the screening

Of course, everyone is nervous for their first time on the red carpet. The strobe-like flashes of the hungry tabloid paparazzi... The chatty interviews outside the theater... the tight-fitting little black stretchy number that your dashing boyfriend wears... And then there's the booze party at the bar and the cheek-kissing greetings of cast and crew...

Joan and Melissa were very generous with me during my first red carpet approach. There was not a single callous remark. It's a good thing that I'd threatened their plastic surgery with outrageous library fines, or they might have castigated me on my less-than perfect hair or my "loaner" jewelry from Overstock.com Tiffany & Co.!

What a complete and total blast! The energy was really good and the talent there was outstanding. I feel that our film was perhaps 4th or 5th place of the 10 shown. And the top 3 could have easily been a real feature film... they were amazing! Great writing, acting, creative talent... the technical side of things was definitely low, overall, but that didn't really distract from the amazing artistry. One in particular, from Washington Improve Theater, was great. It was called "Occupational Hazard" and was a romance about an office worker that went to "war" against a corporate takeover. Sweetly written, my favorite scenes involved sensitive and tear-jerking scenes of letters written home and to the war front, of how supplies are low (toner) and the boys are taking heavy losses. Very impressive!

"hOnc" was our group's film. It was a light, cheerful and funny short about some picnicking time-travelers who travel back to cavemen times. The travelers, dressed stylishly in gold lamé, accidentally leave behind their hOnc, which the local cavemen find and enjoy. (Production note to sci-fi geeks: take "hOnc" and change each letter one place over in the alphabet, just like they did with "HAL" in 2001, and you'll find the modern equivalent.)

Mike, our leader, was so sweet and kind to me at the screening. He took me aside, putting a hand on my shoulder and said, emphatically, "Jeffrey, you know you were SO MUCH MORE than a gopher. You really helped us out and I appreciate it." How nice; I'd had a full day of sincere compliments at that point and this was just icing on the cake.

Patrick had printed up some wonderful posters of our movie. In it, he used my picture of cute caveman Chris.



He made a nice addition to the stylized (and heavily photoshopped image) of our two beloved time-travelers. Nice job, Patrick. Photoshop props to ya!

The screening was so much fun for me that I was crying from laughter. I had to wipe my eyes several times, just to see the show! Will, Chris and Greg were amazingly funny in their roles and really stole the show. My favorite part was hearing the audience's reaction to Will's unearthly screaming. Go, Will!

Finally, seeing my name up in lights at the end of the show, when the credits rolled, was very nice. But I suspect that I got more of a rush with the feeling that our team really pulled together, 12 people with not much in common, to create an original, funny, creative work of art. Nice job, Team Anjou!

Can't wait for the DVD to come out....