DIY Days

Last Sunday I attended DIY Days at the 111 Minna Gallery in San Francisco. My friend Maria, a classmate from CalArts, suggested that we go, so I have her to thank for getting me off my ass. It was an inspiring day of panels and case studies about very independent filmmaking, alternative distribution and self-promotion for your film projects. We heard from Tiffany Shlain, Arin Crumley, Caveh Zahedi and Lance Weiler among many others.

Here Maria is arguing with her friend, Ben, about whether it makes sense to buy people you're trying to network with, or pitch to, or from whom you want something, a cup of coffee:

My favorite talk of the day happened in the later afternoon, when the schedule was starting to bunch up, so it was not given quite as much time as I would have liked. It was called "Cinema and the Singularity," which title intrigued me enough to encourage me to stay when I had been contemplating leaving earlier.

The question the speakers were asking was rather mind-blowing to me. They asked, "What would singularity cinema look like?" A different way of putting that might be, "What happens when the stories start writing themselves?"

This was meaningful to me because, in a sense, it was a subject of my thesis film, Nervous, but I was only scratching the surface of those issues. The idea, though, of avatars in virtual worlds becoming self-aware and spinning narratives of their own is pretty interesting, if difficult to imagine and technologically unlikely (for now). It's a much more interesting topic philosophically than as some kind of prediction. I have thought about working out a feature-length version of the film, in which case I would certainly come back to these ideas.

As it turns out, though, the panels were not the best parts of my day. The second best part was learning about a crazy, amazing super-pen. I'm an avid note-taker, so this pen was one of the coolest things I have ever seen in my life. The kid who showed it to me was a little nervous at first - apparently he had just been trained by the company and had chosen me as one of his first marks to try his pitch on, so I could have easily rejected his advances. But it was a home run for him because I thought the pen was super-awesome.

The best part of the day was totally unexpected. Faye Dunaway was at DIY Days and I got to meet her for a quick moment, just as she was preparing to leave. Apparently, she is really into DIY cinema and fascinated with new technology, which is pretty cool for a woman in her late sixties. She was very nice and pretty low-key and was cool about me introducing myself as a fan and talking with her for a moment. It was thrilling, because I absolutely love her and several of her films are among my favorites, including Chinatown and Network. I gave her directions to Market Street.

Here she is, on her way out: