It’s time for the annual pilgrimage to Big D for the DIFF, The Dallas International Film Festival … does that make me a film pilgrim? I digress, (with assonance, I might add) …
It’s great fun … and sometimes I actually get to see a film or two, but a lot of the time is spent on the carpet … the red carpet. The other night I rushed over to meet, greet and Nikon-ize the directors and talents paraded through the reporters/photographers’ gauntlet.
But before all that, I spotted the festival’s Artistic Director James Faust and stopped by to surprise him with a big Texas Tech #GunsUp hand gesture and greeting … pretty neat that one of the coolest events in Dallas has a Red Raider overseeing the content.
In a brief outtake, Faust seemed to agree with my assessment that the DIFF has gone the way of social media, so to speak … “a more compact, energetic” iteration of itself. This year, the festival is centralized at the Landmark Magnolia Theater, which puts the activity in the heart of Dallas’ oh-so-swank West Village. Man! That little restaurant/retail area has exploded … with many a street cafe table to view the stars and near-stars. Great atmosphere, beautiful people and you don’t have to rush across town to get to your next screening. I like it.
Ha … shooting many up-and-coming talents and young directors, I spend most of my time trying to identify the people I photograph. (Yes, there is a tipsheet available, but me trying to be organized would take all of the fun out of it, wouldn’t it?)
But meanwhile … as I sift through all of the still photos, it seemed I needed some type of graphic content for this blog. Thus the video. If you’re interested in the “how to”: I opened about a hundred photos in Photos, and as I scrolled through them on my computer, I shot the screen images with my iPhone. Then I took that raw video and edited it in iMovie and added a zippy little tune from the Garage Band app. Kinda fun. A poor man’s collage. Red Carpet Noir, I call it.
Earlier in the week … I missed Director Rob Reiner on the carpet … my big chance to throw out a pithy, bigotry-laden, tongue-in-cheek one liner to Reiner … yes, call me “Meathead” for missing out on that. Even I would know Reiner …
OH … did I mention I was way early for the Red Carpet event?
Tesla
Walking around, I had a chance to check out a couple of Tesla automobiles strategically parked to show off their beautiful technology for all of the film festival traffic. No one offered, but I would have said “Nyet” to a test drive … still nursing a wounded wing from my two-wheeler incident.
Hmmm … I should have checked to see if the two Teslas offered Wi-Fi … but I gotta wonder if Wi-Fi would eat up too much battery … you know for life support systems on all those trips into deep space … I digress.
Still waiting, prior to the event, I walked around West Village then scoped out a nice bench in the shade, as the afternoon sun was slipping away, but still a factor. Ha! As I approached the bench, I saw another long-haired, bearded, gentleman … much younger than myself. As I sat down, and I quipped, “They told me that ‘the longhairs were all supposed to sit over here.’” He smiled a little, uncertain about me, this conversational old “Wavy Gravy” guy with a camera.
Nice. Later when I took my assigned spot on the carpet — lo and behold — guess who was stationed right beside me? Yes. “Us longhairs gotta stick together.” Nice guy. Get this. He was covering the event as a freelancer, and was still in high school. High school! I couldn’t have grown a beard in high school even if VHS would have let me …
Know what i sayin?
