The days of one kind of craziness are over, and the days of a new kind of craziness are just starting.

Thank to Sean Ackerman, director of STRAIGHT LINE, which is also in the Emerging Visions section of SXSW, I was able to get two DigiBeta dubs of the film made today, and I put one of them in a FedEx envelope and sent it off to SXSW. After frantically shooting the end titles with Kris yesterday morning, I mixed the sound as best I could in the afternoon, exported it to DVCAM, and watched it when I got home from work. Then this morning I brought that tape to Filmworkers Astrolab and they made two clones to DigiBeta. It ain't perfect, but it'll have to do for the screening. The film could still use a little color correction, and some professional sound mixing, but I have done all I can with my home computer. If I get the chance to bring the hard drive into a professional studio, or color correct on a nice machine, then I will absolutely do it, but I've reached the limit of what I can do in my bedroom. I was burned out on the film, and I had to get it in the mail today. I'm happy with where it's at, and I think it will be fine for the screenings, but before we go to DVD or make a final Master copy, there are some things to do. All in time.

So now that the filmmaking part is over (at least for now), I can focus on the promotional part. Kris has been contacting as many people as she can, and I've been sending some DVDs out, but it's time to put all our energy into getting reviews and coverage. I'm a little intimidated by this part, but I'm also interested in learning this game. Mostly in the hopes that I can pass some wisdom on to other filmmakers. It seems like something you just have to go through to figure it out. We'll be learning and adjusting on the fly.

Also, there is a Saturday, March 12 party in the works with a bunch of the "Emerging Visions" filmmakers. It's gonna be a blast. I've talked to Mark Duplass from THE PUFFY CHAIR, Susan Buice from FOUR EYED MONSTERS, and Sean from STRAIGHT LINE, and everyone's down.

I can't wait to get to Austin!

It's hard to keep up with everything that's going on. We are all totally overwhelmed. Here's a little recap of some of the things that have happened in the past few days.

The posters arrived, and are available for sale on the Home Page.

SXSW announced the schedule and we also have our own page on their site now.

The film also got its first piece of coverage. The website efilmcritic.com did a "pre-festival" interview with me that you can check out here.

I worked with Emily Ostendorf a little bit the other night regarding press releases and a press kit for the film. We are trying to get all this kind of material together in the hopes of getting reviewed in some of the bigger trade publications. In the meantime we have been sending out emails and begging people to pay attention to us. There have a been a few really great people that seem interested in helping us out, and it's very encouraging.

Hopefully there will be more exciting news in the next few weeks leading up to the festival!

Ivan Albertson came over tonight and recorded some audio that will eventually be television noise in the film. There are spots in the film where the TV is on, and we thought it would be fun to record friends as the voices on the TV. Ivan works at a library, so I had him read a bit about the history of the Chicago Public Library. Just a little joke for my own amusement.

Bryan Poyser, the director of the fabulous DEAR PILLOW, had this to say on his blog recently...

"So, SXSW announced the features line-up for this year, and it's surely an impressive bunch. I personally had a hand in selecting a couple of the films, Four-Eyed Monsters and Straight Line (which changed its name from A Different Shade of Blue after the film Forty Shades of Blue took home the top Sundance prize. Probably a good move to avoid confusion.) I did the synopses for the Program Guide for both of these films and I can heartily recommend both of them. Actually, the "Emerging Visions" section is gonna be pretty strong overall, with the Duplass Bros. bringing The Puffy Chair down here after triumphant screenings at Sundance (look at all the glowing imdb reviews) and Joe Swanberg & crew coming down from Chicago with their film Kissing On the Mouth. Joe actually emailed me a few months ago after he saw Dear Pillow at the Reeling Gay & Lesbian Film Festival in Chicago to tell me how much he liked it AND that he really liked Pleasureland, which he saw at the Big Muddy Film Festival way back in 2001. He sent me his film, which I dug very much, and before I could recommend it to Matt at SXSW, I found out it had already been selected."

It's so cool to get a shout out from Bryan, because he's a really great filmmaker. He's got something coming up, which he will hopefully spill the beans on soon, and hopefully DEAR PILLOW will get a release. He's nominated for the "Someone To Watch" Independent Spirit Award, and he has my vote (not that I'm actually able to vote for Independent Spirit Awards).

There's all kinds of SXSW coolness going on. The festival announced the features that will be playing this year. You can find that here: http://2005.sxsw.com/film/festival/

Also, the annoucement got posted on a few other sites, like IndieWIRE, Film Threat and Ain't It Cool News.

The most exciting thing to happen so far just happened a few hours ago. Matt Dentler, the programmer and director of SXSW, keeps a blog on IndieWIRE, which you can read here. He gave us some props today for the Buddy Icon I created to promote the SXSW screening. Check it out! Permanent Link.