8 posts tagged “wisconsin film festival”

Ok, so...Saturday.  The screening wasn't until 11:15PM saturday night so we decided to have a little pre-premiere party at a local club called the Cardinal Bar.  All the rappers that were going to be in town for the festival, MC Router, Monzy and the Former Fat Boys, agreed to do short sets.  We were also hella lucky enough to get a special guest performer and Wisconsinite, Luke Ski on the bill. http://www.myspace.com/thegreatlukeski

The show came together at the last minute but the line-up was actually pretty great.  There was just one problem; we forgot to tell anyone about the frackin' concert.  So after going to Burlington Coat factory for some reason we frantically ran around town depositing piles of fliers at some of the film festival sites.  What amazed me is that when people looked at the flier they actually knew about the documentary and lamented the fact that they couldn't get tickets.  Madness.  People also seemed excited about the venue I picked.  Apparently the 100 year old Cardinal Bar was kind of a notorious spot in town.  Its the kind of place you go to when you want to get into some serious weirdness.

I wasn't too hyper nervous about the screening since it was already sold out for sure but I was freaked about the concert.  I just wanted to do something small, fast and fun but I was starting to worry that no one would show up.  But somehow word spread and people started to arrive.  Like, way more people than I expected.  Maybe 60?  Lemme tell you, for an all-nerdcore show, that's kind of a huge turnout!  And what was really interesting is that when people came into the bar many of them literally RAN to the back of the club to see the show.  Seriously....people heard nerdcore and ran right for it.

The show was great and everybody kicked ass.  It was a lot of fun and the bartenders were apparently so pleased with all the people we brought in that our group got lots and lots and lots and lots of free drinks.  A lot of people in our group of Nerdcore artists, filmmakers and friends were, well, wasted by 10:30pm which was the time I set as the end of the party.  This end-time was set in stone (as far as I was concerned) since at 10:55 the theater was going to start giving away empty seats to people who were waiting in line without tickets. 

Do you know how hard it is to get a mob of drunk people to leave a bar where they've been getting free drinks?  Even if you're trying to get them to go to a movie that they're IN??  It ain't fuckin' easy!!  Router, God bless her, was obliterated and she refused to leave before she finished her last beer.  At 11:45 we finally had to shove her into my car secret service style and spirit her away.  (I drove since I was too nervous to get drunk.)   Since Madison has a huge ass Capital building in the middle of town the streets are all jacked up.  One ways are everywhere and streets just end suddenly.  We knew exactly how to get to our theater on foot but because we were so late our only option was to drive.  Seven people were jammed into my car and everyone one of them was screaming advice at me.  Except for router...she was just screaming.

I finally encountered one too many one way streets and just freaked out.  We were begging to be pulled over (having 3 people in the front made it almost impossible for me to steer and router might have been screaming obscenities out the window) and if that happened, we'd miss the screening.  I knew we were just a few blocks away from the venue (the really cool Bartell theater) so I pulled over and told everybody to get the hell out.  We had about 5 minutes before the stand-by line was going to be let in.  Oh, and I had the tickets for about a dozen people from our group that were already waiting at the theater for us.  So we started walking.  Slowly our walk turned into frantic speed walking and then embarrassed jogging.  We rounded a corner and I was blown away when I saw that there were tons of people waiting in line to get into see the film.  If I hadn't felt like such a huge moron for running up to the theater with a trail of screaming drunks following me I would have been able to stop and be excited.  Instead I just kept my name badge hidden and hoped no one would realize that the jerk who was really, really late was the director.

I doled out our tickets and we went inside the theater and sure enough, the place sold liquor!  Rod bought beers for pretty much our whole group and router bought lots of beer and wine for herself.  She took a seat dead center in the first row and I went back and sat with the Former Fat Boys in the near back.  Router thought I should sit down in the front though so um, stood up and started yelling at me in the middle of the crowded theater.  My cover was blown since she her point was essentially "Dan you're the fucking director, get down here and sit in the front you asshole!!!"  But I wanted to actually SEE the movie from the audiences' perspective so I stayed in back.  Mercifully the film started to before things got too out of control.

The screening was great and despite my concerns about some last minute glitches, the film looked really good on the big screen.  The audience laughed like crazy when they were supposed too and they seemed genuinely intersted during the more serious bits.  My big fear was that people would start walking out after a few minutes but everyone stayed in their seats.  Well....except for Router who felt sick at one point and had to leave.  When she came back she apparently was feeling much better because she...sigh...started heckling and swearing at people in the film that she doesn't care for personally.  She might have stood up and flipped off the screen once or twice.  It wasn't all negative though.  She did cheer a few times....when she appeared on screen.  Some people minded but I think the crowd actually thought it added to to the excitement of the premiere.  Yeah...that's the ticket.

