Field Trip to Sundance Film Festival

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In 1978, a group of young film enthusiasts and their friends organized the Utah/U.S. Film Festival. The festival was held at Trolley Corners Theaters in Salt Lake City, Utah during September spanning over 7 days. The next year's festival was again held in Salt Lake City, but in October. There was no festival in 1980 because it was moved to January 1981. The location was also moved to Park City, Utah, 36 miles from Salt Lake City (Right). 1985 marked the most significant change in the Festival's organization. Able to provide the festival with financial support, year-round staff, and a network of contacts, Robert Redford's Sundance Institute assumed artistic management of the Festival. The Festival was then expanded to ten days. Since 1985, the Sundance Film Festival (formal title since 1991) has become the preeminent showcase for American Independent films in the world. The festival has become so famous, in fact, that several other festivals have sprung up at the same time and location to handle the overflow of films wishing to be seen at Sundance. These festivals include the Slamdance, "No Dance" and "Slamdunk" Film Festivals.

I went to the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. My manager at Associated Artists organized a group and rented a condo from January 22nd through January 26th. (The festival ended on the 25th, but we spent an extra night in Salt Lake City.) We landed Thursday the 22nd in Salt Lake City (right). Notice no snow. My manager kept telling me how cold it was going to be. I was so impressed I wore my longjohns, but it wasn't that cold in Salt Lake City. I was told we still had a drive to go into the mountains. So we drove up to Park City. Guess what. Snow everywhere. We got to the condo (left) and it was HUGE. 3 levels, 5 bedrooms, 5 baths. Obviously the tourism industry expected large groups of people at a time. Nice to see that our group wasn't so unusual.

How Do I Get to See the Movies if They're All Sold Out?

We had a meeting about a month before the trip. My Manager warned the group to call ahead to order tickets for the movies, because they would be all sold out quickly. She also told us how to get tickets to the movies that are all sold out, which I am going to explain to you. In a second. So the Monday after we had the meeting I called for tickets. My Manager told us that we would be on the phone for hours, trying to get through. However, I managed to get through on the first call. I soon found out why. Of the 15 or so movies I wanted to get tickets to, only two weren't sold out. But I still got in to see every movie I wanted. Want to know how? And it's not scalpers.

The festival has several different types of travel packages available for sale starting in November. The ones available from the 1998 Festival Info Pack are listed after this paragraph. Several of these packages come with free tickets. The top package comes with tickets to ALL screenings. Now, obviously, since there are about eight theatres in Park City showing movies at the same time, as well as five theatres in Salt Lake City, many of these tickets will not be used. These tickets go up for grabs an hour before the movie starts. I have seen over 80 people get into a movie who didn't have tickets.

Packages and Passes (from the 1998 Info Pack)

  • Festival Packages contain tickets for specific premieres, opening and closing night parties, regular screenings, parties and panel discussions before they go on sale to the public.
  • A pass is an ID badge that includes the patron's photo. It allows patrons into select screenings without a ticket.
  • A Pass is non-transferable.
  • Only a limited number of packages/passes are sold to guarantee tickets for individual ticket purchase.
  • Packages go on sale in November To be added to the mailing list for a 1999 SFF registration package, please phone (801) 328-3456
Important! These packages sell out FAST! You basically have to federal express your package request as soon as it arrives.
The Eccles Theater Priority Pass - $2,500 Express Pass A; Express Pass B - $2,000
Jan 16-25
Pass A: Jan 15-20th, Pass B: Jan 21-25th
  • All screenings at the Eccles Theater
  • All official evening parties, including the Awards Night Party (excludes the Opening Night Gala Party)
  • Admission to Hospitality Suite
  • Listing in professional directory
  • Breakfast groups (upon the invitation of sponsors)
  • All screenings
  • All panel discussions
  • All official evening parties, (A includes the Opening Night Gala Party; B includes the Awards Night Party)
  • Admission to Hospitality Suite
  • Listing in professional directory
  • Breakfast groups (upon the invitation of sponsors)
Package A; Package B - $550 Daytimer Package - $125
Package A: Jan 15-20th, Package B: Jan 21-25th
For day screenings throughout the festival
  • 15 regular screenings
  • 3 premiere screenings
  • 2 panel discussions
  • All official evening parties, (A includes the Opening Night Gala Party; B includes the Awards Night Party)
  • Admission to Hospitality Suite
  • Listing in professional directory
  • Breakfast groups (upon the invitation of sponsors)
  • 15 regular screenings before 6:00pm
  • 2 panel discussions
  • Admission to Hospitality Suite before 6:00pm
  • Listing in professional directory

There are also Local Packages for Utah residents. Valid Utah Driver's License or Utah State ID card is required.

