San Fransisco."  What's the mean?  Who knows.  That mustachioed old bastard was nuts.  But apparently the summers in S.F. are notoriously chilly.  All I know is that when I was in the Bay area to film Nerdcore geniuses Monzy and Doctor Popular I got one of

the worst sun burns of my life just from driving around.  And that was in July.  But I'm losing my focus here.  The point is that we got accepted to another film fest and this one's a doozy.  It's the San Fransisco Frozen Film festival, so named because, as their website explains: "The Frozen Film Festival takes place every year in the Dead of Summer, when San Francisco is at its most chill."  Now that's witty.  In your face Mark Twain...if that is your real name.

So I'm sorta shocked that we got into this one.  The website says that more than 250 films were submitted this year and they accepted about three dozen shorts and only like 6 features!  Nerdcore For Life is one of six feature films playing at the festival.  That's absurd.  We got a great time slot too.  All the films play over the course of one weekend at one venue- The Roxie.

The Roxie is F#$%ing awesome looking. It's 99 years old, located in the Mission district and seats 300.  I'm going to have to fly out to San Francisco just so I can see the movie play at this venue.  It's gonna be crazy.  Plus San Fransisco is kind of a nerdcore hot spot so I'm hoping we can pull in a good sized crowd.

Here's the screening info: 

Saturday, July 12 @ 4:15PM.
The Roxie Theater
3117 16th Street between Valencia and Guerrero
Tickets:  $10.00

Tickets available right here, Right now.

And then after the show, amazingness!  We're having a FREE after-party at the old-school hip-hop themed club, The Double Dutch.  What's really great is that the club is just 500 feet from the Roxie so as soon as the film is done anyone intersted in getting their faces rapped off by some of the hottest Nerdcore artists in the scene can head right down the block with us.  It should be awesome.  The line up includes Nomad, CK, Doctor Popular and MC Lars!  You can't beat that man.  Check out the pics of Double Dutch below.  It looks amazingly perfect.