Here is director Mel House's write-up on the con, with a picture of me finally.
I just returned from SiliCon in San Jose. It was definitely the "nerdiest" thing I had been to in a while. I say that with nothing but love, being a huge nerd/dork/geek myself.
Friday I arrived, and had to wait around the SJ airport for a little while, thanks to Molly's instructing the driver to "look for a nice-looking Black guy." My guess is that he was expecting to see Will Smith on his first go-round. I did eventually get my homely and only half Black ass to the hotel, though. Upon arrival, I quickly found Molly and Wil from Horror Yearbook (they're pretty much the reason I was at SiliCon in the first place), checked in, got my credientials and schedule, walked down the road to get some sushi, and basically just got the lay of the land. Tim arrived later that evening, and after an informal meet and greet, everyone eventually congregated...you guessed it...at the bar. Needless to say, I drank a lot of Coke. We all then went to check out the short film festival that Horror Yearbook put together for the con (hosted by Molly). The movies were all enjoyable with a couple of stand outs (Criticised and David Pope's Gasoline Blood spring to mind), but unfortunately, I had to puss out and go to bed early. For some reason I was wiped out.
Saturday's Closet Space screening was cancelled due to poor planning and incompetence, but it's just as well, as I generally hate convention screenings. In addition to the video and audio issues that always seem to pop up, conventions are just a bad atmosphere for seeing movies in my opinion. At any rate, a lot of people really WANTED to see the movie and were constantly asking me about it, so that will just make our West Coast screening even more successful when it comes around.
I popped in for my appearance on the "Images of People Of Color" panel, but there was a little too much White Guilt and Black Rage for my liking, so I bailed early. Seriously, I don't see what the problem is with creating believable characters of color. Write good, believable, fleshed-out characters, and then cast Black actors. Duh. There's no need to "over-Blackify" anything. I mean, it's not like Geordi LaForge would dance around in a loincloth and tribal mask when he wasn't on the bridge. At any rate, since there wasn't a screening going on, I cooled my heels at the bar with Tim and Shannon Lark from the Living Dead Girlz/Chainsaw Mafia. Tim and I ended up telling Shannon the entire sordid Witchcraft 13 saga (which blew her mind), and then somehow she and Tim convinced me to finally discuss the plot of Walking Distance. I pretty much laid it all out there, for the first time ever as far as my new take on the idea goes. It felt pretty good to talk out all of the story particulars, even though it was weird at times due to the very personal and somewhat autobiographical nature of some of the through-lines. I could tell that I was on to something when they both would be like "Dude...that's fucked up" when I would describe some of the gory setpieces. Awesome. Hopefully, they'll both be involved when we get into production next year. There's a part that's tailor made for Shannon, and a couple of different roles that Tim could take. Sadly, none of those involve any "swerving" of any kind.
Saturday night was more bar debauchery, puncuated by my retelling some of the famous "Mel worked on porn" stories, visits to the "party floor" of the hotel (the highlight was the Klingon Bar - not kidding about that), and a visit from an Irish expatriate who had just relocated to San Jose for work. Quite interesting, and yet it somehow all made a weird sort of sense.
Sunday morning I sat on another filmmaker's panel (Ramzi Abed was among those on the panel with me), and that went well. It still amazes me how many people have heard of Closet Space and want to see it. Guess all that time behind the keyboard paid off. After that, I checked out and headed to the airport. Another whirlwind trip.
I'm buying my new camera either tomorrow or Tuesday, so that we can have it by the time we start shooting Sweatshop. Stacy tells me that today's read through went well, which is good to hear. For those that don't know, Melanie is now also officially part of the cast, making Sweatshop probably our most incestuous project to date. "From the makers of Barricade, Domain of the Damned, Flesh Keeper, Closet Space, and Sway".
In closing, here are some pics from SiliCon.
I make Molly swoon with my bowl of gross veggie stuff.
Tim Wrobel (Closet Space) & Shannon Lark from the Living Dead Girlz/Chainsaw Mafia
