ROTTERDAM UPDATE
FILM SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL had it's premiere at 7:45 pm on Sunday, January 27th
at Cinerama 2 , a large venue - about 200 seats, which is the size of the largest
theater you'd find at your local mulitplex. The house was packed, and the response
was excellent: laughs at all the right places, and then really enthusiastic
and LOUD applause at the end credits. A few people got up to leave until they
saw that the credits were over outtakes and funny stuff - then most sat back
down and watched the entire credit roll. The evening ended with my intruduction,
and then a lively question and answer session followed where I introduced Stephanie
and Chuck and Bruce and Gwen and Margaret, each to a large amount of applause.
The next screeing took place at Lantaren 1, which has the same number of seats
but an ENORMOUS screen. It was fantastic seeing FSC up there so large - it was
so sharp and clean that it looked like 3D - so glad that we shot in 35mm. Unfortunatly,
it was at 9:45 am and there were only about 60 seats full, but the response
was the same.
The final screening was at Cinerama 4 at 2:30 in the afternoon, and it was packed
and got the same response as on the first night: good laughs, applause, etc.
The question and answer session was better, though; more questions, even praise,
and it was then that I realized that the house was packed with young people
- like late teens/early twenties, and I think that is nothing but the best of
news. They had many questions about the actors, film school, why I did this
or that. I was better at introducing Stephanie and Chuck and Bruce by this time
and they all got excellent response. Later, several film students invited me
to speak at their school in Amsterdam,.
The Raindance Festival in London appears to have invited FILM SCHOOL, which
is great news, and the Nantucket Fest showed interest as well.
We will be making a new video version of FILM SCHOOL from the original negative
in the next few weeks. All previous copies have been made from the workprint,
which is a bit too contrasty and has scratches and tape splices, so this new
version should be simply stunning. We will also be putting together digital
stereo in this new version, and perhaps even a 5.1 mix! We will keep you posted
That's the news for now - Doug