Texas Frightmare Weekend is probably THE biggest Horror convention and film festival.
Period. It's a place where i'm treated like a rock star, and more importantly I see lots of out of
town industry friends that I haven't seen in a while. In some cases, since last years. Last year at
TFW, we announced Possum Walk and showed a teaser right before and had a great time. So
this year I was incredibly stoked. Now, a year had passed, we have filmed Possum Walk, and I
have started the process of reinventing myself as a film maker with my new "sister"as she, tyler,
and I had filmed "Nonexistent". I had made a trailer and was ready to whip it out at a moment's
notice.
The weekend was fantastic. I met up with my wingman, sister, and snappy dresser of an actor, Mallory Carrick before going to the festival. We got there just in time for the Red Carpet and also set up the Possum Walk Display on the Horrorphile Entertainment table, while selling my first feature film, The man in the Garage on DVD on the table as well. Although I have to admit, Mallory and I were not able to crash the red carpet this time. We did get a nice greeting from everybody as soon as we walked in, including Melanie Donihoo's greeting, "Uh oh. The troublemakers are here." When did we get that reputation? Dumb question.
I'm sure most people there on Friday afternoon can tell you that I was just a little bit inebriated. It's not a lie. Ya see after the Red Carpet, Mallory and I needed dinner so we had fish and chips with beer, followed by shots of Jameson Whiskey (Bring on the Irish stereotype jokes) and I had a fine buzz and had no intention of passing the buzzed line, but every time I walked either away from the bar or towards the vendor room, an actress from one movie or another (mostly from Possum Walk) wanted to have a drink with me, up until the point where my brain turned into pudding. Enough time magically flew by very quickly, and I was able to sober up during Sweatshop. If you hear stories from that screening, I witnessed the drunken fall. Poor bastard. I wasn't that drunk.
In the end of that night I was very happy to see all my friends. I'd love to list them all but that would take up half the blog. So I'll post pictures if we were in any together. We did, however, buy Derek Mears a shot for his birthday, just for being such a swell guy. Below are pictures of Chris Warren, director Imago. I haven't mentioned him yet, but he's a swell guy too.
Evening came and morning followed... way too soon. Since Mallory was part of the TFW video, we had to wake up way earlier than what was legal. Mallory participated in the zombie walk and I walked around like a zombie so it worked out.
Most of that day was an exhausted blur. There were two celebrities (that I don't personally know) that I wanted to meet. Margot Kidder from Superman and Keith Gordon, director of 8 Dexter episodes including my favorite episode and Michael C. Hall performance, titled "The Dark Defender". Truthfully I was way too beat dead tired to socialize with people I didn't know.
During that time, it was quite badass to see all of my friends from Sweatshop including Jeremy, Kristen Hall, and Melanie being treated like movie stars as a huge long line waited to get their Sweatshop poster signed by the cast and crew. That was awesome to witness. Sucked for them. They had to sit their for two and a half hours. Jeremy did not stop bitching about that.
One nap later and I was back in business. Mallory interviewed me about Possum Walk and Nonexistent for the TFW video. Went back to her apartment, changed to flirtier party clothes and enjoyed the night. I admit, I felt a bit tense for no good reason and didn't drink as much because I just couldn't loosen up. Until things just went crazy with the Sweatshop cast by the end of the night. Everything after that night was quite dramatic and may show up in a movie, with some creative changes made to protect the innocent.
Final day. I believe I spent most of the weekend just spending time with friends and flirting with girls. But Sunday is the day when I snapped into business mode. I know it seems like most of this blog was devoted to drinking and partying. Truthfully yes. A lot of that happened. But I was here first and foremost to show my self as a film maker.
Mallory was able to use her charms to get us a spot in the Texas Frightmaker's Show and Tell panel. We showed a Possum Walk clip, that got some juicy reactions. Then we finally were able to show the trailer to Nonexistent finally. that was exciting. I lied. It was scary. The entire time I was so worried that, because I was the one guy showing a trailer that didin't feature gore and violence, then I would be considered the pussy film of that bunch. After wards, I got a lot of people (mostly chicks, which is actually cool) that state they really liked seeing something different from the rest of the films that featured true drama and acting. So that is awesome. That's pretty much what I wanted. A few friends have also commented that the title shot at the end gives them chills. A few people were disappointed and confused that I was making a short film. I still believe that I need to rebuild myself and I can do it faster and more efficiently with a shit ton of shorts with higher prodution value then what i could currently accomplish by making a feature.
If you're wondering what I'm referring to, I will be posting the trailer this Friday. The panel was great, however I preferred how things were done last year for the same panel. First of all they had a much better sound set up that really made things pop and boom. Also, last year we were able to bring up the whole Possum walk family (cast and crew. But I say family) onto the stage to feature them. This year they slumped all the director's together to briefly say hi and answer whatever questions pop up.
After wards, I finally had a conversation with Keith Gordon about Dexter and working with Michael C. Hall and the cinematographer of the show, Romeo Tyrone. That was awesome.
After everything winded down, I took the Possum Walk table down and thought I was about to have a quiet drink until EVERYBODY was still there. So that lasted all night until Mallory passed out. Then the weekend was over, I said my goodbyes and they all lived happily ever after.
