The D-Word's life is one of glamour and riches, as only a documentary filmmaker can live it

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Helzapoppin'
August 22, 1996

The IFFM catalogue came out last week while I was vacating in Amagansett. And all hellza broke loose.

Here I am looking to lay low, for once-- meet with the foreign buyers at No Borders, quietly raise some moolah and make the derned movie.

But I check my machine to find a stack of calls from distributors: Fine Line, HBO, Seventh Art, Non-Fiction Films, and then some.

They all wanna cassette. They all want written materials.

They all want anything they can get their hands on. ASAP, natch.

The Independent called. They wanna do a feature for a new technology section of the mag.

Filmmaker Mag called. Peter Bowen loved the rough sample I sent the IFP when I applied (which I'm now reworking), and wants to mention it in his No Borders article.

The Sundance Channel called. They're teaming up with Filmmaker Mag to do a live webcast from the IFFM (just what the world needed!). They want me to post some journal entries during the market.

They'll link me to The D-Word-- traffic galore. Of course, it's three weeks to the market and I don't have a web site yet. Yikes! Prozac time.

Today the IFP called. They want me to be on a panel during the market called "Indies and the Internet." Well, I am an indie doing a film about people on the internet. Why the heck not? Why let the fact that my sites not up come between me and a good promotional opportunity?

Buzz seems to be happening without my trying to make it happen-- the best kind of buzz there is. Kharmic buzz.

As for the materials, though, the buyers can just sit tight. The sample won't be ready til right before the IFFM screening. They can see it then. Don't you just love it, though?You pay all this money to get buyers into a screening with an audience, then they all cry rivers to see it beforehand on cassette.

When everyone else goes gaga, that's the time to retrench and refocus.

I'm a filmmaker. The single most important thing is to make a good film.

And the first step is to make a good sample.

The interactive web site thing is all well and good, and it's great people are getting excited about it.

But I'm a filmmaker first.

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