The above photo was taken from Kent Osborne's back porch in Los Angeles, CA. I've been in LA for the past few days visiting Kent and showing HANNAH to some of my friends out here.
Here's an artist's rendering of Kent's home theatre. He has a projector and this wall area where he shows movies. It's great.
We had the first screening on Wednesday night, when I arrived. Mark Duplass came over to see it, because he was leaving for his friend's wedding the next morning. We also had Ti West and Dave Fenster in the house. Kent's friend Garreth, who is living with him at the moment, was present as well.
It was really great to show the film to Kent and Mark. Now the only cast members who still need to see it are Andrew and Todd, and hopefully they'll both be able to see it next week when I'm in NY and Boston.
The next morning Kent and I got up early to go act in a short film that his friend was making. We played 1950's art students who get all crazy when they see a nude model.
After that we went and got our haircuts together. We figured it would be the funniest thing we could do.
Here's where we spend a lot of our time. At the kitchen table, checking MySpace and email.
Tonight we went to see my friend, Lee Lynch, perform with his band, Fireworks, in Chinatown. It was amazing, and I'm glad I was invited to the show. That's Lee singing, and Dave Fenster is on the far right shooting the performance. I met Lee in August when his film, TRANSPOSITION OF THE GREAT VESSELS, played at the Chicago Underground Film Festival. We had friends in common, and he needed a place to stay, so he crashed with me in the Movie House for a few days.
This trip to Los Angeles has been really fun and inspiring. I've seen a lot of friends and been reminded of just how great and exciting American cinema is right now. I can't wait to come back out here again some time.
I was down in Austin, TX this weekend on the jury for the Cinematexas film festival. This city is my second home. If I were to ever leave Chicago it would be to come here.
I acted in a short film that Bryan Poyser shot this summer, BEST BIRTHDAY EVER, and he arranged for an "invite only" screening of the rough cut of the short and the rough cut of HANNAH on Wednesday. It was great to see Bryan's film and also to show HANNAH to a fresh audience of people who knew next to nothing about it. It was very informative and I will certainly be making some changes to the film based on the screening.
Spencer Parsons is also busy at work editing his new feature, I'LL COME RUNNING, and I had the privilege of seeing some footage from that today. It looks amazing and I can't wait to see how it develops.
2007 is going to be a really exciting year for movies! In addition to Bryan and Spencer's films, keep your eyes out for new features from Frank Ross, Aaron Katz, Ry Russo-Young, The Duplass Brothers, Alex Holdridge, Ti West, Yen Tan and hopefully some others like Michael Tully and Todd Rohal.
If you're still checking in, we need you to focus all of your good energy on the movie. There's not much I can reveal at this point, but potentially important things are happening for the film and we want your love.
Color correction and sound mix updates will be forthcoming, but for the moment we're playing a lot of the waiting game. As soon as I can say something, I will.
I'm home from my trip to NY. I had a totally amazing birthday week. It was great to get away from life for a while, see lots of friends, promote various projects, and feel like part of a great filmmaking community. But the whole week felt a little incomplete, because I didn't get to see Greta. I was really looking forward to spending time with her and showing her the movie, but she was trapped in Scotland. With each passing day, it became more and more apparent that I wasn't going to see her. The day before I was set to leave, I got an email from her confirming that she wasn't getting home until around the same time I was leaving. I was bummed. I wrote her back saying that we were just going to miss each other, explaining that my flight was out of Newark in the afternoon.
I got an email from her the next morning saying that she was landing in Newark approximately 50 minutes before my flight was set to leave and that she was going to try and come find me. I thought it was sweet, but I figured I would already be on the flight before she got through customs and picked up her baggage. It made it even sadder that we would be so close and still miss each other.
On the train into New Jersey my phone rang and it was Greta. She said that her phone was almost out of batteries but that she was at the airport and she was going to try and get through customs as fast as she could. I told her I was flying AirTran if she wanted to try and find me. Then her phone died.
I got to the airport about 15 minutes before my flight and realized that I wasn't going to catch it. I went to the counter and luckily there was another non-stop flight to Chicago a few hours later. I was able to get a seat on it, and I tried to call Greta to tell her that I was going to be in the airport for a while, but her phone was dead, so I got her voicemail, which was full. It was now about 10 minutes before my original flight was supposed to leave, and with her phone dead, I figured she would just head home, accepting that we weren't going to see each other.
I was looking around the terminal, trying to figure out where I would go to kill time, and suddenly I saw her, frantic look on her face, making her way through people, trying to find me. I shouted out her name, and she heard me, but didn't know where the voice was coming from. Finally she saw me and we gave each other a huge hug. She still didn't know that I was on a later flight, so she was looking really anxious, but I told her that we actually had some time to hang out, so we went and got food at T.G.I.Fridays in the airport.
It was the best possible ending to my trip. We spent about 2 hours hanging out, and it was totally great. She told me all about Scotland and I told her all about my week in NY and the experience finally felt complete. This is the second time that Greta and I have hung out on borrowed time. It's becoming a theme. It's great. I hope it keeps happening. I got this picture of her as I stood in line to go through security.
I miss Chris Wells, Aaron Katz, Michael Tully and Kark Jacobs, my NY crew.
I'm in NY right now, and have been for the past week, for the theatrical release of LOL. There are still three more NY screenings (tonight, tomorrow, and Sunday night at 9PM) if you want to check it out. It's at the Pioneer Theatre.
I was supposed to go home on Monday, but I extended my trip so that I could attend the MUTUAL APPRECIATION release party last night. It also happened to be my 25th birthday, so I was excited to spend it with Andrew and Ry and to have a sort of HANNAH mini-reunion.
I was able to show Ry the rough cut of the film while I was here, which was exciting and great. She's the first member of the movie family to see it, and she really liked it, so I'm dying to show it to everyone else over the next few weeks.
I was able to spend a lot of time with Chris Wells over the course of the week, which was great. We hung out so much last summer making LOL that it was weird to not really see him much this year. I feel like we made up for lost time during this trip. As you can see from the picture, we have decided to be a couple and try out the long distance thing.
I also spent some great days and nights hanging out with Aaron Katz (in Chicago last week and here in NY this week). Aaron made the film DANCE PARTY USA, which was my favorite film at SXSW this year. He's working on something new and I'm really excited about it. In the meantime, check out his food blog, Things I Eat, which he promises to update soon.
I'm heading back to Chicago in a few hours, where I will get back to work completing the movie. Kevin is almost finished with the music, and we need to work on the titles, sound mix, and color correction. I can't wait to put the finishing touches on it and start trying to get it out into the world.
