First thing, a big thank you to Suzanne Brangham and her partner Jack who invited me and Denise into their beautiful home for the whole festival. They have an amazing home on the hillside overlooking Sonoma Valley and each night, as I blissfully went off to sleep in a wine induced coma, I would peer out though one blurry eye at the twinkling lights below and feel like a kid falling to sleep on an airplane. Thank you.
As for the festival, well...both screenings were scheduled at the "Highway 12 Lounge" which is really the community center. At first, I thought the facility was going to be awful as I have seen some films in rundown gymnasiums with the worst projectors and shitty sound. However, THX was a sponsor and this venue was their responsibility so they dialed it in with THX speakers and a projector so bright, it could burn a hole through the screen. Simply, it rocked.
On Thursday, we were one of the opening night films which was a great honor. We had a very respectable crowd of about 150 people but with THE ANSWER MAN, a film with Jeff Daniels coming straight from Sundance, playing at the same time, we didn't fill the seats. However, the crowd was highly responsive and as they left, we felt that people would start to talk and generate buzz. But with our next screening the following day at 3:30pm, a horrible time slot, I thought for sure that there wouldn't be enough time to spread the word and we would have only 50 people or so in the audience. I had visions of apologizing to the festival for the weak draw and wondering what we could have done differently. Boy, was I wrong. As we rounded the corner half an hour before the film began, you could see a crowd coming out of the front doors, making a left hand turn and going half way down the block. It honestly looked like STAR WARS was playing. Needless to say we sold out and every single seat was filled, in total about 270 people. And as more people came, they were turned away with the unfortunate news that they "should have gotten here earlier." Though I felt badly for those people, it felt good to have a hit.
We spent the rest of the festival meeting other filmmakers and movie-goers who were incredibly complimentary about THE FULL PICTURE. We also saw some other amazing films like PUNCHING THE CLOWN and GOOD DICK, plus a really cool short called TERMINUS. At festival end, THE FULL PICTURE was the highest rated American feature according to the Sonoma website, a honor we are pleased to have for the second festival in a row.
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