My Family

Saturday was the screening of a film I shot a year ago. The director just finished her MFA from the Art Institute of Chicago. They hold screenings of their students' films at the end of the year. Ours was shown along with four other short films ranging from two and a half minutes all the way up to 38 minutes. I expected our film to be 10 minutes long. I was wrong. It is 38 minutes. So now I have to sit through nearly 40 minutes every time a friend or family member wants to see it. I do have to say that it was surreal seeing myself on a big screen.

You all will be happy to know that I didn't see myself on the big screen and immediately want to throw up and yell FIRE! so everyone would have to leave the theater. I was doing my best to act calm and collected as my friends held my hands beside me. My final thought was "That wasn't as bad as I thought it would be." Sure the sound wasn't the best but it ended up being somewhat charming. I'm mostly proud of the director because she came so close to giving up half way through the project. I was also secretly delighted because she received the most interest/questions from the audience.

It was such a fun experience to go to the screening and see people share their creativity and stories. It's a fun thing to do on a weekend if you ever get a chance to do it in your local city. My favorite was a guy who did a home movie that lasted six minutes. It combined black and white 16 mm footage with no sound and kid-like art/cartoon crafts to tell a story about his family. It was thoughtful, sweet, truthful and creative.

I have a DVD of our flick if you ever want to see me running around Chicago carrying a rug. I'm not kidding. I did a lot of that. Oh! and I didn't appear nearly as sweaty as I thought I would. I did notice I have really shiny hair.