Even though the movie ended at about 12:40am at least 70% of the audience stayed for the Q&A.  I would have bet MONEY that the Q&A wasn't going to happen because everyone was going to go home.  I went down on stage and was joined by Rod, co-producer Rob who had flown in from LA and our editors/co-producers, Kipp and K.C.  The questions were pretty good and after a while a hardcore nerdcore fan that was in the auidence (he had been begging me to get him a ticket at the show) yelled out for the artists to join us on stage.  So Monzy, Router, and the Former Fat Boys got to join us.  It was great.  There were so many questions that the fest organzier had to stop the Q&A since it was already past 1am.

Outside the theater our whole group (which was about 14 people plus the editor's and their friends) was happy, proud and buzzed.  I was relieved it was over.  The former fat boys had to head back to Chicago so they took off after they were each assualted in one way or another by a beer and wine fueled MC Router.  The FFBs were back just about five minutes later though.  They drove and Ben (I believe) stuck his ass far, far out of the car's passenger side window and mooned everybody.  Everybody went apeshit in the street and the festival organizers literally fled the scene.  They were laughing at the insanity but since router was now violently punching everyone who was trying to get her to stop screaming incoherently the fest people had look of WTF in the eyes.  I'm sure I did too. 

The rest of what happened that night is too messed up to really go into.  Long story short, The Fat Boys came by and mooned us again, and we went back to the Cardinal Bar to pick up all the stuff that Router forgot.  Everyone who wasn't already smashed got drunk beyond a reasonable limit. (except me again since someone had to drive and basically be in charge)  The bar closed and the folks there who had previously been our buddies now were screaming for everyone to GTFO.  Outside Router punched me square in the balls for reasons that neither of understand.  We went back to our suite where everyone dipped into the mini fridge and the night ended with Router passed out in the big bed and me sleeping on a chair.

So that was the premiere.  It was cool and the screening and show went great but I'm not sure how I feel about the whole thing.  I think I'm just glad it's over.  We just got our second invite to a festival so I guess we'll be doing it all again in just a few weeks. 

On Friday, associate producer Rod and I (I being Dan the director) picked up one of the stars of Nerdcore For Life, MC Router from Midway Airport.  Ignoring Router's pleas to stop at a deep dish pizza place, we immediately left chicago and sped off to Madison.  Because this was the first time I've ever had a feature in a film fest I thought I'd splurge a bit and book us a room at a Red Roof Inn a mere 5 miles from where the film was set to screen.  (Normally when I travel anywhere for the film I go Motel 6 all the way and jam the entire crew in one room)  Well, the red roof inn was the worst red roof inn ever so we bounced and headed to downtown Madison.  Rod insisted we check out a super swanky hotel right across from the Wisconsin state capitol building.  He charged in there, told the guy at the front desk we were with the Wisconsin film fest and somehow we wound up with most frickin' pimp ass SUITE north of Illinois border.  I'm not sure why but we got some kind of special WFF discount and the room (or rooms really, it was seriously pimped out) was crazy cheap. 

The awesomeness continued when I found one of the 50 bamillion Onion newspaper boxes that are all over that town.  I had done an interview with a reporter from the A.V. club about two weeks ago and I had a mild happiness-stroke  when I saw that we made had the paper.  Indie cred, thou are mine.  So things were off to a great start but then....then the drinking began.

Now as anyone who knows MC Router can tell you, that girl loves her Pabst Blue Ribbon.  And there we were, in Wisconsin, the PBR motherland.  When we saw that our pimp suite had a pimp fridge in it, we had to stop at a liquor store so that we could fill up said pimp fridge with liquid supplies.  Did you know that they sell 40 ouncers of PBR?  Neither did I.  Neither did Router.  That's one factoid neither of us, or really, anyone who attended the premiere, will ever forget.  We stocked up and headed to a party sponsored by the festival where we met up with another artist from the film (and Madison native!) Monzy.  Monzy by the way was good enough to take time out from FINISHING HIS PhD THESIS at Stanford and fly to Wisconsin to attend the screening of our rinky dink movie.  Now that's one hardcore dude that has his priorities straight!

So about Madison; it's a super cool town that seems like it was built to hold a film fest.  Every other (usually one way) street had some kind of cool, indie theater on it.  Seriously, it was surreal.  Even in Chicago doesn't have that many independent theaters.  Oh, know what else Madison has a lot of?  Really fun bars.  And that's exactly where we me, Rob, Router and Monzy spent the rest of Friday night.

I'm tired again just from trying to remember what happened this weekend so I'll have to cover saturday, tomorrow, 

The text is a little hard to read in the scan.  Here's the close up:

And yes it's true, I have been dissed.  A Nerdcore rapper named Kabuto was feeling slighted that he didn't make it into Nerdcore For Life and he skewered me and my lack of documentary film making skills in a track.  I'd be offended but the song is actually fantastic so I'm strangely honored.  The song is called Lashings and you can find it on Kabuto's myspace page:

http://www.myspace.com/KABUTORAP

That description amazes me.  We didn't provide that to the festival.  They came up with that themselves and it's so good I could almost use it as my official synopsis.  I mean, someone really took their time writing that.  Where did they get all those song lyrics from!?  The Wisconsin Film Fest is pretty hardcore.