Thursday, October 08, 2009

London Interlude 1

“Mr. Martell, Mr. Martell! I took your course at Raindance three years ago, and you must come see my film!” “I must?” “Yes, it is playing on Thursday night! It’s my first feature.”

“Mr. Martell, Mr. Martell! I had no idea you would be here. I took your class four years ago at the Beverly Garland in Los Angeles, and you must come see my film! It’s my first feature!” “I must?”

“Mr. Martell, Mr. Martell! I’m that guy from Australia who took your class in Hong Kong three years ago, remember? I’ve got a film at the festival. Thursday night.”

“Mr. Martell, I take all your classes at Expo every year... I won’t be there this year because I’m here with my new film, and you must see it!”

“So, you’re Bill Martell, right? We’re here with our documentary POPATOPOLIS (about a sleazy B movie director) and he talks about something he directed that you wrote.” “Okay, that I *must* see.”

It’s weird, this year at Raindance there are a bunch of movies made by people who have taken my screenwriting classes. Today when Elliot was introducing me for my free class, he mentioned that one of the films playing Thursday night was made by one of my students... and then he plugged another film showing on Thursday night, and I mentioned it was also made by one of my students. When I was here in 2006 the winner of the Nokia shorts award mentioned that he had taken my class in Los Angeles (by the way, that was one great little short and I had nothing to do with its greatness) - that was strange. I have a bunch of students who have features here this year... and they are all on the same night! Three screens, all showing movies that I must see. I have no idea how I will manage it (but because the film schedules are staggered I can see most of one film and then sneak in to see all of the other). But *someone* will be asking me what I thought of their film and I will have to apologize because I did not see it.

- Bill

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