Days go by and blogging gets harder (especially with the nagging doubt that blogging is actually lame). Both Vancouver Film Fest screenings of Monkey Warfare were packed to the gills. I notice the Vancouver audience had a good laugh at all the drug humour; in Toronto that stuff caused chuckles but out here people were laughing out loud. Now I don’t feel like the only one who got it.
Reg actually intro’d the film by saying that despite all the Toronto references, it is actually an East Van film: that’s where Reg is from.
DJ Hans Lucas had a crisis with the vinyl LP pressings. Apparently, there’s a spanish rap group whose catalogue number is WM 001 but Monkey Warfare’s catalogue number is MW 001 and the result is that the factory made 500 pressings of a spanish rap album instead of the Monkey Warfare soundtrack. Eeps! So there were no soundtracks to give away. Many people accosted us as a result and when the corrected LP’s get here in the fall, which is perhaps when the theatrical release will happen, I’ll be accosted from all sides again.
Above is a shot of the local premiere of Monkey Warfare! L-R it’s Sarah Muff, ex-Cineworks-er and now Canadian Images Coordinator at VIFF, with Reg Harkema (director writer), Cindy Wolfe (actor, props, music and pic clearance), me (assistant editor, actor, graphic designer) – the Vancouver Int’l Film Fest contingent of the Monkey Warfare crew. You can just see Kathy Weinkauf on the side, and beyond Sarah on the other side was Suzanne Ward (art director).
Here’s Reg after the second screening, with Amy Belling who introduced the film.
For this screening I had a chance to watch with my eyes closed. I’ve seen the film enough times, and I synched the rushes (sound to picture) so it was interesting just to listen to the soundtrack instead of watching. You could really feel the texture of the rooms where the characters were, hear the nice touches in the audio mix etc. Notably, I couldn’t hear a single edit in a dialogue scenes; that means good dialogue editing and mixing. After about 20 minutes I got tired of this exercise, and besides, I had to watch the hot-chicks-on-bikes montage, are you kidding me?
One bit of cinematic excitement was the presence at the 2nd screening of David Bordwell. He wrote the textbook “Film Art: an introduction” which both Reg and I read at UBC. He dug the film and took some photos for his blog.
If anyone’s wondering who it was at the Saturday screening that was cackling their ass off, it was Michael V Smith.
Today was the “Meet the Filmmakers” panel at the Vancouver International Film Centre which went well. We were just getting into the groove when the hour ran out. This was the first panel of the series, and it was Monday morning, but the audience was sure into it.
Then I went to the bank and scared the guard ‘cos I had sunglasses on, so I took them off.
PS – due to the confusion, there was no screening of MW clips at the Velofusion party, but there will be in the future. Drat and double drat.