The screening.

Erica and I went shopping right after we left the projection room. We had a couple of hours to kill and decided to walk around the mall. Shanghai we learned is a cradle of style. Women walk around in the cutest dresses. We were surprised by the enormous amount of high end stores. Tired of walking, we made our way back to the cinema back at the third floor.

Erica and I were nervous about turnout. Even though they had “canceled” the event…a weekend screening we were told was a sure bet to be sold out. They were right. Lights went down and Pizza Hut commercials starring Christian Bale to the tune of terminator flooded the room. Suddenly silence, and our baby appeared on the screen. Over 200 people, who were not our friends, nor were they related to us or had any connection to the film, started watching our project. I was extremely nervous.

Every memory I had of production flooded my mind. Suddenly the room filled with silence and the film took life. I had their eyes…and atenttion. What a weird feeling!

It was the longest and shortest screening. Time was manipulated by my ulcers and not until the end was I able to relax. Our film was a movie…people laughed, cringed, and were moved. They were strangers, from a different culture, yet they saw in the characters what we had hoped to convey.

We slept long and hard that night. We became filmmakers.

Shanghai, Day 1: Troubleshooting.

Erica and I woke up early our second day in Shanghai. We contacted the film festival, to make sure our delivery format was compatible with their system. Shanghai normally screens in 35 mm prints. However because we didn’t had the budget to be able to strike a print, we decided the best route was a DCP harddrive. I had researched that Christie projectors had been installed in many venues years before to make Shanghai the cutting edge festival when it came to Digital projection. The festival staff was so kind to help us out and accept this solution to our money dilemma.

I know most of you have watch some Pixar movies in the theater. Their 3D stuff is delivered on a Digital Cinema Package. This is a wonderful alternative, since it’s price is 1/6th of the price of a print, without sacrificing any quality at all. We got ours made at Modern Video. Mark Smirnoff at Modern guided us through the process and was incredibly helpful! (Thanks Sandra and Erik for helping us make this happen!) I would recommend everyone to use them. We also had to have the film subtitled to mandarin, Erica arranged for this. Modern then laid down this track and voila, our film was ready to travel on a 500 gig hard drive.

When we got the the Film Art Center, we found out other filmmakers (one from Australia and one from Brazil) were also using the same system. We all troubleshooted and the system was ready to go.

Now what I didn’t mention above is that we weren’t sure our power outlet would work in China and in an effort to avoid the damage to the hard drive, producer Erica Harrell ran through the streets of Shanghai looking for the right converter. Add the lack of common language to the mix, and two very confused projectionists who didn’t really understand what we were trying to do, and you got our morning.

Finally the older projectionist, took the risk and plugged our drive to the wall. The green light went on and we just laughed at our crazy attempts to safeguard our drive.

The file loaded and we were on our way…

Traveling to Shanghai.

I arrived late at night on Thursday to Los Angeles from Ecuador. The next morning, Erica and I head to LAX for our 16 hour flight. The chinese embassy told us to take preucautions when traveling due to the worldwide alert on swine flu. We booked our flight on Japan Airlines. Erica and I tried to adapt to the slow time change conditioning the staff created for us. Apparently the best way to adapt is via food. To eat when it’s time to eat at your destination will allow your body’s natural clock to switch.

Japan airlines has a camera set up on the nose of the plane. We got the chance to see the take off and landing. The airline has a delicious citric drink, that I wish I was able to find. Skytime? I think it’s called.

Narita airport is full of luxury stores. Their duty free is the best I have seen so far! In Japan (where we made our connection) the airplane technicians bow to you as a goodbye before the plane takes off. It was a simple yet magical moment on our trip.

Our Tokyo-Shanghai flight was shorter. We arrived into Shanghai rather tired and confused. We took the A3 bus to our hotel, The Galaxy. Erica and I didn’t really had time to prep language wise, and were incredibly thankful of the kindess of the bus staff who helped us arrive at our destination. After an hour and a half trip, we reached our hotel. It was passed midnight, and we had just found out the festival had been trying to reach us.

More to come….