Films I saw:

Thursday, 7pm: The Big One
While on a tour promoting his non-fiction book "Downsize This!", Moore goes decidedly against everyone in his path, and hires a film crew to follow his outrageous adventures. Michael Moore gets decidedly boring with his repeated claims that despite the best economy the US has seen in years, corporations are still downsizing and sending work overseas. He goads Nike for sending work to Indonesia and not paying workers a decent wage, yet he himself pays his interns nothing.
Anyway, I sat next to Roxanne, a really cute member of our travelling group, while her partner was with some buds a few aisles and several chairs over. I accidentally called Michael Moore "Roger" by mistake when I asked him if he had any business cards yet. (It was an in-joke related to a scene in the movie).

Thursday, 10:30pm: I Married A Strange Person
Bill Plympton should stick to making shorts. Even at 74 minutes, this story about a wife and her husband who gains almost omnipotent power was too long, too drawn out, too boring. I have a point about never walking out on a movie, but that doesnt mean I can't sleep thru it.

Friday, 8:30am: Jerry and Tom
I loved this movie. Tom and Jerry are two hit men, working by day at a third-rate second-hand car dealership. Tom is the veteran, Jerry the novice. The movie follows them over several years as Jerry learns his trade. Watch this movie simply for the transitions between scenes. I walked up to the theatre five minutes before the show started and obtained a ticket through the one of the other methods of obtaining a Sundance ticket. Someone offered me a ticket at cost and I bought it. Sal Rubinek was the director. I talked with him for a few seconds after the movie and him he told me that my eyes looked really bloodshot.

Friday, 5pm: Killer Flick, at Slamdunk
"Four young filmmakers, who would literally kill to make a movie, travel across the desert on their way to Hollywood. Along the way they embark on a murderous crime spree, forcing people to enact "scenes" while filming all the action with a hand-held 16mm camera." This is the premise behind Killer Flick, a movie which was being shown at Slamdunk, outside the confines of Sundance and Slamdance. I went to see this film because of a line in the promo sheets which appeared on Slam Dunk material stapled all over Park City: "nice car chases and explosions for a guerilla budgeted film." Yep, there were a lot of cars blown up. Want to know how they were able to film it? The producer, Chip Smith, is a member of the Ontario Fire Department, who was able to do the special effects cheap. Chip is also the brother-in-law of the director, Mark Weidman, (right), who is a long time history teacher.

The best part of the movie occurred immediately afterward. All of the major stars of the movie were there (right) including Christian Leffler and Zen Todd. Christian dyed his hair white and wore an eyepatch in the movie. He's the one holding the camera in the movie poster (left). I got a few pictures and then asked if I could tag along to dinner with them afterwards. They said okay, and I got some dirt on the production. For instance, there are several nude scenes in the movie. Want to know how they got their required nudity? (For the foreign market). The lead actress, a very attractive, nice woman named Kathleen Walsh, had some reservations about doing a nude scene. She would do it, but her breasts, while nice, were not of the required 'largeness' for the genre. Chip told me that while they were filming in Victorville, the second AD spotted this gal in the crowd who asked if they needed any extras. He went to Chip cause this gal had the necessary size breasts for the nude scenes. (Large). Chip told him to offer her $100. They went over and asked her if she would do some nudity. She asked, "For how much?" and they offered her $100. And that is how they got their nudity. What's funny is how people were commenting on how lovely Kathleen's breasts were, when in fact it was obvious (based on size) that it was someone else's.

During the dinner I met and talked a lot with Chip, and their managers over at Bohemia Management, Adam Seid and Susan Z. Ferris. They used to call their company "Sue I Seid". Wonder how much business they got out of that. I sat across from Claude, who worked for development at New Horizons, and for several hours talked all about guerilla filmmaking.

