This morning of the premiere, I got up too early and started drinking way too much coffee, which lead to a full-fledged panic attack. Cassie’s flatmate Brendan talked me back from the ledge. The film screened at 2:40 p.m. so spent the day pacing and practicing my speech.
The rental car place had a drop off service, so it was like getting chauffeured to the premiere. The screening was held at the Imaginasian Center in downtown L.A., which is very nice. I hung out in the lobby with the J-crew eating their onigiri and drinking their tea until Kevin and Dave arrived. I was afraid they were going to be the only ones to show up, but pretty soon people started to arrive, and we went into the cinema.
The cinema was really nice. Good comfy seats with lots of leg room, nice speakers and a nice sized screen. There were about 20 people there, which I thought was pretty good for a Monday afternoon at 2:40 p.m.
I got up and gave my speech, which went really well mostly because I couldn’t see a damn thing with the spot light in my eyes. On the way back to my seat, I was approached by another festival programmer, and we swapped cards.
I stayed for the whole film. Thank god we did the sound mix (which wasn’t in time for this screening) because the sound is ropey. Something we hadn’t noticed on the home speakers or even on the LFS speakers. But you really notice it on a good set of speakers like at the Imaginasian Center.
People laughed right the way through. Some people came up afterwards and said they really enjoyed it and that they really could relate to the characters…that they felt like they were sharing a part of their lives through the film. I was sad that Patrick wasn’t there for the first public screening.
Kevin and Dave drove me back to Cassie’s place, and I crashed a bit. Too much excitement for one day.
