Resurfacing… to send dispatches from the madness of film week… meetings, panels, parties, oh my! It’s been a whirlwind week filled with so much good stuff it’s hard to recap it all. A few highlights from the panel side of the conference have included a crazy-spirited “cage match” between Ted Hope of This is That and Jeff Lipsky (October Films, Lot 47) debating the state of the current youth audience and how to get them reinvigorated in the movie watching process… kids these days and their damn technology…

Kidding aside, it was a very interesting conversation that raised many questions regarding the transformation of film watching in the face of the ever expanding multi-media, multi-platform, home-viewing experience.

Equally informative were the case studies on two independent film success stories of the past year: Tiny Furniture and Winter’s Bone. Both offered a great opportunity to hear about the life of the films (from inception to sales/distribution and beyond) from the filmmakers themselves. The panels got us thinking a lot about finding and building an audience for our film — the options are many and often unconventional in this brave new world of VOD, self-distribution and social media.

As anticipated, the one-on-one meetings have presented us with an amazing opportunity to speak with industry people who’ve helped us better understand how to position ourselves as filmmakers/who to partner up with/how to find financing for our projects etc. As a bonus, all concerns about the potential for a speed-dating style meeting experience were wrong, and the meetings have been both personal and surprisingly relaxed!

One more day left to go… after a bit of absorbing/metabolizing the experiences of the week (and maybe a nice long nap…) we’ll be back for a wrap up on the week.