UPDATE! KILLER FLICK" will be shown at midnight at the Laemmle Sunset 5 in Los Angeles on the following dates: June 26,27, and July 3,4,10,11, 1998. Evidentally G.E.L. Distribution Inc. is positioning this film as a midnight cult movie, in the vein of Rocky Horror Picture show and Cannibal! The Musical. Chip sent me a note saying they have their own website up at Smile House Presents KILLER SITE! They've also improved their artwork. (left)

Saturday, 9:30am: Some Nudity Required
I liked the subject matter: a look behind the B movie industry through the eyes of Odette Springer, (in the middle with the cap) a classically trained composer who ends up doing soundtracks for Roger Corman's New Horizons corp. These are the 'B' movies that you see on Cinemax really late at night. While researching the movie, she finds herself becoming increasingly aroused by the subject matter, which disturbs her. She eventually remembers being sexual molested as a child by her relatives, which leads her to leaving New Horizons. This bothers me a bit, as she's implying that anyone that gets a rise out those types of movies has been somehow sexually abused or an abuser, and a victim. There's a lot of victimizing in this movie, focusing on Springer and Maria Ford, who appears in several New Horizons movies. The exception is Julie Strain, who instead of becoming exploited, exploits the medium and starts producing her own movies.

She didn't show up at the screening. Maria Ford and director Dan Golden were there, leading to a little onstage tiff over a scene in his 1991 movie Naked Obsession, between Ford and William Katt. Maria claimed that in an auto-erotic asphyxiation scene, the ribbon to choke her was too tight and she had bruises around her neck. Golden claimed no such thing. He said he was the director, and that he would have known about it if it had happened. Some of the women in the audience gasped at this, and I heard one women say "I can't believe he's saying that", as if because he's a man he's automatically the bad guy. Turns out, as usual, that the truth was somewhere in-between. The ribbon was too tight, but someone else tightened it without telling the director. Because Maria Ford was afraid to tell the director that the ribbon was too tight, she victimized herself.

Although the film highlighted both women who exploited the B movie medium for their personal gain as well as women who felt they were victimized by it, representation at the screening was decidedly tilted towards the victimization mode. Maria Ford was there, the victim, but not the gal who used the medium, Julie Strain. So all the talk was about how it exploited women and victimized women. Of course, these women choose to enter this profession, and had the option to back out when they wanted.

Saturday, 3pm: Divine Trash
This documentary, about the making of John Water's 1972 landmark underground film Pink Flamingos (homepage), really influenced the right side of my brain. As I was watching Waters making the movie with his friends, I kept saying to myself, "I can do this, I can do this!". As I left the theatre, I wanted to become a filmmaker and act and direct in my own low-budget movies. After 20 minuutes my left side of my brain took over and said, "Your a moron. You can't".

Saturday, 7pm: Relax, Its Just Sex
The Big Chill with homosexual overtones. I'm trying to figure out what the hidden message in this movie is. It's about a group of friends, 10 in all, where only one couple is hetero. So I'm wondering what the filmmaker is saying behind the lines. "Get used to us, because we're everywhere?" I predict this movie will fail, not because of the subject matter (In & Out proved movies could have gay overtones and be successful), but because no straight wants to hear a man have an internal monologue on whether he should "spit or swallow" while he has a man's privates in his mouth. Yick.

Saturday, 10:30pm: Groupies, at Slamdunk
While waiting for Killer Flick to start, I hung out on the front steps of the Elk's Lodge with Justin Henry, whom you may remember as the kid from Kramer vs. Kramer. He got an Oscar nomination for that role, as well as two Gold Globe nominations. Unfortunately, he was only 9 at the time. He's 27 now, and in an independent movie called Groupies, which actually became the foundation for the "Slamdunk" Film Festival. Groupies did not make it into Sundance, and nearly made it into Slamdance. Faced with this rejection, the filmmakers did what any independent artist would do. They set up their own film festival at the Elk's Lodge. By the time I arrived to see their flick, they had gathered together 11 features and 8 shorts that didn't make Sundance or Slamdance. Want to know what its about? A deranged fan travels the country in a Winnebago, kidnapping the washed-up child actors from his favorite 1970s superhero TV show in order to film a new episode. What's funny is that one of the Power Rangers, Jason David Frank, is one of the washed-up actors.

You know, this is easier than I.. OH MY GOD!!

On the last full day up in Park City, I tried snowboarding. I've never snowboarded, let alone skied, or even skateboarded. In my arrogance, and without a single lesson, I went up to an intermediate slope. The pic on the left is me shortly after I got off the lift. I started down the hill alright, until the slope actually started. I then found out what it was like to slide down a mountain on my butt. The view however (right), was great. Halfway down the mountain I got tired of a frozen butt, disconnected my feet from the board, and walked down. Next time I'm getting a lesson.

Filmography links courtesy of IMDb.