14 September 2006

Hollywood!

I'm at the airport. its a school day. Los Angeles here I come.
So this is my lovely account of my trip...

Part 1: DFW Airport

Oh I love our airport, lots of character, pretty nicely laid out. Did you know that you could pick up all of Manhatten and place it in the amount of space DFW takes up? yeah we have a huge airport. So highlights there... Security was fairly breezy to get through, which allowed us some time for starbucks. Sat down and waited. Lady left her sunglasses, but I was able to catch her before she left so that was good. Got on the back of the plane. Them good ole all-american men sat in front of us, they were from nebraska going to the USC vs. Nebraska game this weekend. The chair of the guy sitting in front of my mom was broken so it would always stay reclined. Landed and walked off the plane. got our bags and waited for another half hour for the bus of kids from san fransisco to pick us up.

Part 2: Day One

So Los angeles. Cloudy, pretty smoggy, some of the worst traffic you will ever encounter, insanely tall palm trees, and perfect temperatures. The kids from san fran were quite awesome. We made it to the Hotel Angeleno. its this circular building that looks like a cross between a castle tower and a spaceship sitting on a giant pole. it changed colors too, and was right off the 405 giving us a great view of the highway and some very nice apartment/condos. Room 806. Japanese inspired decor. We had a couple hours to get snazzy for our premiere at the Los Angeles International Short Film Festival.

We met in the lobby then loaded into two Hummer Limos. one black one white, Austin was in the white one. the bottle of smirnoff was still in the back... the driver remembered though so he took it back lol. We arrived with our favorite interns filming us. Kodak moments for sure.

We walked in to the theater and watched our films, then we had Q&A. I was in the first group to go. it was awesome being able to speak to the audience about the film we made. After questions we got to watch the winners of the festival.

Santa Baby, a disturbing comedy about a very younger girl falling in love with a department store santa; The Fix, an intense drama about a father and son boxer dealing with the stress of failure and success; The Passenger, a animated short somewhat like Speilburg's Monster House. The Mouse That Ate My Brain, an absurd horror that was increadibly funny; And The Tested, an amazing film about an inner city teen becoming a gang member (already nominated for an academy award).

Once our films showed the second time we walked a mile down Hollywood to Vine and got some subway, well I got Chinatown Express next door... some of the best I've had. We had the limos come pick us up and take us back to the theater for the third and final showing. While waiting to go back in, someone spotted Danny Devito walking into theater 14... I ALMOST SAW DANNY DEVITO lol. After the premiere we headed back to the hotel to get some sleep for our next big day.